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.

Used to be a common refrigerant in air-conditioners, has been replaced by R-134 in most applications.

As the EPA has declared it an ozone-depleting agent. :eek:

R2 ran on contact. When Bruce made the initial foul call, R2 stopped and headed back to second. Left fielder kept playing the ball and threw R2 out before he made it back to second. By then, Bruce had changed his call.

MLB stood behind Bruce. How can that be considered a botched call?:D

Now, then, have you never heard of a foul call being changed to a home run?

As Garth pointed out a FOUL can be changed to FAIR, but in general when an umpire calls FOUL, it's FOUL.

In your example: what did F8 do when he heard FOUL?. Perhaps he stopped chasing after the ball or didn't even bother making a play to begin with after he heard FOUL which is the primary reason the BR made it second.

If ALL the players reacted as if the ball were indeed fair, then you can change the call, but as mentioned the general rule of thumb is when ONE umpire calls FOUL we all call FOUL and live with it. It's not the end of the world.

Pete Booth

Whether it can be changed or should be changed are two different things.
If you're not Bruce F I'd suggest sticking with the philosophy of once foul always foul.
I'll even take bets that Bruce F will never reverse another foul call to fair(not counting HRs)

This is not an academic argument. A foul call can and in certain circumstances should be changed. Again, have you never seen a foul call changed to home run? It happens. Sometimes it happens during the AL play-offs.

Since the OP was not a HR issue, the reference to Bruce F was not a HR issue and since my last post ended with the not counting HRs disclaimer it's a safe bet that I wasn't speaking to the issue of foul or HR.
Again I say, there is a difference between CAN and SHOULD.
Bruce proved that you CAN and at the same time showed that you SHOULD NOT.

Yes, but that's one form of dead-ball to another. That's easier to 'fix' than going from dead to live.

Maybe I'm just being thick... but it seems to me that this example should not be held up to prove that foul balls can become fair, but rather a perfectly good reason why they should not. That they left that out on the board just tells me that even the best of us screw up royally. What a horrible decision.

But don't you see that the unringing of this bell was WRONG. Surely we should not use this as an example to teach by.