Changing Calls?

[IamMatt]

Sorry for the lack of clarity. In the second play (as I observed it) F4 was facing the runner coming from 1B, knees pretty straight, and applying the tag by mostly bending at the waist. She successfully tagged the runner befor she reached 2B. As the runner's slide continued, her feet knocked F4's feet slightly back towards 2B, so that in her bent-over position, F4's feet could no longer support her completely, and part of her weighted shifted to her hands, which were on the runner. So the runner was on the ground in her "just-slid" position, and F4 was in a sort of butt-in-the-air bent-over position, like you would be if you stood upright with your legs only slightly bent, touched your toes with your fingers, then started walking forward with your hands while leaving your feet still.

Once they were in that postition, they stopped, and, the ump having made the call during the slide, they started to get up (F4 first) and while she was sort of walking her hands back, the ball fell out of F4's glove. I would estimate at least 2 seconds had passed from the time the "Out" call was made and the time the ball fell out of her glove.

I could understand the call change better if, while getting up, she maybe moved or lifted her glove and it showed that the ball had been on the runner's body under her glove, but that was not the case. The ball fell out of the glove as she was lifting her glove had up.

Don't know if that helps with your thinking about the situation or not.

I think a big part of my question is that in both cases, the ump appeared to be changing his call in reaponse to a shout by the opposing coach. Had the call been sort of a simultaneous "Out! No, her foot was off the bag, Safe!" it would have seemed more appropriate since everybody is human and it would be better to spontaneously correct a misspoken call than to leave a bad call in place for fear of looking bad by changing it.