SP (ASA) Ball hitting batter.....

[dsimp8]

since stealing is allowed now in SP,I have a question about a situation that,if I don't ask about it,will come up.
Let's say you have a runner on 1st,the ball is pitched and it hits the batter and skips away from the catcher. Is it a dead ball and you return the runner to 1st or do you let it go? If you let it go,is there a penalty for the batter not getting out of the way?

While I'm at it....I had a situation the other night where there was a runner on 1st adn the ball was pitched to the batter. It was going to hit him so he caught it. I had a dead ball batter was out for interfering with a live ball. My question is if there are NO runners on and the batter catches the ball,is it an out also??

In the first situation, where the batter was hit by the pitch, I would declare dead ball right away and runner returned to 1st. No penalty for not getting out of the way. If you look at the ASA rule book, it clearly states that the ball is dead if it hits the batter and no play can happen.

Second situation, where the batter caught it, would have been a dead ball, no penalty because there's nothing in the rules that states the batter can't do that (I've looked myself and can't find anything that would reference that). However, I would warn the batter about doing that because it puts both teams at a disadvantage.

Last situation is just a dead ball. No penalty.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally posted by Ref Ump Welsch
In the first situation, where the batter was hit by the pitch, I would declare dead ball right away and runner returned to 1st. No penalty for not getting out of the way. If you look at the ASA rule book, it clearly states that the ball is dead if it hits the batter and no play can happen.

Second situation, where the batter caught it, would have been a dead ball, no penalty because there's nothing in the rules that states the batter can't do that (I've looked myself and can't find anything that would reference that).

Then you didn't look at 7.6.P. It is illegal to intentionally contact a pitched ball.

HOWEVER, since the SP players have been doing this forever, Butler, Pollard and associates on the NUS have determined there is no penalty or warning. It is simply a dead ball if the batter contacts the pitched ball with any part of their body, or bat if the ball is rolling on the ground and the intention isn't to put it into play. All runners would return to the base occupied at the time of the pitch.

Mike,

You have a good point, but can you actually justify it was intentionally contacting the ball? (I'm being a devil's advocate here) What if the player brought his hand up to "shield" himself and ended up catching it? I guess that's why Butler and Pollard and the boys decided to "let it slide" so to speak.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally posted by Ref Ump Welsch
Mike,

You have a good point, but can you actually justify it was intentionally contacting the ball? (I'm being a devil's advocate here) What if the player brought his hand up to "shield" himself and ended up catching it? I guess that's why Butler and Pollard and the boys decided to "let it slide" so to speak.

That's why we get the big bucks to make those judgment calls.

The exact reason for allowing the player to catch the ball is because they have been doing it forever and they believe it would cause more problems if they started ruling players out for such actions than just allowing them to continue what they have been doing for years. This was discussed ad nauseum this past weekend.