Double first base question

[AtlUmpSteve]

Originally Posted by youngump

It's not allowed if the runner returns. Though you suggest to me perhaps what they were trying for. A live ball appeal can occur before a returning runner returns but a dead ball appeal cannot.

Possibly semantics (as is this entire thread, truthfully), but both a live ball and a dead ball appeal can be made; the result just can't be an out if the runner being appealed has returned or is standing on the base being appealed. And, I submit that THAT is what the sentence in the RS is supposed to be telling us.

So, how is it different than any other missed base? Now, it isn't; but before the rule change to "one big base" after the BR passed first base, it did serve a purpose, if the runner returned to the "wrong" base. I submit this should have been a "housekeeping" editorial change at that time, but remains to confuse some (just like the "wreck" that is obstruction by definition).