Quote:
Originally Posted by youngump
This line of reasoning is in my mind somewhat specious. Imagine that before the game you're going to get the coach and you hear him tell his team this:
We're playing with a temporary fence today. If you end up falling over it and the ball is still in play, grab it immediately and throw it in. Don't climb back over the fence first.
And then a girl asks him why and he answers. Don't worry about it. I don't want you to know what will happen if you do it because if you know it will change what the umpire has to rule.
The dugout case play is clear that legitimate attempts to play the ball that result in the ball becoming dead are one base awards. I'm not going to try and determine if the fielder new she wasn't supposed to field the ball; I'm just going to apply that. (Though frankly I wish I could distinguish it as I think this should be a two base award.)
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Since the rule is not actually worded with this specific case in mind, I suspect the number of coaches that have envisioned the play in question AND understand what the proper ruling would be is in the single digits. And I suspect that at LEAST have of the generic umpires out there would miss it upon seeing it for the first time. If you have this magical confluence of one of those coaches AND an umpire that would get it right AND that coach having the foresight to coach this to the players ... fine - give them the single base.
The rule exception was intended to award more than one base to prevent a fielder, deep in a corner, from intentionally carrying the ball out of play on purpose to save a base. It was NOT intended to be used for the case we're describing.
Stretching as far as you just did is rather silly, don't you think?