killing the play

[LMan]

Last night at LL Majors game: none on, none out. BR chops a spinner down the 1B line, hits foul, then spins across the line fair where F3 fields it next to 1B bag.

PU calls "foul ball!" Obviously its fair. Oops.

Question: since the 1B and BR stopped their play when they heard 'foul ball' (F3 did not step on bag, he returned ball to F1), if the PU were to reverse this call, could he call the out that wasn't made (since F3 was one step from 1B with ball in hand)? Or is this one of those 'inadvertent whistle' type sitchs where's its just too bad, play on?

BTW, that run eventually scored, and was the difference in a 7-6 ballgame

[DG]

IMO, once he calls FOUL, it is.

[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by LMan

Last night at LL Majors game: none on, none out. BR chops a spinner down the 1B line, hits foul, then spins across the line fair where F3 fields it next to 1B bag.

PU calls "foul ball!" Obviously its fair. Oops.

Question: since the 1B and BR stopped their play when they heard 'foul ball' (F3 did not step on bag, he returned ball to F1), if the PU were to reverse this call, could he call the out that wasn't made (since F3 was one step from 1B with ball in hand)? Or is this one of those 'inadvertent whistle' type sitchs where's its just too bad, play on?

BTW, that run eventually scored, and was the difference in a 7-6 ballgame :

HS (FED rules) addressed this issue in this year's rule changes. IN FED when an umpire calls FOUL it's FOUL, meaning NO REVERSAL.

You are talking LL in which a precedent was ALREADY set in the LL World Series about 2 or 3 yrs. ago where Andy Konar
changed a Foul call to Fair.

You said the players stopped, so the call should not be reversed.

In summary, in an OBR game if the players DO NOT react to the call of FOUL it is possible to change the call but I still would not recommend it. Say what you want about FED rules but at least they address these sometimes controversal rulings.

If one umpires calls FOUL we all call FOUL and leave it at that, with the exception of a DEAD BALL, meaning if there's a qestion about a ball being Fair/ FOUL if it's a HR or ground rule double.

Pete Booth