[nickdangerME]

11/12 LL blowout. B1 choking up mightily against dominating fast pitcher. B1 swings early and awkwardly at high, inside change-up, combining with F2 popping up to block my view. Ball dribbles towards F1, who throws to F3 for the out. Offensive coach calls time and asks what the call was and why it wasn't HBP. I tell him I didn't see contact, only the fair ball result. I ask BU what he saw and he replies that he saw the bat strike the ball. Play stands without any guff and is inconsequential to the game's outcome.

Between innings, BU mentions that it was a weird, slow-motion play and he saw the ball hit both her hands and the bat, but that the hands are part of the bat! I know that theory is wrong, but it gets me thinking about the play. Should it make any difference whether the ball first hit the bat and then the hands, or vice versa? Assume an x-2 count. If the ball discernably hit the bat first and then the hands (say rolling down the barrel an inch or two before contacting the hands), shouldn't it be a simple foul ball with the batter contacted while in the box? Then the batter lives to see another pitch. Alternatively, if the hands were out front and the ball hit them first before glancing off the bat itself, shouldn't it be strike 3? (I'm assuming that the dropped 3rd strike on such a play is a nullity because the ball is instantaneously dead when it contacts the batter.)