Catcher hurt......do you kill the play?

[His High Holiness]

Originally posted by scyguy
Did F1 retrieve ball from backstop??

F1 did indeed retrieve the ball about 15 feet from home plate. F5 was coming in to cover home and it was going to be a wacker.

I moved up the third base line and screamed "Time" as I blocked R2's advance. R2 could not see the injury and tried to run around me but I lowered my shoulder and stepped in front of him. He slowed down and we collided harmlessly.

It took 45 minutes for the ambulance to get there and get the guy loaded for transport. By this time, curfew had expired and we could not continue the game. After consulting with my partner, we decided that that it was too close to call as to whether R2 would have scored successfully. I wrote that up in a report to the league and I believe that the president opted for a delayed ruling until the end of the season. It was not important in the final standings so I think that the game was called a tie.

Peter

[David B]

Originally posted by His High Holiness

F1 did indeed retrieve the ball about 15 feet from home plate. F5 was coming in to cover home and it was going to be a wacker.

I moved up the third base line and screamed "Time" as I blocked R2's advance. R2 could not see the injury and tried to run around me but I lowered my shoulder and stepped in front of him. He slowed down and we collided harmlessly.

It took 45 minutes for the ambulance to get there and get the guy loaded for transport. By this time, curfew had expired and we could not continue the game. After consulting with my partner, we decided that that it was too close to call as to whether R2 would have scored successfully. I wrote that up in a report to the league and I believe that the president opted for a delayed ruling until the end of the season. It was not important in the final standings so I think that the game was called a tie.

Peter

Many years ago in Tx we had a pro prospect F1 who was hit in the face by a line drive. Bases loaded but we killed it immediately.

From what I understand he never pitched again because of the injury and etc.,

Then last night I have a throw from F6 to F2 that takes a horrible hop and hits him in the nose. Blood is everywhere. I have runners on 2nd and 3rd but we kill the play.

I'm not going to let play continue with these type of injuries.

Thanks
David

[chris s]

Bout 6 years ago, working the sacks for a 9-10 sectional championship game, comebacker smokes the F1 right in the face. Now he's rolling and screaming, F2 gets ball and actually nails BR at first. I was working the oh so glorified 3rd base in a 3 man, wanted to help this kid so bad, but.......we let play end , killed it, kid actually got up, shook it off and resumed, scary.....but as far as PONY goes, we did the right thing....and were told so by the field directers from PONY.

I work football also, kids get hurt all the time. When working the Umpire position, you hear the screams from the pile and have play go on, you DO NOT KILL IT.

[DG]

Originally posted by His High Holiness
All;

We have seen how you all line up regarding a play when someone is hurt but is not in the way of continuing action. Most of us have agreed that 10 seconds of delaying treatment is not going to matter a hill of beans one way or another. However, how would you handle the following: (It happened to me once. It was a game involving players over 18.)

R2, R3, 0 outs and the infield is in. Ground ball to short who throws home to get R3. There was a collision with no malicious contact and the catcher falls in a heap on top of home plate with a bone sticking out of his leg and the ball rolling towards the backstop. R2 has rounded third and there is going to be a close play at the plate and the catcher is in the vicinity of it with a blood spurting artery.

Your call?!

BTW, this is the bottom of the 8th inning, R3 was the tying run and R2 is the go ahead run.

Peter

[Edited by His High Holiness on May 18th, 2005 at 10:54 AM]

How is there going to be a close play when SS threw the ball, it's now rolling to the backstop 50 feet away and the catcher is on the ground at the plate. And as I said before "I might call time if I saw somebody get spiked and a geyser of blood was spurting out." I am not going to let R2 slide into this catcher. But the original sitch was quite different.

[cowbyfan1]

This is actually pretty simple people. Fed rule 5-2-1-d: Time will be called when an umpire or player is incapacitated, except that if injury occurs during a live ball, time shall not be called until no further advance or putout is possible. EXCEPTION: If there is a medical emergency or if, in the umpire's judgement, further play could jeopardize the injured players safety, Time shall be called.

In Rut's original case, he saw the catcher hurt, the runner was not going anywhere so calling time is the proper thing. In HHH case, the catcher is laying on the ground at home, obviously severly hurt and a runner heading straight for him. Calling time and sending the runner back to 3rd is that exact thing to do.

In Rut's case, I find it funny the coach had no issue until the following play when he realized he could have scored if his runner had been allowed to go to 2nd or 3rd at the expense of the injured player. If the following batter had flown out or walked there probably would not have been a word said about it.

OBR must say something similiar as that is how Barroa got the inside the park HR at KC the other day.

[Dave Hensley]

Originally posted by cowbyfan1
This is actually pretty simple people. Fed rule 5-2-1-d: Time will be called when an umpire or player is incapacitated, except that if injury occurs during a live ball, time shall not be called until no further advance or putout is possible. EXCEPTION: If there is a medical emergency or if, in the umpire's judgement, further play could jeopardize the injured players safety, Time shall be called.

In Rut's original case, he saw the catcher hurt, the runner was not going anywhere so calling time is the proper thing. In HHH case, the catcher is laying on the ground at home, obviously severly hurt and a runner heading straight for him. Calling time and sending the runner back to 3rd is that exact thing to do.

In Rut's case, I find it funny the coach had no issue until the following play when he realized he could have scored if his runner had been allowed to go to 2nd or 3rd at the expense of the injured player. If the following batter had flown out or walked there probably would not have been a word said about it.

OBR must say something similiar as that is how Barroa got the inside the park HR at KC the other day.

In the inciting play in this thread, R1 was advancing to 2B when the umpire called time.

OBR is similar to the first statement in the FED rule you cited; however, there is no exception similar to the FED exception.

[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by JRutledge

The ball completely stops right in front of the catcher and R1 does not move at all. The catcher after a second or two gets up and starts walking to the bench area. The catcher is obviously hurt, but I could not tell how much. Then the runner starts to run to second base after a couple of seconds, but at the same time I kill the play.

This thread is similar in nature to the thread we had concerning mechanics on a dropped third strike less than 2 outs and first base occupied. Should we signal and say batter's out or say nothing because the partcipants should know the rule.

In that thread there were varied opinions and no right or wrong answer.

This thread is the similar in nature. There is no real right or wrong answer.

As to what I would do - it depends.

Example; B1 hits a rocket that hits F1 in the head area and he goes down immediately and doesn't move. In that case, instictively I would probably call TIME immediately without even realizing it. it would be a simultaneous reaction.

Other examples it would depend.

In summary there is no clear-cut answer but varied opinions on the subject matter.

Pete Booth

[JRutledge]

This has been a wonderful discussion. I have learned a lot by reading everyone's reply whether I agree with it or not.

I also want to make it clear that before this happened to me I was a hard line "let the play continue" guy. I could not ever see a reason to have a different opinion. When this happened and the way it happened, I found myself having to really think about it. I do not feel I just did the right thing, I just realized that there was a possibility for something to take place that I would have never seen coming.

I would also like to give some background on the parties involved. The head coach is also a 25 year veteran that is in a couple of hall of fames as a baseball coach. He is also a long time basketball official who I know a little through basketball, but not very well. This coach can be very intimidating one umpires if you do not know him or do not have the experience. He was not at all being a jerk, he was just making a case that I might have not done the proper thing. He even used a basketball reference to make his case. The discussion was not contentious or heated in any way. It was just a calm discussion where we both walked away not agreeing on the situation. The coach even after the game came up to us and talked about it (his bus was right next to our cars). We walked away from all of this with good feelings.

I just wanted different opinions to shape what I might do the next time. I probably would not be so quick next time to kill the play, but I will cross the bridge when I get to it. I always say that you can learn something new everyday when you open your mind and this was something I never thought about, not it has become a bigger factor.

I would like to thank everyone for a great discussion. This is what this site should always be.

Peace

[DownTownTonyBrown]

I am medically trained.

Bone sticking out a leg is a serious situation for the one with the broken leg. It is also a serious situation for anyone that gets in close proximity - like an advancing runner. Blood borne pathogens - FED has a definite concern about blood. The bone was sharp enough to stick out of F2's leg so it is surely sharp enough to stick into the advancing runner or the defender that comes to cover the play. Dirt in the open wound will surely not help the injured player either.

I think we all agree this is a surely STOP IT RIGHT THERE situation. Protect the catcher and protect the other players.

But let me add a bit of information, medical information. Yes, people can die from such a leg injury ... or possibly from ensuing infection due to contamination of the wound. But this is not an immediately life threatening situation for the catcher - he can continue to bleed for a while (perhaps several minutes depending upon the severity) and live through it. But we've all agreed, this is one we would kill immediately. And to me, it felt like most would do this for the catcher's protection.

The other injury (possibly a completely crushed/collapsed windpipe) could be a much more serious injury with immediate, not delayed, repercussions. In the same amount of time that the broken leg is bleeding, the crushed windpipe kid could die. If the injury was a complete occlusion due to crushing of the windpipe, this kid will likely collapse in close to a minute and be brain dead 3 minutes later. The other catcher is still bleeding.

I would immediately want to know whether this kid is breathing or not. At the first hesitation of R1, I probably would have killed the play and immediately went to the injured player for evaluation.

An adult aged player that stops in the middle of action (doesn't pick up the ball and doesn't throw it to 2nd or F1) is likely stunned and probably very seriously hurt. A younger player who doesn't continue playing, may or may not be seriously hurt - without an evaluation, I don't know yet.

I would not belittle the judgement to kill the play if I had not ensured the injury was not serious. Simply, "ARE YOU OKAY." If he answers, he's got an airway and is going to live. If he can't answer, we're in an extremely serious situation and I could care less what the rest of the world does at that moment - I'm going to do my best to save this kid. R1 can run around the bases 6 times if he wants - we'll figure it out later.

The scenario as originally posed does not have enough information for me.

[cowbyfan1]

Originally posted by Dave Hensley

In the inciting play in this thread, R1 was advancing to 2B when the umpire called time.

OBR is similar to the first statement in the FED rule you cited; however, there is no exception similar to the FED exception.

Yeah I agree he was advancing when time was actually said but I would have to say that the decision to call time was made when the runner was still standing and then he went as time was being called. Recon it may only be a second difference but as far as I am concerned, time was out, just needed to be said verbally. Part of this may be my football training of the play kills the play, not the whistle so if I look up and the runner is not going anywhere, time is out, now let everyone else know that it is. Think of it in a foul ball situation. It is foul and dead before it is actually called. I realize that is streaching it a bit but hopefully you'll see my point.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally posted by Tim C
I would also kill this play and return R2.

Only in professional baseball would the play be allowed to go on.

Of course that is just my opinion.

Oh, I see. Just like I said. Serious injury, kill ball, but not in pro ball.

[Tim C]

It is a totally different played under totally different circumstances.

But this might show Tim H. That I knew the rule back last year during this conversation.

Tee

[kylejt]

Put me in the "it all depends" column.

If the catcher takes a breath, play on. If not, kill it, and deal it.

But that's just me, sitting a keyboard. Definitely HTBT.

Neck shots are spooky. My son took a foul ball off his neck in an 18u game. He stood up and proceeded to take off all his catchers gear, and placed it all right on the plate. He walked back to the dugout, and I asked if he was all right. His only reply was "I'm done". Yes, I did have him checked out, and he was fine. Spooky though.

[D-Man]

Who's the archeologist?

At least attempt to call these fossils your own.

May...MAY?!?!

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally posted by D-Man
Who's the archeologist?

At least attempt to call these fossils your own.

May...MAY?!?!

It must have been dug up for scientific research of some sort.