Authorized person

[David B]

Originally Posted by lawump

This happened to one of our umpires in a FED game, looking for your comments as to the correct ruling from FED guys:

R2, 0 outs. Ground ball to third. F5 throws to first. R2 starts advancing to third on the throw. Throw goes wide of the F3, and hits an assistant DEFENSIVE coach who was standing outside of the dugout/team bench area by a few feet.

The ball MAY (or may not) have gone into DBT if it had not hit the coach.

Does the ball become dead, or remain alive?

(As an aside: These umpires kept the ball alive. R2 scored and B/R reached second...they agreed that this is where the runners would have gone had the ball gone out of play...but they were wondering if the ball should have been killed and bases awarded.)

Thanks in advance.

As long as the defensive coach did nothing intentional I don't think there is any need to kill the play.

This goes back to the threads on keeping coaches in the dugout.

But, if there is intent by the coach, that's a different play.

Of course, once the play is over, the coach is going to wish he had been in the dugout because I'm going to address the situation with him.

Dont have my book but its in Rule 3 (players coaches in the dugout) and Rule 5 on Dead ball situations.


Thanks
David