GoKorea wrote:I was watching a high school playoff game yesterday (yes the same as the foul ball topic) and with two runners on(2nd and 3rd) the batter hits a rope down to the first baseman that tips off her glove in fair grounds and lands in foul ground. The ball was curving and probably would have landed foul even if it hadn't been touched. The home plate umpire calls foul and you start hearing about the tip from the offence and the coach comes out and talks to the umpire. The home plate umpire then brings his team together to discuss what they saw. At the end of the meeting the plate umpire places the batter at 2nd base and lets the two runners score, which is most likely the results if no foul had been called. Is this the right placement of runners or should it be something else?
There is one scenario where this could be the right result.
If, when asked, the plate umpire (stupidly) admits the ball was over fair territory when first touched, then we have a misapplied rule that has to be corrected. By rule, that is a fair ball, even though it was ruled foul at the time. We do not unring foul on obviously bad judgment, but we do have to rectify misapplied rules. The plate umpire should have lived with his call, and left it foul, but once he says it was touched fair, the offense is entitled to that reversal.
So, there is now a ruling that has been reversed; and all codes have a rule that applies that says the plate umpire has to decide how to rectify the jeopardy that has affected the teams. The crew isn't meeting to discuss fair/foul, the crew needed to meet to agree on the most likely result. If the crew determined this was the most likely outcome had it been pointed fair from the beginning, then this is the most appropriate result.