Well, the above post, pretty much wraps it up for me. I've seen all I need to read about this one. Nice post mbyron!

i look at it this way, slow roller too short, runner beats throw by a half-step but misses first, if all that is needed to get an out was touching first, then, as long as F3 maintained contact with the base, and had clean control of the ball, would you not then be forced to call the runner out? BR needs to be tagged.


steve

The appeal must be obvious, in your sit. I signal safe and say "no he didn't" attempt, nor fake, to second. D has to tell ya what their doing.

Or any other baseball, all of the rd party rules interpretave junk books out there. They are for philosophical discussions, pointers, that sorta thing.

OBR yes they do, but not in FED. See 8.2.3, which has BR out after F3 "casually steps on first base, though he believes the runner has beaten the throw."

How FED knows what F3 believes is another matter...

Perhaps you were still out of the country at the time, but FED eliminated the accidental appeal. They failed to clean up the case book, however. They sent memos out to ignore 8.2.3 I don't know why it's still there.

I was aware of eliminating the accidental appeal. The existence of the memo would be decisive, of course.

I found 8.2.3 most recently in the 2008 "Rules by Topic" that NFHS publishes. Weird that this edited treatment of the rules would still have a banished case play.

I'll stop posting that FED wants an out here. :o

yep, had a brain lock there, came too me in the middle of the day, had forgotten about the change, thanks for not being too harsh on me.

steve

Doesnt to me.

When does he pss it? When he passes some parallel line between 1B and 2B? Or the legal 3' margin of same? What about the "run box", is it considerd here?

Has he? He acquired it.

"Return" as in snail moving in the general direction of the acquired base that he missed? Can he overrun it again and start the sequence all over?

Forgetting the fact that you've missed the "new" FED interps, noneof this is reasonable.

Set aside whether it was an accidental appeal or not. The out was given by stepping on the bag, no tag was required.

"B1 is out. Because a force play is being made on the runner and is the result of continuing action, F3 is required to appeal the missed base and does so by stepping on the missed base."

You can't set aside the issue of an accidental appeal -- that's the whole point of this case, and why FED seems to have in some sense set it aside.

But you're not going to simply signal out when the defense has no clue that they're appealing...remember when the old FED appeal required no action by the defense...the umpire simply called it on a missed base? That wasn't too long ago...

There's stepping on the missed base and there's stepping on the missed base. When it's down with obvioius intent to appeal, ring up the out, when the field trips over it or just touches it as he passing by...that's not an appeal in FED...anymore.

Garth -

Is that memo on the NFHS website? Thanks.

Either may be tagged.
 

The rulebook clearly states that either the base or the runner may be tagged in order to be put out. The only restriction noted is that the ball must be alive. The interpretation you cite originally came from Nick Bremigan (RIP). He transfered the requirement to tag the runner at home plate when he is in the immediate vicinity and returning, to every other base. Unfortunately, this is not the opinion of most professional umpires. There is no relaxed vs. unrelaxed action noted anywhere. This shows the problem with umpires taking a specific area of the rules, and applying them to other areas of the field. This often occurs with plays where contact occurs with a runner and fielder, both just doing there job. Specifically addressed for the area around home plate, the fictitious "tangle/untangle" ruling has been applied way too often on the field in situations where interference or obstruction should be called.
Both of these situations are specifically addressed in the Wendelstedt Rules and Mechanics Manual; recently updated for 2008.