Correcting a mistake
 

Gentleman-

Here is the situation: FED 2-2 count, 2 out. Batter swings on an inside pitch, strikes the hands of the batter, and rolls fair. I (PU) proclaim, "Foul ball...{realizing my mistake immediately}...The ball is dead, it's dead!!" I end up calling the batter out and we move on. My question, once I call it "foul" have I make an uncorrectable mistake? I'm having trouble finding in the rules that I can or cannot correct this brain fart. Thanks

-Josh

In yelling foul, the only thing uncorrectable is that this ball is dead (which is fine in this case because it IS dead). You can certainly correct the call. Especially in a case like this when the ball was actually dead BEFORE you made the incorrect call. You may look bad for a second, but this is definitely correctable.

If you were to yell foul on a ball that ended up actually being fair - THAT is uncorrectable, as you killed the play when you said FOUL.

Those were exactly my thoughts. In fact, in my discussion with my partner I used the fair/foul ball example as uncorrectable.

I am assuming the other codes are the same in this situation. Thanks

-Josh

The definition of Foul Ball (2-16), including the part about inadvertantly being declared foul by the umpire, applies only to a batted ball. Since you didn't have a batted ball, you declaration meant nothing.

Thanks for the additional clarification Bob. It's one of those mistakes that if I would have waited a hair longer, I would not have made the mistake

-Josh

just give a "Correction: ball struck batter, batter swung, batter's out". You didn't miss a call, it was just the wrong words coming out of your mouth. Yes, I've done the "Ball" while hammering a strike. Just a quick "Time, that was a strike" clarifies the situation up.

My brother was playing last night and a similar situation happened. The batter attempted to check swing, it appeared to hit his hands, and it went fair. The home ump threw his hands in the air, but then decided that he didn't hold up. After about five seconds, F2 picked the ball up and threw it to F3 and the base ump called him out. In my opinion, he made the right move. I think it is better to make the right call than to simply save face.

So the batter was called out? That's wrong whether he attempted at the pitch or not.

I did something similarly stupid this year.

I was the PU. With a runner on 3rd, the batter swung and tipped the ball. For some inexplicable reason I call "Foul!" but the catcher actually caught the ball. The runner at 3rd had taken an excessive lead-off and the catcher threw down there nearly picking off the runner.

Nobody said anything and I just shook my head in disgust (at myself).

I was just thankful that the runner was safe because, if he had been tagged out, I'm pretty sure I would have had to disallow it. What do you guys think?

In this situation, neither occurred.

Wrong. For too many reasons to mention. Arms in the air - play is dead. Went fair off the hands? Irrelevant where it went. Seems to me he made the wrong call for 2 reasons. No face saved.

Absolutely. You said foul --- play was over at that instant.

JD, you made a mistake as you know by saying foul, (oops...so what). OK, that's settled, you knew that was wrong so good job there! It may lead to a brief argument, but fixable. Coach, I came up foul when I should have said time, (PLEASE don't say dead ball). The ball came off his hand on the swing. So it's an immediate dead ball and the batter is out since it was strike three. Depending on the coach at the lower levels, you just might wind up with and ejection. But you got it right in the end.

This is FED rules? It's a batted ball, and didn't touch the ground, so the "foul" call means nothing,