Need a ruling on the following situation:

Batter's box is not clearly defined (no inside lines, only outside lines leading up to foul line).

Batted ball hits in front of home plate and rolls forward and left. The umpire ruled a foul ball, citing in his judgement the ball came to rest inside the batters box (but in fair territory). Later on in the game a batted ball came to rest directly in front of home plate - fair ball.

Since a portion of the batters box is in fair territory, was the judgement of the ump correct: any ball that comes to rest inside the batters box (even judgement calls) are foul?

Thanks,
Kevin J Bopp

Speaking ASA.

If the ball is on or to the inside of a foul line, it is fair. The batter's box is irrelevent to this call.

The ball can most certainly come to rest in, or be picked up in, the batter's box and still be fair. I've seen it happen many times. "In the box" fouls involve, for example, a ball hit down onto a batter's foot that happens to be in the fair part of the box, or a ball that bounces up and hits the batter in the box. Those are simply called foul automatically, without attention to whether the ball was technically fair or foul.

But the ump is incorrect to assume that a batted ball in the box is automatically foul.

In one of my books from about 25 years ago, a Major League ump pointed out that it was quite possible for a batter to hit a ball down onto his foot in the box in fair territory. He said that while, technically, the batter would be out, everybody simply accepts that it's a foul, so that's what they call. Maybe MLB has ruled explicity on it since then.

The ball is foul if it hits the batter whle in the box. Baseball changed the rule some years ago, because no called an out when a batter was hit in the batter's box.

Bob

Batted Ball in Batters Box
 

Thanks for the replies. I thought I was correct when I went out to argue the call. The ball did not hit the batter but did land inside the (sic) foul lines.

Kevin J Bopp

greymule,

:D Glad you were talking MLB here....I think it was Steve M.
that had this happen in the "other" sport. [see portion I
turned red, or was that a blush.][grin]

glen