[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by Jim Porter
The real story behind 7.07 is that many umpires do believe there to be a contradiction with 7.04(d) in conjunction with the comments under 6.08(c). Those comments do address the specific act of a runner stealing on a squeeze play or steal of home.

The only thing 7.07 can do, besides add a balk to the stats, is award a sleeping R2 third base. We're talking about giving a base to a runner who stood still at second and watched his teammate try and steal home and didn't move an inch. In baseball terms, that's really dumb. Both 6.08(c) and 7.04(d) cover all the other possibilities, except for the dumb sleeping R2.

Finally, past umpire schools have been known to have their students scratch 7.07 out of the book. Some OBR leagues with old-timers for UIC's also require their umpires to scratch it out of the book. That includes Rhode Island's Board of Umpires. Of course, as long as your league/association/entity hasn't omitted 7.07 from the book, call it you must.

I stated in my post:

Having said that, I would most certainly apply OBR 7.07 exclusively IF the offense was committed by any fielder other than the catcher. To the best of my knowledge there is no other rule that covers exactly those same circumstances in that extremely unlikely event.

On the basis of your gentle reminder that OBR 7.04(d) can be used in conjunction with OBR 6.08(c), I stand corrected. I probably wouldn't use 7.07 under ANY circumstances! *HUGE grin*

Cheers