june carifications

[DaveASA/FED]

Originally Posted by umpire12

well..lets see if we can break this down for you....which part of this isnt clear? what part would you have to see?

... with runners on 1B and 2B and the batter takes off for 1B thinking it is ball four causing runners to advance. To eliminate confusion for both the offense and the defense, the umpire should call “time.”

Not to speak for Irish but for me if I have a BR that takes a couple of steps for 1B on ball 3 and the catcher still has the ball (not making a play on a runner) then I'm going to kill it and bring them back to the plate. But if I have a smart catcher that is throwing down to 3B to get R1 who is jogging to 3B thinking it's ball 4 then I'm not taking that play away from the defense. This is why it might depend on the play to see what I personally would do in an actual situation. If I can stop the crazy stuff before it starts I'm going to...but if it's already stirred up I'm going to wait for the dust to settle and rule on what happens.

I guess I see both sides of the coin one, everyone should know the count and react to it appropiately....BUT.... If we kill the play when the defense isn't reacting to the runners (and BR) advancing we are taking an easy steal away from the offense right? So in this case we are helping the defense by killing the play? Since we are keeping the runners at 1B and 2B. But if the offense is not paying attention thinking it's ball 4 and we kill it when the defense is making a play on that unsuspecting runner then we are taking an easy out (maybe 2) away from the defense. So in that case we are helping the offense by keeping their runners on base. So would killing it in all cases be fair? Since there is a possible risk to both teams in this type of situation?? Possibly that is why they are suggesting we kill it in this case?