[greymule]

About ten years ago this play engendered a very long thread on this board. As I remember, the instruction that the umpire change the award to 3B if the runner retouches appeared after that.

Discussion of this play will never die, since OBR and FED handle it differently, and there's always the issue of tipping off the defense. When I was doing ASA softball along with OBR and FED, I had to know yet another ruling: If the runner is between 2B and 3B when the throw is made, he is awarded home in all cases, even if he retouches 1B. He is prevented from retouching 1B only if he advances to the next base after the umpire makes the award (!).

I assumed I'd never see that play, but eventually I did. The runner from 1B was retracing his steps toward 2B when the outfielder threw toward 1B. The bouncing throw to 1B skipped past F3 just as the runner slid into 1B. When the ball went into DBT, the defense argued that the award should be 2B (the old one-plus-one-regardless-of-direction theory); the offense argued for 3B (2 bases from 1B); but the award was in fact home.