Bunt question
 

Hello,

I was watching a summer high school baseball league here in Virginia in which I saw a strange thing happen. Situation #1 The batter squares too bunt on the squeeze play and misses the ball but he steps on the plate and the umpire calls deadball and sends the runner back too third. This is where it gets hairy the coach comes out and argues that he can step on the plate as long as he does not make contact with the ball at the same time. This is totally legal the coach states, the umpire stuck with his call and the coach heads back too the dugout. I was sitting behind his dugout and he was actually telling his players to step on the plate too confuse the catcher on the squeeze play. I did umpire back in the day and I do know that if you make contact with the plate while hitting the ball you are out and its a deadball.

What if you have a team that steps on the plate on purpose without making contact on these squeeze bunt plays. What is the ruling on this?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

In OBR, only if the batter's entire foot is out of the batter's box when they contact the ball is the batter out. Simply because the batter's foot is touching home plate doesn't mean that he is out of the batter's box.

Not only must he be out of the batter's box but he MUST contact the ball, in this situation there was no contact so no foul.

Sorry to say the umpire was wrong.

Having said that, on this situation if the runner is attempting to come home and the batter squares in front of the catcher for the sole purpose of blocking the catcher from getting to the runner you might have batter interference.

I know of no rule that would allow the PU to send R3 back to third. He could have called the batter out for batter interference if there were 2 outs (7-3-5).

And you're correct that if the batter steps on the plate and contacts the ball (fair or foul) he's out - though most of us do not see where the batter's feet are when he contacts the ball.

You must be quoting FED because in OBR simply touching home plate and contacting the ball isn't enough. The umpire must be sure the batter has a foot completely out of the batter's box before being called out.

The OP said it was a High School summer game; I assumed that meant it was played under Fed rules.

you know the old saying about assuming. here in mass we don't use fed rules in hs.

toooooooo many o's.

Good point. :o