Quote:
Originally Posted by AtlUmpSteve
...In the singular case of F1 pitching illegally solely to draw a runner off base, the umpires need to use judgment and game management skills to not allow the pitcher to gain an illegal advantage. If we kill a play to keep a batter or coach from creating an illegal pitch (and we do!!) and warn or penalize that action, you need to equally kill the play where the pitcher creates the runner leaving the base early by an illegal motion. Kill that one immediately and award the IP penalty; since you killed the IP, the runner didn't leave early, it never happened in live play (same rationale as the batter can't hit the ball when you killed the play because the runner left early).
Even if they complain/protest that the IP is a DDB, the fact is you killed the play, and can't unring that bell, now can you?
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The problem with this is two-fold:
1) We won't know whether or not the runner will leave early until they actually do (hence, we're killing the play AFTER the runner left), and
2) Your argument that you killed the play prior seem to be a method to circumvent the ASA ruling rather than apply it. It may not be protestable, but it would still seem to be ignoring a ruling you disagree with.
This whole thing is, as Mike says, a bit into TWP territory, but the ASA ruling is counter intuitive to the way the rule is written. The OC being given the choice of the IP being enforced (ball and runner advances) or the result of the play (runner out) is the more intuitive ruling. Couple that with the number of umpires who would not want to rule the runner out because it is "unfair", and I'd guess 9 out of 10 rank and file umpires would enforce the IP and not declare the runner out.
On the double windmill, (on further thought), there probably never actually WAS an IP in ASA. The ASA rule is "not two revolutions", and the runner leaving early is an immediate DB/no pitch, so the pitcher never actually made two revolutions before the ball was dead...
