Appeal Play?
 

I'm helping out umpiring an intramural 12" softball league. I used to umpire baseball but it's been awhile so I thought I'd throw this out there...

Man on first, one out. Batter hits a fly ball to left field. Thinking there are two outs, the runner on first is off on contact. He rounds second by the time the catch is made in left field. When he realizes that the catch was actually the second out, he beelines back to first, without re-touching second.

Would the defensive team have to appeal to second base to get the call?

bas2456,

Yes.

JM

Yeah, if they want the out.

Unless they were playing in South Carolina. :cool:

And using high school rules.

You can tag the runner.

Either way you have to let the umpire know what you're doing.

Thanks for the help, everyone

Make sure you appeal to the right umpire. I would say appealing to the umpire whose duty wasn't to watch the retouch of 2B or didn't see it would only result in a safe signal. And for arguments sake, state exactly what the appeal is about.

The umpires should have enough game awareness that an appeal is impending and communicate to each other whos call it is.

Reference, please, for making an appeal to any specific umpire. FED, NCAA and OBR all say some variaion of "a runner is out on appeal..." with no guidance to the defense about to whom they should direct the appeal specifically.

As the OP indicated the sitch happened in a softball game, I'll reference NCAA Softball:

15.12 Umpire's Responsibility for an Appeal
Once an appeal is made to the umpire responsible for the play, that umpire will make the proper call.

The CCA Softball Manual (6.1 Appeals/P.70) states:
"If the appeal is directed to the wrong umpire, i.e. the play was not in her (his) calling area , that umpire should alert her (his) partner who is responsible for the call."