Fair or Foul?
 

12 year old players, 15 year old umps.........

No outs. Nobody on base. Ball hit down the right field line. Home plate up yells foul. First base up points fair. Batter reaches second base. What’s the call? Fair or foul?

Foul. . . .

Depends.</comment>

Depends on your definition of yell.
If PU yelled in a loud whisper "foul" and no one heard him then fair it is.

But it goes back to the age old question:
If an ump makes a call in the forest and no one hears it ..........

With no one on base, there is only one person who is to make the call, and that is the BU, not the PU, unless, the BU really screwed it up. I had a situation last week where I was the PU with no one on base. The right-handed batter hits a flair down the right field line. The BU, instead of going down the line to be in position to signal fair or foul, he runs from the "A" position to the "B" position and is signaling fair at the same time. The only problem with this fair call, was that the ball was foul by at least six inches. My BU was out of position and kicked the call. As PU I stepped in and made the correct call.

MTD, Sr.

Mark - he didn't ask whose call it is. He asks what it is when PU yells (and Don/Garth ... he did say "yells" - I think it's safe to assume that he meant everyone heard it) FOUL and the BU points fair. Yes, this was supposed to be BU's call ... but a balled called FOUL where the call is heard is foul. Unringable bell.

The age of the players was given in the OP but not the set of rules they were playing under.

Fed rules covers this in 2-16-1e

"A foul is a batted ball that touches the ground after inadvertently being declared foul by an umpire."

If this were a FED game we would have a foul ball no matter which umpire called it or how loudly he called it!

I'm sorry I forgot to put a little smiley face on my post to indicate a not so subtle attempt at sarcasm.
I obviously failed.

In any event I agree with you.

Not so fast.

I have witnessed, first hand, two instances at the ML level in which foul calls were changed to fair. One was changed by the same umpire who made the foul call and one was the result of a huddle. The "get the call right" crowd has run amok. Neither invovled a question of H/R v. foul, which would add additional occurances.

The first instance, by Bruce F. on a shot down the LF line resulted in R2 being tagged out half way between second and third and an ejection.

Now then, about FED.....


(edited to correct a typo)

thanks guys. The runner made it to second. The umpires dsicussed it and they were actually going to let the runner stay at second. Then umpries' supivsor came over and told them to rule it foul.

I didn't see the MLB instances ... by why was anyone still running if Bruce Froemming yelled FOUL!?

Guys, if this was a 60' Little League game then in most cases U1 from A would not call fair/foul, but pivot into the infield, unless of course this was discussed in the pre-game. I've found that in working with younger umpires, its easier to just have the PU take all fair/foul on the little field.

FYI, what is R12?

I don't know...if you F-up and call it foul...eat it and suck it up you kicked one...if you call foul, it's foul...don't have the books here this week...but even if the catcher hears you...you know he'll tell his coach that he heard you say foul...these kids are young umpires...probably little or no training...instead of cutting the kids down...help them out so that they still want to umpire...so many young kids could become great umpires and they have one bad experience when they're younger and they hang it up...at that age...everybody on the field at that age is there to learn the game of baseball and to have fun period.

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