Left Early on a Caught Fly
 

Runner on 3rd, creeping up the line on the pitch, which is lined to F5 who catches, lands on the bag, rolls, sees R1 scrambling to get back and dives to tag the bag or the player, as R1 beats F5 back to the bag.

What do you have?

Safe. It'a an appeal so it has to be deliberate. Falling on the bag wasn't it. At least in OBR. Does FED have accidental appeals?

FED does not have accidental appeals.

I agree with no out.

No they do not. And have fun 'splainin' this one to the coach. "It's not an appeal blue, he just got doubled up!"

"caught fly"
 

Your OP, isn't a typical "retouch" scenario...nor is your OP about a fly ball, but seemingly a diving line drive.

He catches the line drive, F5 also knows that he's going to double off R3 at least at the levels I work. I've got an out on the "appeal" as well as the catch of the line drive.

Where is the "unmistakable" portion of the appeal? He just happened to fall on the base on purpose - or was he just there because that's where he had to be to catch the ball?

I understand where you're coming from Rich. And I agree with part II of your above post. He was where he had to be which happened to be on the base while doubling R3 off of the base.

To answer your question:

In this case one and the same...he's not going to be on the base mid-dive yelling "appeal, appeal, appeal"


IMO, the action of catch and appeal would be nearly simultaneous...in this play, we need to call what is expected, not necessarily the black and white of the rule. To me, that would be the proper call to make in interpreting spirit of the appeal rule.

We know the defensive dugout is certainly going to expect R3 to be out...and IMO, the offense would expect him to be out as well. To call R3 safe using the unmistakable portion of the rule would be improper interpretation and picking up the dirty end of the stick.

It certainly would be a neat play to see on video...because I can see some things playing out in my head that would lead me toward your line of thinking too.

OK. I admit I significantly dumbed down the situation to get at the heart of the matter. (And Johnny, you're wrong - an appeal must be AN APPEAL. This was not - the touch was accidental, AND the fielder tried to go get the runner out after contact with the bag ... even more blatantly so in the REAL situation below).

Here's the actual situation that happened on Sunday.

Runner on first, stealing. Looping liner/low fly ball to F3. R1 keeps going past 2nd as F3 makes a shoestring catch, stumbles - hitting the bag on the way - then fires to third to get the out, throwing it over the fence.

I award home, DC requests time and comes out to argue that there was an appeal at 1st. I get with BU, he confirms we have the same thing - no appeal, contact with the bag was accidental. He continues to have a fit and eventually ejects himself.

UIC, who was there, tells me we blew the call three times - once on the touch of first (His words: "it's not an appeal, it's a force"), 2nd - the award should have been 2nd base, since "the runner legally had to return... and his two bases were 1st and 2nd; and 3rd for not calling the out on the appeal during the argument (DC never says, "runner left early" or any words I could stretch into a dead ball appeal - just "my fielder touched the bag", etc.)

I promised UIC I would post this here, and that I would post in this way - first as "what I was calling an accidental appeal", then with the full sitch. He promised he'd check here to see the "verdict". This was my first time working for this UIC.

And with no worry of offense, honestly ... my last. (Sorry sir ... I can't work in an area where the UIC's rules knowledge is this far off.)

No one said he needed to yell anything.


If he makes some action like swatting at the base with his glove, or sticking out his leg to touch the base, or ... then that meets the "umistakeable" spirit of the rule. Just stumbling over the base because of gravity, doesn't. Heck, if F5 thought he had made an appeal, he wouldn't have dived back at the base.

I agree with you...seeing the entire situation allows me to "see" the scenario better as I stated in the last sentence of my previous post.

The issue with some of these scenarios is that at least for me, I picture it a certain way and you picture it another way, neither of us were wrong in ruling based on what we thought we saw by reading his initial post.

Since mbcrowder completely rewrote the post with the whole story, I know the rule, and I would agree with bob, mbcrowder, and rich, but I will defend my post based upon what I thought I "saw" in the original post. "accidental" was your judgment based on what you saw...I saw something different. I don't want to split hairs here guys, this is a good discussion and in mbcrowder's new and improved post, I would've called it the same way...and probably told the UIC something similar too. Funny that they didn't protest the game before he got dumped though...(yes, he would've lost the protest)

johnny,

No, that would be properly ruling on the play - your "spirit" interpretation is incorrect. Both the letter and spirit of the rule require an unmistakeable act that indicates the fielder is appealing the infraction.

If the fielder didn't think he appealed, neither do I.

JM

In both plays, the fielder's attempt to retire the runner after the touch of the bag shows that he wasn't trying to appeal with the touch.

Fed's oft-mentioned "accidental appeal" was actually an accidental force out that was commonly interpreted as an appeal. It derived from the unique, now-discarded Fed ruling that a runner who beat the throw at 1B (even by several steps) but missed the bag was to be called out when F3 gloved the ball on the bag, with no appeal necessary. Fed extended this "logic" to all bases. For example, R1 missed 2B on a hit to RF, beat F9's throw to 3B, and F5 then tagged him. R1 was out, no appeal, for missing 2B. Same if an infielder with the ball kicked dirt off a missed base to which a runner was forced.

The OP is a HTBT, but F5's subsequent attempted tag would indicate to me that his falling on the bag was not an appeal. Conversely, if F5 merely got up and immediately proceeded toward his dugout, I might give the out on appeal.

First of all, in the first situation F5 had and oppurtunity to make it look like an appeal by stopping all action after landing on the bag. The fact that he chased the runner killed that idea.

Secondly Mike, I think you UIC needs to rethink his ruling because, well its just wrong.

OK, Mr. UIC has seen the responses and believes me on the appeal sitch. He doesn't believe me on the base award of home. Can someone please elucidate?