Tagup Responsibilities

[AtlUmpSteve]

Originally Posted by chymechowder

gotcha. out of curiosity, then: in ASA with a man on first and a fly ball to left, the base umpire is supposed to have the catch and the tag?

that seems extremely odd to me. why wouldn't home plate take the tag here? I mean, there's only two things happening--why have one guy do both?

What sounds odd to me is why the base umpire would call the routine catch?? Calling catch/no catch is reserved for "going out", which certainly isn't appropriate for a "routine" fly ball.

Let the PU make the routine call, and the BU has the runner; every part of the runner, the tag, the advance to 2nd (if it happens), the return play back to 1st (if it happens). If BU concentrates on the catch (versus first touch), then he will lose the release point by the runner.

If the ball drops, PU picks up the lead runner into 3rd, BU still has 1st and 2nd, like always.