Help on a foul ball?
 

OK, I am asking FP ASA, but it happened tonight in little league game, and it is a "What if?"

No one on, no outs, fair pop up to F3, BR already on first. F3 misses ball and it back spins foul. I have a foul ball.

Batter does come back and asks why foul? I tell him it hit fair but no one touched it and it then rolled foul.

In between innings the coached asked me too why foul? I explained, and he says I think F3 touched it, well by chance F3 was standing there warming up to bat and says, "ya, that nicked my glove."

First, thanks kid.

Now here is the question, if I had a part in the field, they would have had the better angle to see the touch by F3, Since I was at home it deflected right at me. Can I go to my part for help? If so, and we have the touch, we then have a fair ball, BR awarded first?

I know that is what I would do, but can I. Mechanics book say anything on it?

Gotta love it.

You really have two options here. Tell the F3, "no, that sensation you felt from your glove wasn't really the ball," and stick to your foul ball call.

The other option is for the PU to ask their partner if they saw it touch the glove in fair territory. The ONLY time I would EVER do this is if there was some major imperative to get the call right, such as a game-ending play. In the sitch provided, if I were to go this route, I would simply rule a fair ball and put the BR on 1B.

However, in all likelihood, I would stick to my guns and call it foul.

You can only cleanly reverse a fair call to a foul. Reversing foul to fair is rarely clean and usually nearly impossible to rectify. Once you call it foul, everybody stops (or their coaches will claim they did) so you pretty much have to live with it. 10-3-C does allow it to be rectified, but unless the play is pretty simple, it can get very messy.

Exactly. Which is why 99% of the time, I'll stick with the foul call.

I'll agree with Tom, Dave, and Dave....

Once that bell is rung to call the ball foul....it's awful hard to unring it.

About the only thing you could have done is to call the ball fair if you think it may have touched F3 at all, then go to your partner for help.

As Tom said, it's much easier to change a fair ball to foul than vice versa.

As for the mouthy kid....just tell the coach that if that's what happened, I missed it and we are moving on....

I thought as much too.

If I did have a part and if they had seen the touch this wold had been that 1% of the time we could have changed the call and not have been messy. Since the BR was already standing on 1st when the touch happened and we had no other runners.

Where did the ball land?

It landed fair bounced twice and spun back foul. I also thought the F3 missed it because he moved for it not to hit him after bouncing.

I know it landed fair, but where? Behind 2nd base, in front of 1st base?

My bad, Right on the first baseline, about 30 feet down the line, hence me not having any angle from home to see it nick F3's glove.

I still do not think it really hit the glove, and my golf ball this weekend makes me think that. I am spinning a shot into a green. I hit it well and going right at flag. Ball hits 3 feet behind the flag, like planned, but does not spin back, rolls off back of green. My brother goes "tough break". I was like "What you mean?" The ball nicked the flag stick and lost most of its spin. It did not hit hard enough for me to hear it or really see it, but just hard enough to take the spin off. Well that foul ball acted like it never hit a thing. On its second bounce it spun right right back, just like it should. If it nicked the glove it would take some spin off.

The ball even landed between F3's legs, then he tried not to touch it, so I am going off that reaction too.

Sorry, coach. That's what I saw.

Cant unring that bell.. I wouldnt even spend much time discussing it. And we arent going to a partner because I'm not turning it, so its over. Play ball. I saw what I saw.