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Your situation reminded me of a situation I had in a VA game a while back. I was UIC on the plate (can’t bring myself to say PU, get it?) and had one BU. We had one out, R1 on second and R2 on first with BU in the “C”. RHB in the box hits a bouncing liner up the third base line, I point “Fair” as F5 fields the ball. I turn immediately towards first base to watch BR run up the line. I then see an over throw to first base where the ball goes all the way to the fence. At this time R2 has reached second base and is now on his way to third with BR running to second while R1 is now headed home. Defense picks up ball and throws to F5, now F5 and F2 have R1 in a rundown between 3rd and home. I yell to my partner “I got front side you got back” which he acknowledges and F2 finally tags out R1 with R2 safely reaching 3rd. After F2 tags out R1 he rolls the ball up to the mound and the defensive players start to run off the field. (Confused yet, I know I was and still am) OC, who is the 3rd base coach, tells R2 to go home and calls BR to 3rd, DC comes out of the dugout and asks what is going on, that’s three outs. I look over to him and motion “No” and show him “2” with my fingers. He tells his players to get the ball and tag the runner which they do. (Still confused?) The OC and DC both converge on us to find out the ruling, DC saying they had three outs while OC was saying only 2 and that the run that R2 scored should count. I call time and let me partner talk to DC as I kind of just stand an ear shout away. He motions to me and we talk and I ask him “What the hell just happened here, what is going on?”
He tells me that we started out with one out, correct. He tells me that he had R1 out at third base, that’s now two outs. And that the rundown is the third out. I tell him we can’t have R1 out twice, both on your out at third and then in the rundown. I ask him why he didn’t say anything while we were in the rundown, why did he let the rundown happen. He looks at me with a deer in the head lights look. I asked him did you say anything on the out at third to which he replied “No I just held up my fist”. I told him next time say something, yell “Out at 3 or at least SOMETHING”. So now we, HE, has a real s**thouse to contend with. I walked over to the DC and explained to him what was happening and he was a little pissed but understood while BU talks to OC and explains what we are doing. We put R2 back at third and BR on second which in my mind would have been the end of that play had nothing else happened. No run and now with 2 outs the inning continued.
What a cluster-f**k that was. After the game I told BU again to say something next time, don’t just stick up your fist. With so much going on players and coaches need to know what is happening both verbally as well as hand signals.
Now hind sight being 20/20 I probably should have stayed with R1 instead of releasing the ball once F5 had it to watch BR for lane infractions.
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