BR Abandonment vs Force-outs

[Carl Childress]

Originally posted by Tim C
I A2D. (I think and if I have followed the thread correctly.)

Play Situation:

Score is 4-4 in the bottom of the last inning. Home team has the bases loaded and one out.

Batter hits a perfect double play ball to F6 who shuffles to F4 to retire a legally sliding r1 who is being forced to second. F4 relays the ball to F3 and it appears that the batter is out by, hmmm 90 feet, because upon hitting the ball that batter-runner ran directly into the dugout (we have several dugouts in the PDX area that are less than 20' from home plate).

As the defense runs off the field hooping and hoolering because they stuffed the rally the plate umpire signals that r3 run counts and the game is over.

So the defense did nothing wrong. The turned a perfect double play BUT it appears that some people are saying the force is off when the BR entered the dugout.

I am having trouble buying into the reward to the offense that deliberately made the out.

What am I missing?

T

[Edited by Tim C on Nov 10th, 2005 at 10:57 AM]

Aren't you missing that the force was in effect at the time of the pitch?

You're saying that the batter-runner can reach the dugout (20 feet) in about 3 seconds.

If so, then I want to be his agent.

The umpire is the dumb schmuck (is that redundant?) here. He just didn't want to go an extra inning.

I hope he can call for assistance leaving the field.

Let's get serious here. You and I know that any umpire who permitted a player to return to the field for playing action after entering the dugout is in deep caca.