Out of the box

[harmbu]

A left-handed batter is attempting to drag bunt for a hit. Both feet are out of the box as he bunts at the ball. He misses the pitch and the ball hits him. What is the result of this play?

The offensive coach argued that he teaches his players that as long as they have one foot in the box, they will never be called out.

[BJ Moose]

I tried passing this through the universal translator, and even it cannot find the relationship between these two paragraphs.... Maybe Ouiji....

Let's see, the LH batter is already OUT of the box on the way to first... so this pitch misses the plate by 4 or 5 FEET?? (And the Batter still takes a stab at it?) Martian.

Well, it is a strike of course, Yes, he did TRY to hit it, and it hit him so a dead ball. Next...

If he HIT The ball, or touched the ball with the bat and at the time both his feet were on the ground out of batters box then he is out.

[bluezebra]

"The offensive coach argued that he teaches his players that as long as they have one foot in the box, they will never be called out."

1..Offensive coach is a redundancy.

2..That coach better read a rule book, BEFORE handing out such stupid advice.

Bob

[brandda]

Swinging strike. Dead ball.

[GarthB]

A left-handed batter is attempting to drag bunt for a hit. Both feet are out of the box as he bunts at the ball. He misses the pitch and the ball hits him. What is the result of this play?

Let's see now. A LH hitter is at least 4'6" from the plate and he gets hit by a pitch? And he was attempting a bunt? Wow!

Well, if such a thing really happened, deadball strike. But I've love to see a game that has that wild of a pitcher and that stupid of a batter going against each other.

Offensive coach? An oxymoron. Or, given his statement, a regular moron.

GB

[His High Holiness]

Originally posted by bluezebra
"The offensive coach argued that he teaches his players that as long as they have one foot in the box, they will never be called out."

2..That coach better read a rule book, BEFORE handing out such stupid advice.

Bob

Bob;

This reminds me of something that happened in my playing days, admittedly a long time ago. (1969) I was on an NCAA baseball team and our coach was instucting us on what the batter was to do during a steal of second. The coach told us to swing late (assuming less than two strikes) and step across the plate so as to mess up the throw of the catcher.

One of the more knowledgable players on my team raised his hand and said "But coach, that is against the rules."

The coach replied "True, but the umpires that we get will never call it so do what I tell you."

All season long we swung late and stepped across the plate into the way of the catcher throwing to second. Guess what, the coach was right. Not one umpire ever called "INTERFERENCE". Furthermore, I don't remember the defense every complaining about it, either. It was part of the game that both sides played.

Little has changed in the coaching world over the last thirty years. The top coaches are still observing the competence of umpires and adjusting their instructions accordingly. In their minds, the rules are NOT what is written in the rulebook, but rather what is actually called on the field.

For an NCAA coach, his day job depends on winning games. Would you expect him to behave any differently?

I see this all the time in the games that I do. The illegal tactics are obviously coached. The coaches vigorously object when a knowledgeable umpire with courage actually makes one of these tough calls. The yell and scream "Nobody makes that call." That's not exactly the truth, but it's close.

In the specific situation mentioned above, I would guess that well over 90% of NCAA umpires will not call an out when only one foot is out of the box. Most won't call anything even when two feet are out of the box unless it is really blatant.

Finally, you wrote "That coach better read a rule book, BEFORE handing out such stupid advice."

If winning games is what is important to a coach, he will ignore the rulebook and watch the umpires instead. OTOH, if building character is what is important, he might want to start with the rulebook, BUT..

This is America, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." I doubt that character building will overtake winning on our priority list anytime in the foreseable future.

Peter

[greymule]

Peter's correct that in that era, umps didn't call that "step-across-the-plate" interference. As a player, I assumed that if you could make it look like the legitimate follow-through after a swing, you were OK. When I started umping, I was surprised to learn that it was illegal.

I also played NCAA in the late sixties, for a fine coach who later took U of Maine to the college World Series a few times. He was quite knowledgeable about NCAA rules, and in fact helped to write them. I can't imagine him instructing us to break rules on the assumption that the umpires wouldn't enforce them. In fact, he taught the opposite, as he was more afraid that we'd do something legal that umps would rule illegal. I remember, during practice on handling pickoffs, squeeze plays, delayed steals, etc., our coach warned, "Never trust an ump."

Back then a short-lived rule was instituted such that a certain violation during the stretch motion resulted not in a balk but in a ball being called on the batter. One of our pitchers asked whether, to deliver an intentional walk, he should just commit that violation four times and not risk throwing a pitch away. The coach advised against it, since the umpire might call a balk anyway. Once, however, that pitcher did try to be clever and deliver an intentional walk by that method, but he didn't commit the violation "correctly" and was in fact balking. So he kept stepping off and starting over. The umps ignored it (and the other team said nothing). Then he tried to be obvious about it, to the point that the BU asked the shortstop (me), "What's he doing?" I replied that he was trying to get a ball called under rule such-and-such, problem was, he was actually balking. So the ump watched carefully and after the pitcher's next attempt said, "Yeah. You're right. That is a balk." The pitcher eventually gave up and threw four outside pitches.