In a Legion game a couple weeks ago I had a situation that I'd never encountered before. With two strikes on the batter he swung at a big breaking ball and completely missed it. The ball then continued breaking and hit his rear foot. I called dead ball, and thought it was ruled a foul ball. After reading some of the posts in the "hand part of the bat" thread I'm wondering if I should have called the batter out. If so, how does this effect that fact that the catcher did not catch the ball as it became immediately dead. Would the batter be out without a play anywhere? It was a strange situation for me and nobody complained about it, but I want to get it right if it ever happens again.

OBR 6.05

6.05
A batter is out when (f) He attempts to hit a third strike and the ball touches him.

Unless the pitcher balked (OBR). Ball is still dead.

The one thing you need to remember about a foul ball is that it needs to be hit with the bat before you can call "Foul!" If the ball and bat do not meet you cannot have a foul ball, no matter where it goes. If the ball and a swinging bat do not meet, you will almost always have a strike.

-Craig

Yes, and the kid is out. HE may not like it and the coach may not like it (they prob'ly don't know the rule or remember). So u just gotta softly explain to the batter why he's out, most are 'cool' enough, they should understand once they know that's the rule. Hey, he'll know for next time, right? :)

thanks for the info. Like I said, it was a strange play that I'd never seen before. I missed it apparently, but now I'll know next time.

ahhhh - the board continues to serve
 

Good to see that this board is good for teaching, coaching and mentoring - not just berating each other.