Ground rules question

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by freejoe69

I contended that in pre-game, umpires had emphasized that on ball in that area, or ball rolling under outfield fence, play would continue in the absence of an outfielder signal.

JMO, but they should know better. As others have pointed out, that only applies when it is too hard for the umpires to tell unless one of them goes out there. If it's pretty obvious that the ball entered DBT, then there's no reason to keep the ball Live just because the fielder forgot to raise his hands.

I umpired on a field that had a tarp in front of the backstop. At the base of the tarp right behind home plate, there was a good 12-inch tear. A ball could go through the tear and end up behind the tarp. There were plenty of times where the catcher would go digging for the ball when that happened. Just because he did that, it doesn't mean the ball should stay live. You can see the ball is out of play, so make the call.