22 years, 1 blarge

[youngump]

Originally Posted by rwest

You are arguing against conventional wisdom on this play based on the fact that when a foul is "called" is not defined in the rule book. Yet you also recommend a mechanic that is not defined. You can't have it both ways. If you are going to argue against the consensus on this, you have to come up with something that is supported, IMHO.

True it happens, but there is no case play either way on that. There is when two officials call two different fouls on the same play. I believe the implication is that when you signal a preliminary that you are making a call. That is why we are taught to not signal on a double whistle until one official defers to the other.

But that isn't a valid way of doing textual interpretation. The case play refers to "calling" a foul. You choose to define that to mean making a preliminary signal. And you could be right that this was the intent but you can't defend that from the text only. You can't soundly say that no one can criticize your attribution unless they have a valid attribution for what they suggest.
It may be that the intent of this case play is as most on this board feel it is. Not my game, so I'm happy to defer to the majority their. But as written that's not what it says. I'm fine with that as there are things in the softball rulebook that don't really mean what they say and someone who knows what is going on just has to explain what was meant.
A natural reading of this passage requires you to figure out what is meant by calling. If you believe it's making a preliminary determinative signal (as opposed to the preliminary signal that it is a foul), then I'm curious how you differentiate these two cases:
A. In your PCA with no one poaching, you see an obvious PC, blow your whistle to get it and in a serious brain cramp hit your hands to your waist. Oops, sorry coach my bad, PC.
B. Double whistle on an obvious PC. You do the same thing but since you're partner signaled the PC erroneously you can't fix your mistake even though you never intentionally called the block.
And the case play isn't enough to get you there.
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