Award of "home run"

[chapmaja]

In practical terms, it would be an error. In the league world of scoring, it is a home run, and the batter should be sending a thank you card to the fielder.

There was a similar situation a couple years ago in a state playoff high school softball game.

High fly ball to deep center. Fielder goes back and is standing at the fence. Ball comes down and hits her glove and goes over the fence. The umpire correctly gives the B-R a 4 base award. The coach nearly gets tossed arguing it should be a ground ruled double because it did not clear the fence in flight. She lost the argument, but to this day maintains the play should have been a G-R double.