These appeared on the softball board, and I wonder how OBR would rule:

Play A: Abel on 3B, Baker on 2B, Charles on 1B, 1 out. Daniels hits a high liner to right-center. Abel tags up, Baker and Charles take off. Baker passes Abel. Charles rounds 2B. F9 dives and traps the ball. Abel tags up and scores. Then Charles, thinking the ball has been caught, retraces his steps in an attempt to return to 1B. But halfway back to 1B, he sees Daniels standing on the bag. Charles turns around and runs toward 2B but is tagged out before he gets there.

(The original had Baker missing 2B as he advanced, but I've omitted that red herring.)

How would you rule on this play? (Does the run score?)

Here's another to test the same theory:

Play B: Abel on 3B, Baker on 2B, Charles on 1B, 2 out. Daniels gets a hit on a roller that F2 fields up the 1B line. Abel scores, and everyone moves up a base. Baker leaves 3B and retreats toward 2B to pick up his hat, though time was not called. F2 throws to F5, who tags Baker before he can get back to 3B.

Would you score Abel's run?

The third out was a force out -- no runs score.

Quote:

Here's another to test the same theory: Play B: Abel on 3B, Baker on 2B, Charles on 1B, 2 out. Daniels gets a hit on a roller that F2 fields up the 1B line. Abel scores, and everyone moves up a base. Baker leaves 3B and retreats toward 2B to pick up his hat, though time was not called. F2 throws to F5, who tags Baker before he can get back to 3B. Would you score Abel's run?

This play seems different, but I guess it isn't.

Is the second play different because there was a pause in continuing action, with F2 holding the ball and all the runners stopped on their bases?

The question to me is twofold. First, can a run that has scored legally be nullified by a <i>subsequent</i> reinstated force. (Maybe so. I can understand that, if everything happens in the same play.) Second, if so, at what point is the run not subject to nullification? When the ball goes back to the mound? After a time out? A pitch? After a break in the vaguely defined "continuing action"?

Force Outs
 

It seems to me that for the first scenario it depends on whether Charles ever reached 2B. For the second scenario, I say the run scores, and here is my rationale:

Once everybody has advanced the one base required by the force, the force disappears. That is why F5 had to tag BAKER, and not just tag the bag. If the force was still on, which would leave the time play on, all F5 would have to do is tag the base.

In the first scenario, if Charles reached 2B, then I think the run scores. If he did not reach 2B, then the time play is still active due to the force, and the run does not score.

<i>Once everybody has advanced the one base required by the force, the force disappears.</i>

NOT NECESSARILY!

"7.08(e) However, if the forced runner, after touching the next base, retreats for any reason towards the base he had last occupied, the force play is reinstated, and he can again be put out if the defense tags the base to which he is forced;"



When Charles retreated, the force was reinstated.

The third out was thus a force - no run scores.

The FED definition of "play" includes something like "a unit of action that begins with F1 holding the ball on the mound and ends when F1 is again holding the ball" -- so that might be one way to distinguish between the two plays -- that is, it's a "force play" as long as there's play going on and it's just "leaving the base" once the play has "stopped."

Force Reinstated
 

Rich, thanks for the correction. However, I was looking in my FED book and can't find a reference. Does anyone know if FED has a similar rule?

2004 NFHS Baseball Case Book

2.29.3 SITUATION: With one out and R1 on first base, B3 hits a fly ball to short left field. R1
rounds second, but retreats toward first base when he thinks the ball will be caught. The ball drops,
but F7 retrieves the ball and throws it to second base. R1 is between first and second. RULING: R1
is out, as the force was reinstated when he retreated past second base.

<b>RULING: R1 is out, as the force was reinstated when he retreated past second base.</b>

Thanks. There's no question that the retreating runner reinstates the force when he passes in reverse the base he was forced to.

I think that what was really at issue was whether such an out can nullify a run that scored <i>before</i> the runner reinstated the force. Apparently it can—and logically should—if the third out comes as part of a continuous play. This is why defining "play" and "continuous action" is important. If there is a break in continuous action, is the run still nullified?

Abel on 3B, Baker on 1B, 2 out. Offense down by 1 in bottom of last inning. Charles singles to tie the game. Baker goes to 2B, Charles to 1B. As F6 walks the ball to the mound, several seconds pass with no action occurring. Then Baker, taken in by the cheering and thinking the game is over, leaves 2B and runs toward 1B to congratulate Charles. F6 throws to F4, who tags 2B for the reinstated force on Baker.

No question that Baker is out. But does this "later" out at 2B nullify the run? (It certainly would not if Abel had scored the <i>winning</i> run. And it certainly <i>would</i> if Abel had obviously been retreating for some reason during the play.)

Did the break in the action make the force a new play? Bob's answer is sensible and satisfies me, but if anyone knows any different . . .

I spent a lot of time yesterday reading the J/R but haven't yet found anything specific on this matter.