Moving the bat

[EsqUmp]

Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

EsqUmp:

As a structural engineer I would normally agree with you counselor but this is case if you are damned if you do and damned if you do not.

If one leaves a bat near HP and a player falls over it, or one "[s]afely, carefully and cautiously remove the bat." and a player falls over it. Either case, if a player gets hurt, the "remover" of the bat will be the on considered civilly liable, and if you are even have the lawyer I think you are, you will be the one that sues the umpire and I do not mean that in a derogatory way.

MTD, Sr.

What is interesting is the number of people who comment when they have never moved the bat. They do not speak from experience because they have never done it. I have removed hundreds of bats safely, carefully and cautiously. I have never had a problem doing it. No ball has ever hit a moved bat. No player has ever tripped over a moved bat. I have never hit anyone with a moved bat.

Keeping in mind that ASA refuses to put in print that umpires are not to remove the bat, what seems to be a greater chance for liability: 1) Sliding a bat away from the plate where a runner is barreling in and can either be hurt by the bat or turn the bat into a flying projectile or 2) sliding a bat away 5 or 10 feet where no body is or where an on-deck batter or retired runner can grab it?

Not once have I ever had a single issue removing the bat. So why not remove it?