Keystone Kops ending. Probable blown call.
 

[apologies for the length of this post!]

USSSA mens slow pitch

We're in the bottom of the 11th inning. That, in and of itself, is wrong. The league rules say you can only play 2 extra innings, then it ends in a tie. But it was our last of 3 games and we weren't up against the town's 10pm curfew yet. The players wanted to do a 10th inning so we said OK. We're tied after 10 and they ask to play one more. We say OK again. Both sides love us (that would soon change, haha).

Tie game bottom 11. One out, runners on 1st and 2nd. Line drive to shallow left center. The outfielder gets a glove on the ball and drops it. Pretty sure it was intentional, but there's nothing in the rules about an outfielder intentionally dropping the ball, right?

So now the chaos begins. Everyone's yelling. The runners are going, stopping, going. LCF throws to 2nd. My partner calls an out there (though nobody can hear him over all the clamor). 2B throws to third. I'm coming up the line. The throw beats the runner but 3B doesn't tag him. Then he throws over to first.

The defense is celebrating, the offense is confused and protesting. Players are all over the infield. I call time and huddle up with my partner to try and make sense of what just happened.

OK so we've got a force out at 2nd. But on the throw to third, there's no tag, and since the force play is off, we've got him safe. So we say 2 outs, runners at 1st and 3rd.

BUT the defense says they have an out at 1st, too, because they claim the batter never went to first. We say, NO, when the throw went to 1st the batter was there. But they're insisting that the batter walked back to his bench (on the first base side) because he had thought the ball was caught in LCF.

We huddle up again. And here's the problem: neither of us watched the batter. Totally our fault, but in all the confusion we lost track of him. Of course he's standing there NOW, but the defense says he wasn't there when the throw went to first.

I can tell that the defense isn't trying to snow us. And I now have a creeping suspicion that we mistook either the original runner on 1st or maybe the base coach for the batter. But neither my partner nor I could definitively say that the batter HADN'T been on first.

So we stick with the call. Next guy hits a grounder and the 3B boots it. Game over. Defense is pissed. (They might miss the playoffs now.) They're imploring the offense to admit that the batter hadn't run to 1st, but the offense isn't going to cop to it.

I'm pretty sure we kicked that call something fierce. But absent the KNOWLEDGE that the batter hadn't advanced to 1st, we couldnt just take the defense's word for it--however convincing it was.

Sooooo, what, if anything, would you guys do? Aside from the obvious: 1. don't play those two extra innings (luckily, nobody got hurt!); and 2. pay attention to the batter/runner.

Should we tell the league that we played 2 innings that we shouldnt have and that the game should've ended in a tie? While that appears to my sense of fairness, it's a little too close to being an advocate for a team. (Plus, I expect the losing team will do that on their own.)

As for apologizing to a team in situations like this, do you do that? I pretty much did that after the game, acknowledging that we very well may have blown the call, but unfortunately we can't call an out based solely on their argument.

Ugh.

You're right, the last 2 innings shouldn't have been played with the umpires on the field. If the teams wanted to keep going on their own for simple bragging rights, they can do so, but as far as the league is concerned, that's a ball game, and the umpiring crew should leave the field.

If we pretend this play happened in the first inning and not 10 innings later, you did all you could. Yes, the call was probably kicked. If you don't know whether the Batter Base-Runner (USSSA's term) went into the dugout, you can't call it.

I'll take a stab at this and say that with all this confusion taking place so easily, this was probably a lower-level rec league, yes?

+1 to NCASAump. You not only enforce USSSA rules, you are expected to enforce the league rules as well.

"Nice guys finish last" and "no good deed goes unpunished" are facts of life

Doesn't make any sense, but we are talking about ball players.


That's why we have those cool signals :cool:

Sounds like a good call to me.

Just curious how many runners you two umpires can watch? 1B is the last priority and you have to make those decisions as the play developedLook, the defense kicked the play, not you. Catch the ball in LF, no problems. Tag the runner at 3B, no problems. F5 fields the ground ball, no problems.

Apologize for what, doing your job better than they did theirs? You don't know if you blew anything. If you feel compelled to explain yourselves, a simple, "didn't see an out at 1B, so we cannot call it" would suffice.

Just a casual question: Are you saying they would have made the playoffs if they had settled for the tie after 9? If so, that was certainly an interesting decision they made.

But, another consideration for you is... if this game had playoff considerations and if you allowed the game to go past the league rule limits, did the results impact other teams in the league. If so, having approval from the two teams at hand does not seem to be sufficient authority to override the league rules. "Confession" to the league directors might be in order.

Based on what the ruling was from a different sanctioning body for a game earlier this year - where the umpires resumed play after a game-ending condition, I'd suggest that the "losing" team protest through the league administration and even to the sanctioning body.

Mike questions how many runners you can watch. I have to ask... PU has got the play at 3rd after the initial play at 2nd. What is BU doing at this point. I can see somehow not seeing the play at first if F5 holds the ball or throws to pitcher. But I seriously have to wonder what BU was doing when the ball was thrown to first. There is OBVIOUSLY an attempted play there. Why isn't he calling the ballgame?

I hope you made a clear loud safe call at third so everyone knew he was safe.

And NEVER EVER EVER EVER play a game after it's over... no matter who is doing the begging. It has league repercussions, not just team repercussions. It could also have liability repercussions for you.

If this was a league that my association umpired, and if there was a protest filed with the league, my response to the league as the umpire representative is that none of this happened in their game. The game ended earlier; whatever they did after that was not official.

And, I would counsel and remind the umpires that they were on their own after that point, just like calling a pickup game in the street.

Regarding the play, you already got all the right answers.

I don't disagree BU should have followed the ball to 1B. However, I believe it was already stated that the umpires saw a player at 1B, but maybe not the BR. This is an error, but 2 umpires cannot watch 3 runners the entire time without missing one of the plays, possibly the out.

True, but the one runner you're not looking at is CERTAINLY not going to be the one heading to a base that the ball is being thrown to.

Stop and think about the play. The ball is in LF, then to 2B, then to 3B and then to 1B. If I'm BU, I'm coming inside while looking through R1 for a 1st touch. Watching and making the call on the play at 2B and THEN looking for BR. In this play, the BR is the least of my concerns.

If there is a question, I will not hesitate to discuss with my partner, which is what happened here. You are not going to see everything and an umpire must prioritize at times.

I agree with the last sentence... UNTIL the ball is thrown to first. I get losing sight of BR for a moment with all the other action... but if you, as BU, cannot get the play at 2nd (he's out now... is there any reason to keep your focus here? No.), and then between the time it takes to throw to third and then throw to first, you can't manage to be watching first base - you need to pack it up. If multiple throws with multiple runners confuse you so much that you can't be watching a base where the ball is thrown to - it's over. Go home.

Seriously - I thought you were a supervisor. I can't imagine you being at a game where this sitch happens, and you not RIPPING the BU who was not watching first base when the ball was freaking thrown to first base to make a play. WTH was he looking at? PU has third, no play any more at 2nd. To say you can't be ready to make a call at first is completetly asinine. Once that ball is thrown, there is NO OTHER PLACE on the field you should be looking. When F3 caught the ball ... where was the offense? Should be relatively easy to see if BR had run through the bag, or even rounded to 2nd, or was NO WHERE in sight.

The point is the BU has his back to 1st when the ball is coming from LF to 2nd and covering the play there. That is when the BR apparently wandered off, just after the catch, amd might have "abandoned". Is isn't the time of the play at 1st that is the problem, it is the BR during the play at 2nd.

I am not getting that from the OP. Defense is claiming an out because BR "never went to first". So, Mr BU - where is the batter when the ball gets thrown there? Surely BU can make at least the judgement of A) past first, B) on first, or C) nowhere near first or not yet to first. A and B is safe. C is an out. I'm having trouble understanding why this is difficult. I understand that BU did not see BR before the ball started heading toward first - but surely there is enough information to determine if there's an out.

I wasn't referring to the OP. I was responding to your disagreement with Irish (just Mike, not the nationality ;)).