Interp of the Week #2 - ANSWER

[Jim Porter]

PLAY: Bases loaded, no outs. Runners are off with the pitch. B1 takes a mighty swing, but only squibs a nubber down the third base line. F2, R3, and the ball are all converging on about the same spot. The ball bites and takes a backspin, rolls through F2's legs without touching him, and strikes R3 in the foot in fair territory immediately behind F2. R3 scores and all runners, including B1, reach their advance bases safely.

What's the call in OBR? How about FED and NCAA?

RULING:
OBR - R3 is out, the catcher is not an infielder.
NCAA - Play stands, the ball passed by a fielder.
FED - Play stands, the catcher is an infielder.

As you all know by now, the interpretation for this play came from Carl Childress' Baseball Rules Differences, #242.

Partial credit goes to HOLDTHE, (whose answer disappeared a day or two after he posted it.) If I remember correctly, he had the right ruling for FED and PRO, but missed the NCAA ruling. Honorable mentions go to Dennis Donnelly, Pete Booth, and Rich Ives, who all had the OBR ruling correct.

There has already been a great amount of discussion over this play. I'm sure we all agree on the FED and NCAA ruling, so let me concentrate on the OBR ruling. I hope those of you who have your minds made up will reconsider their ideas, and re-evaluate the spirit and intent behind 7.08(f) and 7.09(m).

During the infancy of professional baseball, the problem of runners getting struck by batted balls reared its ugly head. Runners were taking advantage of their omnipotent status on the basepaths, and interfered with the defense by contacting batted balls.

Interference with a fielder making a play was already prohibited, and had been since Alexander Cartwright's Knickerbocker Rules. But this problem was different - - what to do with a runner who does not interfere, but conveniently gets in the way of a batted ball. So, the early rulesmakers created a rule which prohibited a runner from allowing a batted ball to strike him.

But there were inherent problems in the enforcement of such a rule. Umpires were having difficulty judging intent, because of the sneaky nature of such a play. Big arguments ensued, and umpires were placed in a very tough position. As a result, umpires were hesitant to invoke a penalty, and the rule was ineffective in limiting these episodes of almost-but-not-quite interference.

It was a only a year later, in 1877, when the rule was again amended, and the spirit and intent of today's rule was born. From this point in baseball history, runners were responsible for avoiding all batted balls.

In the earliest versions of this rule, not only were runners out immediately when touched by a batted ball, but play was allowed to remain alive, and the defense was given the chance to put out other runners. This was the case, even though at the end of play, no runners were allowed to advance, and they would be put back to their original bases. Quite a temendous advantage for the defense.

So, over the next half century, the rule remained largely the same. However, more examples of the defense's advantage kept occurring. Runners would be struck, this would stop the ball, that runner would be out, and the defense, after unintentionally using the unwitting runner as another fielder, would pick up the ball and possibly have multiple chances for more outs with no concern for runners advancing.

Furthermore, runners who were complying with the rule would get intentionally, but mostly unintentionally, blocked out by an infielder from seeing the batted ball. These runners were doing everything they could to comply with the rule, running around behind the infielder making the play, avoiding any other infielders with a chance to make a play, but circumstances put them in a situation where unintentional and unavoidable contact with the batted ball would see them put out.

Not surprisingly, these rare but apparent instances to the problems with the rule created quite a stir. During the era when professional baseball was trying to restore the reputation of its umpires, the rulesmakers decided they had to amend the rule, to restore the balance between the competitors.

The rulesmakers of the mid-1900's were the authors of the rules we use today. They wanted to keep the concept that a runner was entirely responsible for avoiding all batted balls, but felt it was necessary to add exceptions in certain situations which exonerated the runner from blame for being touched by a batted ball. These situations are:

• When a fair ball unintentionally touches him after passing through the legs of an infielder (this was created because a runner, who is attempting to comply with the rule which requires him to avoid all batted balls, is struck by a batted ball while complying.)
  
• When a fair ball unintentionally touches him after passing immediately by an infielder (same as above - the runner ran behind the infielder, so he was complying.)
  
  NOTE: Also, in the two above examples, the runner is not exonerated if another fielder has a chance to make a play. Once again, this is consistent with the idea that it is the runner's responsibility to avoid not only the ball, but any player who has a chance to make a play on that ball.
  
• The ball unintentionally touches him after being deflected by a fielder (no runner should be expected to avoid a batted ball which changes direction because of a defensive error.)

So, to summarize...

• a catcher is purposely not an infielder as he relates to these rules. A different dynamic exists when the catcher moves out from behind the plate, than for the infielders. When the catcher is involved, there is no way for a runner to obviously be complying with his responsibility to avoid a batted ball and still be struck (i.e. it is not possible to run behind a catcher making a play,)
  
• the spirit and intent of these rules surrounds the idea that runners are responsible to avoid contact with all batted balls, and
  
• the exceptions were not instituted to give us the idea that, if the defense already had a chance to make a play on the ball, then the runner is no longer responsible to avoid contact. They were adopted to exonerate the runner when he is complying and the situation of the play creates unintentional and unavoidable contact.

Over the years, because of so many umpires thinking they understand the spirit and intent of these rules simply by their wording in the OBR, the history has been lost. As a result, the spirit and intent has become clouded. Hopefully, by presenting to you the evolution of this rule, you can also see why the catcher is not an infielder, and the runner is out on this play.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Papa C. tells me that this play is a classic and has been used on umpire tests for generations to see if the students actually read the definitions under Rule 2.00.

See y'all next week for Interp of the Week #3.

[Edited by Jim Porter on Mar 8th, 2001 at 01:24 PM]

[Jim Porter]

Only partial credit to myself. I neglected to mention that, in the OBR ruling, not only is R3 declared out, but B1 is awarded first, and R1 and R2 go to second and third because they were forced.

One out, bases loaded, no runs score.