[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by Bfair

Steve, here's the original scenario.


Runner on second, 0 outs. Batter hits a high fly ball to left field. R2 tags. As B1 is rounding first, F7 misses the fly ball and the BALL SKIPS TO THE FENCE. As B1 rounds 1B, he is obstructed by F3. R2 breaks for 3B and B1 is now on his way to 2B. The runners are now about 25ft apart. I decided that under the circumstances, I would protect B1 to 3B. R2 rounds 3B and B1, catching up with him rounds 3B also.

You say " IMO, this is an excellent example of the difference in understanding the game and its application of the rules vs. merely citing a rule that could masquerade as support of an extremely poor judgment decision".

Understanding the game - and you talk about me being in left field! Let's see now, we have a ball all the way to the Fence. Don't know the dimensions but the ball is probably some 300 ft. away at this point. In 99 out of 100 instances R2 is going to score EASILY and B1 will at the least be on second base.

So now let's get in the mindset of the runner, since in an earlier thread you said B1 committed a stupid mistake. I don't know about you but when I played and saw a ball roll all the way to the fence I'm assumming my teammate at second base is going to score EASILY , so I continue busting it.

Since the ball is all the way to the FENCE and B1 was OBSTRUCTED rounding first, IMO, it's a good bet that absent R2, B1 would have made third base easily which is what was judged originally.

The only mistake made by B1 on this play is that he passed his teammate and IMO it's more of a mistake on the part of R2 then B1, SINCE r2 with the ball all the way to the fence could have "walked" home.

IMO you need to read the thread more closely and then comment.

Pete Booth