Another example
 

So am I understanding this correctly? IF the ball lodges in the pitcher's glove but the pitcher runs to first and tags the base before the runner gets there it is an OUT right???

IT sounds like it is just the removal of the glove from the hand when lodged that makes the play DEAD and the runner safe. Have I oversimplified it or is this correct??

Re: Another example
 

You are correct.

Re: Re: Another example
 

Not only safe, but a 2 base award.

The FED "foul ball" debacle will never happen because any umpire incompetent enough to call "Foul!" before a ball is caught is also incompetent enough not to be aware of the casebook ruling. Consequently, he'll probably go "Oops!" and <b>still</b> call the batter out.

Everyone will have a good chuckle at his expense. The batter will be out. And not a single person on the field will be aware that a FED casebook play had just been violated ... other than, perhaps, the other umpire; who is certainly not going to say a word at this point.

Ridiculous rulings like this don't bother me for some reason. They might as well have ruled:

<font color=red><b>If, during the course of live ball action, a meteorite hits the playing field, causing such catastrophic disruption of the Earth's atmosphere that it sends the entire planet into an Ice Age - the umpire shall immediately call time and declare the home team the winner of the ball game. The visitors are awarded a forfeit.</b></font>

I think that would be a bad rule, too. But I don't care. Get my point?

David Emerling
Memphis, TN

[Edited by David Emerling on Feb 9th, 2005 at 10:13 AM]

I think the awarding of bases is for throwing the glove not the ball being lodged in the glove. It seemed to me from reading some of the posts that a few thought the award was for the ball being lodged. The defense is being penalized for throwing the glove, not having a lodged ball. Case Play 6 and 7 differ in that exact manner. Penalized in 6 for a thrown glove and not in 7 because the glove wasn't thrown.

<b>My fav is the caught-foul mechanics error do-over.</b>

I haven't done Fed in a long time. What is this rule?

Pop-up over foul ground. Umpire yells, while ball is in flight, "FOUL!!!" Fed says that this ball is now dead, even if caught. Foul ball, batter still at plate.

...

Yeah ... that's what we all think.

I can think of only one justification for this rule. Abel on 1B runs on the pitch; Baker pops a foul over near the dugout; ump yells, "Foul"; Abel, now past 2B, stops and cuts back across the diamond toward 1B and then finds out the ball has been caught.

In this situation, I could see protecting the runner to some degree, but not the batter.

The only other legitimate argument I have heard goes something like - the reason it is dead the second the umpire yells foul is that it is possible that the ball will be blown back fair - and in such cases, we are not allowing the batter to run bases - he has to live with the foul call and continue batting. It would not be fair to allow only the defense to continue playing to it's advantage.

I don't BUY it ... but I've HEARD it.

Actually, I don't, but no matter.
I am not "bothered" by dumb official rulings, & I'll certainly follow them in the games to which they apply.
As for the one I mentioned, I'll simply take it as a reminder not to be sloppy in my mechanics, and [presuming my partners do likewise], it will have as much impact on my games as the meteorite forfeit ruling.

However, I have to disagree with your initial premise: although the sloppy umpire commiting premature foul adjudication may also be ignorant about the case ruling, you can count on it that the offensive coach in that game will not only know about it, he'll have the '05 Case Book in his back pocket.

You're kidding, right?

The coach will have the Case Book on his person <b>AND</b> have recall of that particular case play?

Not in a million years!

In fact, I'll take it one step further. The probability that the coach even has a RULE book anywhere accessible is about 1 chance in 5. And that's a RULE book, not a CASE book.

David Emerling
Memphis, TN

WEELLL...
My tongue MAY be somewhat in-cheek.... However, as a firm believer in Murphy's Law and it's manifold codicils ["Anything that can happen, will; usually all at once and at the very worst time imaginable."]: IN THAT GAME where the caught-foul "oopsie" happens [esp. if it happens in the bottom of the 7th, so that the next pitch can get crushed for the game winning home run], the SOB will, inevitably, have the case book in his hip pocket, and he'll have just read the actual play/ ruling that afternoon: count on it.

[Edited by cbfoulds on Feb 10th, 2005 at 12:47 AM]

That's the kind of rule that's so unusual a coach might actually remember it.

I coached high school baseball 35 years ago and ignorantly assumed that baseball rules were baseball rules, that OBR covered everything. I think many umps did also. For all I know, in those days that was true. Schools contracted directly with umpires, not with an association. Maybe in 1970 there wasn't a Fed in NJ.

When I umpired Fed many years later, I found very few coaches who knew, for example, the force play interference rule. Most (certainly not all) assumed that slides at 2B were treated just as in OBR and were amazed when I informed them differently.

Once in the early 1970s I stopped to watch a girls' varsity softball game simply to watch a little of it, but when the ump(s) didn't show up, one of the coaches (a former baseball teammate) asked me to officiate. So I did, with no rules knowledge except what I knew from playing a little softball myself. Imagine that happening today. Thirty years later, I did a game at the same school, and everything was far more "official."