Ball In Dirt

[Armadillo_Blue]

I was reading older threads and had a question.

In a number of places I read that if the ball hits the ground the onus of avoiding the ball is removed from the batter. The rule seems to support this as in the definitions it makes no mention of the avoidance exception when it awards first base to a batter hit by a ball that hits the ground before reaching the plate.

In another thread the situation was discussed in which a ball slipped out of the pitchers hand and rolled into the batters box and hit the batter on the foot. The consensus was that this is a ball and not a base award because the batter made no attempt to avoid.

These two opinions seem to contradict each other. Which is the correct interpretation?

Kyle