Brain Teaser
 

A friend forwarded this to me as a baseball rules brain teaser. Rule on the play as if it had occurred in an MLB game.

Obviously, this is purely an academic question but it's kind of fun to unravel.

I have worked my way through this play and arrived at a ruling that I think is correct, but I would be interested in some of your solutions.

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Situation: Runners on 2nd and 3rd, no outs. New batter who is right-handed.

Play: As the pitcher begins his wind-up, both runners takeoff running. The suicide squeeze is on! Startled, the pitcher hesitates during his wind-up. The umpire points at him and says, "That's a balk!" but the pitcher delivers the ball anyway. The batter squares around to bunt. The catcher, in his eagerness to tag out the runner advancing toward home, moves forward, out of his crouch, and makes contact with the batter. Nonetheless, the batter manages to bunt the ball on the ground only about 8-feet out in front of the plate. As the catcher attempts to pursue the batted ball he gets tangled up with the batter who, simulataneously, is trying to advance toward 1st. The catcher is trying to get the ball and the batter is trying to get to 1st. The contact occurs in the area immediately out in front of the plate. The catcher manages to pick up the ball but there is no hope in tagging out the scoring runner. He attempts to the throw the batter out at 1st but his throw hits the batter-runner in the helmet while he has one foot in and one foot out of the running lane. Everybody is safe. One run has scored. The runner who was originally on 2nd ends up on 3rd.

YOU MAKE THE CALL!

Balk, CI and Running Lane INT.

The order in which these infractions occured has no bearing on how to apply the penalties.

By virtue of batter out due to RLI, enforce CI. Since runners were stealing, they are awarded those bases they were attempting to steal. BR 1st, R2 3rd, R3 home. Since all runners, including the BR, advanced one base, the balk is disregarded. OM has option of penalty or play. If OM chooses penalty, the above is enforced. If OM wants play, BR would have been out for RLI absent the balk. Since a balk was called, and all runners including the BR did not advance one base, you ignore the RLI and enforce the balk. R3 home, R2 3rd. Batter returns to bat with pitch nullified.

At all levels of amatuer ball, I will be explaining both options to OM and let him choose prior to making any awards.

At the pro level, I am making the CI award at the end of play and letting OM ask about the options. In fact, I'm sure both skippers will be out for an explanation anyway.

TIME!

Rule 7.07 states that when a catcher interferes with a batter during a squeeze attempt, play is killed immediately. So all that stuff that happened afterwards in your play is moot. The penalty is a balk on the pitcher and the batter gets first base. Since everybody is advanced one base, the first balk is ignored.

So the ruling is the same as the play ended up. R3 scores, R2 gets third, and the batter gets first.

I believe that as soon as F2 committed CI, TIME should be called and the balk enforced. CI never happened nor did anything else. Award R3 home and R2 3rd, batter stays in the box to hit again.

Of course, in FED, TIME would be called on the balk so nothing else happened.

Absolutely correct! Brain freeze. Very nice.

I was also thinking that 7.07 covers everything, too. That is a very specific rule with a dual penalty; a balk and catcher's interference. But I was thinking - what if, instead of bunting the ball in front of the plate, the batter had hit a homerun?

I'm trying to figure out how you'd have a balk by the F1 during his windup that didn't result in the play being killed. If he stops his motion during the windup, the ball would be dead from the balk, would it not?

It's a do-over.

JJ

Seems to me 7.07 covers it. Score R3, R2 to 3b, BR to 1b.

Batter hitting a HR in a squeeze play situation is a 3rd world play and umpires might use 9.01c to permit the HR to stand. Just sayin..

This is why NFHS Rules make this play easy. The ball becomes immediately when the Pitcheer balked. Only one thing for the umpires to do but enforce the balk.

MTD, Sr.

Not in OBR. Only immediately dead in FED.

7.07 isn't only about squeeze plays. It also calls for an immediate dead ball if R3 is attempting a straight steal of home. So the HR would not be allowed to stand.

If F1 came to a complete stop and never delivered the pitch, you might be able to kill play right after that. But in this scenario, he only hesitated and then restarted his motion to pitch. You really can't kill it until all play ends.

Rich, I'm not talking about the Fed rule. I'm fully aware of what the OBR rule is.

I still can't envision a balk where the pitcher, pitching from the windup hesitates but doesn't stop. Mechanically it doesn't seem possible.

You obviously haven't umpired a LL game in a while, if at all, huh? :p