Skunk in the Outfield hit by batted ball

[Rich]

Originally posted by mcrowder
Just wondering if this one would catch some off guard - even though this is probably TWP (which is why we saw no Tim response! ) - it provided for some interesting discussion at a recent meeting, and made people, even the experienced ones, think about the entirety of the rule.

This runner (barring intent) is not out. (FED/OBR)

What was interesting to me during the meeting was the number of umpires that wanted to bust him out, solely because he shouldn't have been there in the first place. Seems the skunk has irritated umpires everywhere, and they wanted any excuse to send him to the dugout.

The runner is out in OBR according to Jim Evans and everyone who understands that a ball passing a fielder applies only to directly behind the fielder under the interpetation of that rule set. The string theory went out the window a while ago.

So those people were right for the wrong reason.