Quote:
Originally posted by greymule
With the ball dead, we might have a different story, though. Suppose Abel takes his gross-error shortcut to 1B, and then the throw enters DBT as Abel is standing on 1B. How does he correct his error? Since he can't do so using "last time by," can he run to retouch 2B, go back and retouch 1B, and then take his award? Or would the situation be different if the throw entered DBT and then Abel arrived at 1B?
I'm trying to understand just how a 20-foot error is treated differently from a 3-inch error.
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It's probably more a question of WHY the error is treated differently than HOW.
Without using
Last Time By there is no way for Abel to correct his GROSS miss of 2nd once the ball has become dead, even though he may be awarded 3rd base on the overthrown ball. [OBR 5.02] The shortcut across the diamond would be regarded as an illegal attempt to gain distance advantage to avoid a live ball appeal and put out at 1st for leaving early.
I think that leads us to the underlying rationale for using
Last Time By. I take J/R's use of the "
within a body length" criterion to be equivalent to saying "
if he could have touched the base in passing but didn't, then he can correct it last time by". IOW, the runner had to be able to reach out and touch the base in passing by when he missed it, or he wouldn't have passed by close enough to deserve the protection of LTB on the way back - a bit like allowing the neighbourhood play at 2nd.
The point is that the runner who misses the base "
within a body length" when passing gains no real distance advantage on that play at 1st. So why penalise that runner and force the issue? Why force professional baseball players to dance backward and forward across a base in order to become legal when the fans didn't even see them miss it the first time? And why force professional baseball umpires to keep track of every minor miss of a base so they can unravel the mess in a conference when and if an appeal is finally made? That would prevent the game from flowing and would confuse the heck out of the fans, or worse still bore them to tears. It's all about providing a fast-paced and easy-to-follow entertainment for the paying fans.
Certainly a "
miss should be a miss" if you are looking to have a perfectly JUST outcome. BUT professional baseball isn't about JUST outcomes - it's about entertainment for the fans. There is another argument that says that LTB also prevents the defense from guaranteeing an out on appeal by deliberatly making an error on the throw to kill the ball. Personally I think that's just a happy coincidence.
Hope this helps
Cheers