D3K/ abandonment of base

[Little Jimmy]

I think I may have found the answer to this one as I was typing but what the heck. This happened today. Fed. Home team down 9-7. Bottom of 8th. 2 outs. Runners on 2nd and 3rd. Batter has a 2-2 count. Pitch comes in low, batter swings, ball does a skip off the ground into catchers mitt. No tag or put out attempt. I call strike three and watch to see what batter runner will do.

This has been a emotional game (back and forth) and batter turns around and walks a few feet toward the bench, stops in live ball territory and starts crying. Team that thinks it is victorious jumps around, laughs and throws the ball back to the circle and starts to leave the field. After 5-10 seconds coach walks over and without touching her tells her quitely to run to 1st. She composes herself, runs, and is standing on the bag when the defense realizes what happened. After kicking themself in the butt for a few minutes they get the next batter and the game was over.

After the game my partner and I both realized that we lost track of the girl on 2nd. Did she walk off the field in the confusion before batter runner reached 1st? And if she did would that have been the 3rd out and negate batter runners advance? By the way, runner on 3rd stayed there the entire time (for some unknown reason).

Fed 8-6-22 seems to answer my question but is it that cut and dry?

[wadeintothem]

so what did happen to the player from 2nd?

You resumed play it shoulds like.

8.6.22 is as clear a rule as you get..

Why did that runner stop at 1st and why not run home with R1? Coach musta known about that 2nd base runner was off somewhere and did not want to pass her up..

Sounds like funny stuff happened.. more info.

[Little Jimmy]

First of all the teams in question weren't the highest caliber.

Don't really know what happened to the girl on 2nd. Defense is going nuts and heading for the bench. I'm watching batter runner thinking that she's going to walk off the field and be out. I see R1 standing on 3rd the whole time. Field ump is glancing at me to see if we're on the same page and readying himself for a possible call at 1st. Why more people didn't continue running I can't say. As I said, low level teams that weren't real sure of what was going on.

All I know is by the time batter runner got to 1st and defense scrambled back on the field and pitcher picked up the ball, runners were standing on bags and I called time to explain what happened to defensive coach.

After game was over field ump and myself both said we weren't sure where R2 may have wandered off to. We were speculating what would have happened if either runner would have left the field before batter runner.

Originally posted by Little Jimmy
Don't really know what happened to the girl on 2nd. All I know is by the time batter runner got to 1st and defense scrambled back on the field and pitcher picked up the ball, runners were standing on bags and I called time to explain what happened to defensive coach.

After game was over field ump and myself both said we weren't sure where R2 may have wandered off to. We were speculating what would have happened if either runner would have left the field before batter runner.

OK, sounds to me like both you and your partner completely lost track of runner on 2nd. Which tells me that you weren't certain if she ever came off the bag. With this scenario, sounds like you and your partner made the right call (remember, can't guess an out). And since the runner was already standing on the bag when the pitcher "picked up" the ball, don't see nothing wrong.

Only suggestion I have, "lesson learned."

Serg

[tzme415]

It seems like you did just fine, if the runner on 2nd had been too far off the base I think you would have noticed when the defense was scrambling to get on the field that she would have been trying to get back to the bag. Of course if she and the runner on 3rd would have been a bit smarter, they would have acted dejected while walking to the next base. The runner on third would have scored and the runner on 2nd would have made it to third, if not being able to walk all the way home. I guess they either didn't have a third base coach, the third base coach didn't know what was happening, or the third base coach didn't want to say anything to tip off the defense. At the least the runner on third should have scored, but not our problem as umpires. The other thing is was the coach also coaching first base or come out of the dugout to tell the player to go to first? And speaking of the third base coach, since this was a live ball I hope s/he didn't contact the runners either.

[Little Jimmy]

tzme,

To answer your question, coach was 3rd base coach and no contact was made on dejected batter runner.