Tag with wrong hand ... do you signal safe?
 

Hi all,

11 year old girls, opening night.

Well, I think I messed this one up ... but ... let me know ... probably too many words here, but the actual question is down at the very bottom.

R2, R3 ... passed ball, R3 heads for home and R2 heads for 3rd.

Ball bounces right back to catcher, so R3 spins around and races back to 3rd.

Of course, R2 is now scrambling back to 2nd. Catcher throws to SS who tags R2 with glove but the ball is in her other hand!

SS thinks she did an ok thing, R2 thinks she's out and trots diagonally across the infield and straight into the dugout.

So, I didn't signal safe or call missed tag, I just watched her and when she entered the dugout I called her out because the defensive coach told the girl to go stand on 2nd with the ball, as an appeal for a missed base. No comments from anyone, so I figured I might have called it right.

Checked with my UIC later and he said I should have signalled safe on the tag. At the moment it happened, I was thinking it's not like a 'foot off the bag' call at first, the runner was still a good distance from 2nd. If I had called safe, then I might have given an unfair advantage to either the SS or the runner (whoever thought faster on what to do next).

That's my question, do you signal safe if a runner gets tagged with a wrong hand?

Thanks in advance for any comments/teaching/etc.

bobbrix

I think a safe signal was appropriate but hardly a requisite. Any runner who gives up without hearing an out call is not really in the game.

Sure you would. There was a play made on the runner, you should call something. You would have called her out had she tagged her with the ball so why wouldn't you call her safe when she missed the tag. You always make a call on a play unless it is obvious ie. play at first and ball overthrown to fence there would be no need for a call. In your play the outcome was not so clear, the runner was unaware, so make the call.

I yell "NO TAG" along with giving the safe signal.

"No," or "No tag" with a safe signal should have been made.

You have an attempted tag - you need to announce the result of that attempt - SAFE in this case. I am not in the camp that would announce, "No tag", as half the field will only here you say TAG... but I wouldn't jump on an umpire who did so. I'd definitely be verbalizing SAFE as well on one like this.

That is why many codes and clinics will have the umpire simply say "No," as opposed to including the word "tag."

Heard exactly that at the Denton clinic this year (or was it last...), and the opposite, ("No tag!!!" and "No Catch!!!") in Huntsville. If our bosses can't decide, how can we.

Personally, I usually just say safe - but "NO!" is much better than "No Tag!" in my book.

I prefer, and use, the one word phrases. "No" for absence of a tag, failure to catch the ball, or when asked for a check swing by my partner. "Yes" is used to indicate, when I am PU, that she did in fact make an effort to hit/bunt the ball, or as BU when asked for a check swing by my partner that met the criteria. (Wasn't Denton last year?)