balk

[PWL]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

PW,

On a HBP, the ball is always dead. Ball four usually has the ball alive when it's called. I'm not talking down to you, I'm telling you the proper way to rule on the play. Bob told you, Tim told you, now I'm telling you. But you still want to argue about it. The play proceeds. If it's a HBP, the play proceeds as normal, which is that the ball is dead. If it is a base on balls, the play proceeds as normal, which is the ball is alive.

What if the catcher saw the runner round 2nd base hard, threw there, but threw the ball away into center, and thus allowed a run to score on the error. If you kill the ball when the catcher catches it, you have now deprived the offense to take advantage of the defense's mistake.

It isn't that you don't read it the way I do, it's that whenever advice is given to you, instead of just saying, "thank you for explaining it to me," you always take offense and think somebody is out to get you. I explained the reason that the ball is not dead as clearly as I can. You continue to argue after being told by several people that you are wrong.

You aren't just wrong a little bit, like because of the way something is worded doesn't match. You are wrong because you have a wrong concept of the proper ruling.

I sure hope my post doesn't need editing just for pointing out that you are wrong in this case. There is nothing personal meant in any way by my pointing this out.

What if the count is 3-1 and a lefthander steps more towards first than he does home? This causes the runner to feint back to first, but the hit and run is on so he takes off for second. Because of the balk the runner gets a bad jump and tries to avoid the tag and inadvertently slides past second. Now the runner has technically gone past his award base. But lo and behold, the ball is still live. So now you have actually rewarded the defense for the balk if the pitch was ball four.

I take the rule to read that you leave the ball live because the penalty is more severe to the defense. This way the pitch counts and is the offense is rewarded by having the batter reach base. I still can go back and read post #11 that is from the MLBUM and it says to call "Time" on a ball four. It only says to let the play proceed in my opinion so the pitch will count and the batter is awarded first base. A more severe penalty. It also says call "Time" after all action has ceased on a batted ball. Just make sure all runners and batter have advanced one base.