Confused!?!?
 

The Better Half and I went to the movies last night and when we got home I turned on our cable system's own sports channel to see what was on the channel: BCSN, which carries all of the MudHens games live (both home and away). To my delight the MudHens and the Indianapolis Indians were tied (3-3) in the bottom of the 11th inning.

The Indians had a runner on 1B with two outs and the scored still tied in the top of the 12th when something unusual happened. I will admit that I was not paying attention to the count on the batter, but I do remember that count was less that 3 balls and less than 2 strikes. R1 breaks for 2B as F1 delivers to the plate; B4 (RH batter) swings and misses; F2 comes up throwing to F6, but R1 beats the throw. The BU (I assume the U2; the International League is supposed to use 3 Base Umpires but I can't remember the last time I saw a IL game with 3 BUs) makes no safe or out call; he turns toward HP and then turns back to 2B and sends the Runner back to 1B. The THs thought that Batter Inference might have occured, but if BI had occured the inning would have been over because B4 would have been out for BI. Instead, play resumed (and here is where I wish I had paid attention to the count on B4) with F1 pitching to B4 who promptly hit a Double to CF and scoring R1. The Indians win 4-3.

The play was not mentioned in The (Toledo) Blade's coverage of the game this morning.

What could have happened on the attempted steal of 2B?

Happy Fourth of July!!

MTD, Sr.

I can only think of two things, either backswing int or umpire int by PU.

Red flag violation? :D

I agree with TTS, only to add one more thing: A ball fouled into the dirt and then gloved by F2.

I can see UI for the Do Over. But wouldn't the BI be the third out?

MTD, Sr.

Andrew:

That I was my thought too, but the ball was not fouled into the dirt from what I could see in the replay. So I am guessing that TTS's UI is the call that was made.

I am going to try one way to get a definitive answer, one of the rookies in the IL this year is an OhioHSAA registered basketball official, and he became one by taking and passing my OhioHSAA Basketball Officiating classes in the late 1990's. He is a pretty good basketball official too if I say my so myself. He had a great teacher, :D. Anyway I will drop him an email and maybe he can make some inquiries and see what he can find out.

MTD,

No. Backswing INT does not result in an out.

MTD,
I guess you're mostly accustomed to FED rules. In FED, the batter would be guilty of batter interference (Casebook 8.4.1h, 7.3.5f). But in OBR and NCAA, this is not batter interference. 6.06(c) Comment, and 6-2d-2.

It is termed backswing interference or sometimes referred to as weak interference.

To Those Concerned:

Yes, Mark, Jr., and I umpire almost exclusively NFHS, so we are both weak in OBR and NCAA rules. Thanks to all that have contributed so far.

MTD, Sr.