How to "Call" a ball not caught

[UmpJM]

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

TEE I agree however, IMO the more interesting question is this.

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You are the PU

Your partner as in this OP says NOTHING. You are:

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2. You are UNCERTAIN if the ball was one hopped or not BUT your PARTNER says nothing. Do you say "No catch" figuring if it was a catch your partner would have said so.

In Summary: What should the PU do in this OP if his partner is NOT signalling or saying ANYTHING.

Pete Booth

Pete,

Interestingly, I had this happen this past Sunday during a HS fall ball game.

Only differences were the ball was hit to F4 and the play started with an R2 & R3.

I honestly couldn't tell whether the F4 "trapped" or "caught" the ball.

My partner had a good look at the play and signalled -NOTHING. I was a bit taken aback. I wondered if he thought this was my call.

As I was debating with myself whether to "poach" the call, the F4 threw to F6 at 2B (both runners had taken off on contact) and my partner then ruled "SAFE!", leading me to conclude he had judged "No Catch".

The F6 then threw home where the catcher tagged out the R3 attempting to score. Action relaxed with the BR at 1B and the R2 on 3B.

Oddly, neither coach came out to discuss the play with either me or my partner.

A half inning later, I gave my partner the "let's talk" signal. I verified that he thought it was his call to make (he thought so too) and suggested that it might be better to come up with a decisive "No Catch" mechanic should a similar play occur in the future. He agreed that would be a good idea.

So, what I did when this happened was - NOTHING. A very uncomfortable couple of seconds from my perspective, and I can't believe we didn't have a bit of a "discussion" about it with a coach.

JM