"Force" redux

[greymule]

This from good authority:

greymule's question:

Batter hits a fly ball to short right, runs to 1B, and sees the right fielder apparently make the catch. Batter-runner assumes he’s out, immediately turns around, and retreats down the 1B line toward his dugout. However, the right fielder drops the ball and the umpire is signaling “no catch.” The batter-runner is halfway back toward home when his teammates scream for him to run to 1B. The right fielder picks up the ball and throws to the first baseman, who steps on 1B before the batter-runner arrives.

The question is, Is the batter-runner out, or does he have to be tagged once he has touched 1B and retreated?

e-mail to greymule from his friend Steve Greenberg:

Here is Fay Vincent's response, per Bruce Froemming:

Steve--
Remarkably I was correct. The runner must be tagged out. Bruce says once the runner touches a base he must be tagged to be put out. Of course if he has run out of the baseline or has not reached first before he turns away, that is different. But Bruce was quick and crisp and I did not ask to play the game under protest. Over to you. Best
Fay

"Bruce says once the runner touches a base he must be tagged to be put out." I hope that this is just a quick paraphrase, and that "a base" really should read "first base."

[Edited by greymule on Aug 13th, 2004 at 08:17 AM]

[Dave Reed]

Originally posted by cbfoulds
Nice try!
Problem w/ your explanation is that it is a variation [more intelligent, perhaps, but definitely out of the same stable] on "IT JUST IS" ["is NOT", in this case]. Can you cite me to any rule, OFF.INTERP., A/O, or Higher/ General Authority which supports the notion that "retreats", as and when used in 7.08(e), doesn't include BR's inexplicable retrograde movement on the base path after touching 1st? I didn't think so. That makes it your opinion: everyone has 'em, just like ...(well, you know..); however, it is a bit of a stretch to claim that you have made a logical, reasoned argument that X is true, since, in your opinion, Y is true. What is your authority [as us legals like to say] for your opinion or assertion?

The word "retreat" is used just once in the OBR. On the other hand, by my count, the word "return" is used 25 times in the sense of a runner going back towards a base. That's for live ball situations. It is used another 13 times in dead ball situations. The disparity in frequency of use compels the inference that the author(s) used the word "retreat" in some sense other than as a synonym for "return." Our best shot at understanding his meaning is recourse to a kind of higher authority-- the dictionary. My American Heritage Collegiate defines the intransitive form of the verb retreat as "1. to fall back or withdraw in the face of danger or an enemy attack." So in order to retreat, as oppposed to simply returning, the base runner needs to believe that his already attained base does not offer him protection against an out.
I don't know (perhaps through ignorance and lack of resource) of any comment by a baseball higher authority regarding the reinstatement of a force play. Do you?

How about 4.09(a)(2)? No runs score w/ 3d out on "ANY runner being forced out"[My emphasis]. Please notice also (a)(1): No runs ...3d out "by the BR before he touches 1st base". Now, I'll let you get away with claiming that 6.05 repeating parts of 7.08 [actually, it is chronologically vice versa, which I think is significant] may be merely redundant; but even the Rule Book guys wouldn't bother to separately enumerate the PAF in the SAME PARAGRAPH as a force play, if the PAF was a "Force Play".

The Rules Guys would and did because not all outs at 1st are force outs, even assuming FPAF. With 2 out and R3, fly ball to the outfield, R3 will easily cross the plate before BR is put out. Even under the assumption of FPAF, the out is not a force out. So the Rules Guys needed 4.09(a)(1) as well as (2.) In case you'd like to argue that a caught fly ball is a force out under the assumption of FPAF, note that it would likely be a contentious point (many will claim that a tag out or touched base are the only way to make a force out-- I would add out of baseline to avoid a tag) and so the Rules Guys would put in (1) just for "avoidance of doubt," as some of your legal brethren put it.

By the way, I forgot to point out in an earlier post that Section 10 Official Scorekeeper uses the definitions of Double Play and the Force/Reverse Force variants, primarily to keep track of RBIs. The definitions are needed and deny RBIs when BR causes a Force or Reverse Force DP.
It isn't important to this discussion, but I am genuinely puzzled: Why do you think those definitions are the among the "worst" writing in OBR? I think they are clear, concise, and free of jargon.

I continue to stand by my statement that I have yet to encounter a logical argument for PAF=F, although I certainly concede to you a reasonable defense of the closest thing to a logical argument that there is [the "reverse force DP" example] for the FPAF proposition. Under our agreed-upon rules of engagement, that means I am not allowed to call you names: I trust you will agree that I have obeyed that rule.

Well, apparently we disagree on the meaning of "logical." But we're both doing fine regarding name-calling.

Dave

[cbfoulds]

Originally posted by Dave Reed
I don't know (perhaps through ignorance and lack of resource) of any comment by a baseball higher authority regarding the reinstatement of a force play. Do you?

Not sure what you're asking: if you mean -regarding specifically reinstatement of a "force" at 1stB?- Obviously, no, since PAF is not a force. Otherwise, all I know of on the subject of reinstating forces is what is already in the Rule Book, and some commentary related thereto, none of which is more helpful than what has already been posted.

By the way, I forgot to point out in an earlier post that Section 10 Official Scorekeeper uses the definitions of Double Play and the Force/Reverse Force variants, primarily to keep track of RBIs. The definitions are needed and deny RBIs when BR causes a Force or Reverse Force DP.

AH! that explains it: I try real hard not to concern myself with the rules for scorers; maybe I should rethink that attitude. Knowing that there is actually some reason for the "reverse force DP" nonsense may require me to revise my assessment of that passage as among the worst in the book: least helpful to umpires maybe?

As a "final word": I just received my 2004 J/R manual, & I'm like a kid w/ a new toy.
In Ch. 6, Sec. A, note 12 [pg 49] I find: "...the force out does not apply to the batter-runner ... (by definition he cannot be forced)." At last, an authoritative statement of the PAF not=F principle. I would take it as given that, if it's not a force to begin with, one cannot "reinstate the force", regardless of what retrograde movements one makes on the base path after touching 1st Base, or why one makes them.

Cheers!

--Carter

[Dave Reed]

Originally posted by cbfoulds
As a "final word": I just received my 2004 J/R manual, & I'm like a kid w/ a new toy.
In Ch. 6, Sec. A, note 12 [pg 49] I find: "...the force out does not apply to the batter-runner ... (by definition he cannot be forced)." At last, an authoritative statement of the PAF not=F principle. I would take it as given that, if it's not a force to begin with, one cannot "reinstate the force", regardless of what retrograde movements one makes on the base path after touching 1st Base, or why one makes them.
[/B]

Yes, I know. Besides note 12, they also carefully define a "consecutive runner" (which definition excludes the batter) and follow that by describing a force out in terms of consecutive runners. All of this is written in a normal font, so they are asserting that this set of rules corresponds to the OBR, and isn't a J/R innovation.

Of course I accept them as authoritative, and acknowledge that there is no FPAF. All I would ask is that when faced with a person who asserts that B/R is forced to first, we at least allow for the possibility that haven't read (or heard of) J/R, and may have tried to puzzle it out with the OBR.
Dave