[bsnalex]

ISF Rules

Been racking my brain about this for a couple weeks now. At a recent tourney, Batter pops up to the edge of foul territory. F7 catches the foul fly and his momentum carries him into deadball territory. I call batter out on the catch, runners advance one base (8.7.i).

Captain of batting team insisted that as the field carried the ball into dead territory, it should be batter returns to the plate with one extra strike.

Fast forward to yesterday, at my club training I was chatting with a fellow umpire who had a similar situation--this time the ball was simply caught on the fly in deadball territory. This colleague insisted the call is a strike.

I have been back and forth throught the ruleset and cannot find any rule or evidence to support either my colleague's or the captain's ascertations. To me, if a ball is caught anywhere before it hits the ground, it's an out--doesn't matter if it's caught in fair, foul, dead or Yukon territory (8.2.b).

In 8.7.i, there is no exception for a ball that is first caught and then carried out to become a strike rather than an out.

Can anyone confirm or please correct me if I'm wrong?