Rules Test

[lawump]

Going back to the original post in this thread: we actually discussed that situation in our rules meeting on Sunday.

I asked the group, "what would happen in South Carolina?" Everyone quickly agreed that we would call the runners out in the order that we saw them miss the bases. (If we saw R2 miss third before the B/R missed first, then we would call them out in that order and no run would score).

Everyone seemed quite satisfied with that answer until I (as the discussion moderator) pointed out that the plate umpire would have the responsibility of seeing the touch/no touch at third base, while the base umpire would have that responsibility at first base.

Suddenly the room got very quiet. I took the temporary silence as an opportunity to further point out that if the umpires are doing their jobs, how exactly are we going to determine which occurred first if they occurred at or near the same time?

After which I saw a lot of blank faces in the room. I then told them if they have this play, when they get home they will have to go to this link on the South Carolina High School League website: On Line Ejection Form - All Sports.

This is another reason we need the appeal play in SC. Because with the appeal play, the defense determines the order of outs, not the umpires.