hand's part of the ball

[Camron Rust]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee

You're right, Juulie; imo the only options by rule are a foul on B1 or a B throw-in. Just my own observation, but I think that most of the time though A gets the ball back through the idea conveyed before by somebody--the principle that B1 actually caused the ball to go OOB.

Now, how does everyone else call this play in real life?

A foul on B1 is not a rule option. The rule quite clearly says this is not a foul if the contact was on only the hand and the target of was the target rather than the hand.

If B1 does not contact the ball in the process, the only valid rule option is OOB on A1. By definition, A1 caused the ball to go out. The defintion is that the ball is caused to go OOB by the last person to contact or be contacted by the ball before it goes OOB...it is not caused to go out by the person who provided the impetus for the ball going out.

Consider B1 batting a ball towards the OOB line where, just before it is OOB, it is touched ever so slightly by A1. Are you suggecting that A should get the ball since it would have gone out anyway? (I don't think so).

Now in practice, I don't recall seeing a time when B1 really contacted only the hand. There is practially always contact on both the ball and the hand...with B1 often having the final contact. Given that, the possibility of calling it OOB on B1 and returning the ball to A is a valid possibilty...and will most alway be my call. However, I have seen situations where A1 clearly was in contact with the ball slightly after B1 hits it...A1 trying to maintain control of the ball, even if only briefly.

[Edited by Camron Rust on Jul 17th, 2005 at 03:12 AM]