This really happened. Your not going to believe it!

[Gre144]

R3 on thrid. Grounder to F5 who makes the out at first easily. F3 throws the ball in an attempt to retire r3 at the plate and hits the batter-runner with the thrown ball right in his mouth. Blood everywhere as the ball rolls into foul territory about 2 feet behind first base. I am in C position so I don't know in what location the runner was at at the time he got clobbered by F3's throw . There is a new umpire behind the plate and we are both startled by the gruesome, bloody, horrifying result of a fast ball thrown right at the batter runner who was about 2 feet in front of F3 at the time of the throw. He was immediately taken to the hospital.

Here are the possible scenarios:

1)The batter runner is running in fair territory, outside the 45 foot running lane and gets hit by the ball thrown by F3.

2) The batter runner is running in his proper 45 foot base path and gets hit by F3's thrown ball in foul territory.

3) The batter runner is running outside the running lane in fair territory and F3, out of anger, deliberately and maliciously throws the ball right at him.

4) The batter runner who is running in the 45 Foot running lane gets deliberately and maliciously hit by F3's thrown ball.

In all situations R3 is on his way to home when the the batter runner, whose is already out on the force play at first, get hit by F3's thrown ball to home.

My question is as follows:

Where would you put R3, the batter-runner and F3 in scenario 1,2,3 and 4? Also, in each scenario would you call a dead ball or delayed dead ball? Fed rules please.

Greg

[Edited by Gre144 on Jul 3rd, 2001 at 11:06 PM]