overthrow

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by WestMichBlue

It wasn't until 1987 that we got the rule that we have today: "All runners will be awarded two bases and the award will be governed by the position of the runners when the ball left any fielder's hand."

WMB

And a lot of umpires did not want to give up possible outs, so there was always the, "you get two on an overthrow, but you have to make them".

IOW, they would not designate areas which probably should have been dead because they still wanted the fielder the opportunity to get the out, but they would still maximize the runner's advancement to two bases.

It damn near took a pick and shovel to get that mentality out of the minds of some of the umpires I knew.