drop third strike

kbaerslt · #1 (**permalink**) Wed May 01, 2002, 08:45pm

Batter makes contact with a dropped third strike that the cather has blocked. The batter is outside the batters box when this happens. Is he out or safe? There are no runners on base.

bob jenkins · #2 (**permalink**) Wed May 01, 2002, 10:06pm

Quote:

Originally posted by kbaerslt
Batter makes contact with a dropped third strike that the cather has blocked. The batter is outside the batters box when this happens. Is he out or safe? There are no runners on base.

If it's unintentional, play on.

TwoBits · #3 (**permalink**) Thu May 02, 2002, 09:28am

This discussion has come up before. In FED, the act must be judged intentional to call it interference. In OBR, no such act is specifically covered in the rules, so when it happened in an OBR game I was umping, me and my partner decided that the catcher had a chance to make a play on the ball, and since the batter didn't interfere intentionally, that the ball was live and the batter beat the throw to first.

Incidently, in FED softball, the batter-runner is called out automatically in this case. Intent is not a factor.

Manny A · #4 (**permalink**) Fri May 03, 2002, 11:36am

"In OBR, no such act is specifically covered in the rules, so when it happened in an OBR game I was umping, me and my partner decided that the catcher had a chance to make a play on the ball, and since the batter didn't interfere intentionally, that the ball was live and the batter beat the throw to first."

A play in Jaksa/Roder that covers this type situation provides the OBR interpretation:

R1, two outs. A strike three is blocked (not caught) by the catcher, and the batter-runner, starting his advance to first, kicks the ball, or contacts the catcher who is trying to field the ball: neither case is interference, but if either hindrance was an intentional action, disregarding an advance, there is interference.