[Welpe]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

I could make the situation even funnier for a Fed ruling. Say in batting the opponent's backward pass to prevent it from landing out of bounds, the player bats it toward the batting player's own goal line, but on hitting the field of play it takes a funny hop and bounces into the original passing team's end zone. Clearly the ball would not have gone into the end zone absent the opponent's bat, but the force the opponent imparted to the ball was away from that end zone rather than towards it.

Robert in the Bronx

Robert, it does't matter A new force cannot be imparted on a backward pass that is still airborne.