I don't know how often this comes up, but it happened in a game last week and it's an obscure rule people should know.
Sometimes the defense needs to get a fourth out in the inning to prevent a run from scoring. There are a few different ways this could happen, but I think the most common is a live ball appeal.
We were up 6 runs in the last inning so this didn't affect anything but the final score, and no, my girls didn't know what they were doing. I think I'm the only one at the field who realized the fourth out actually prevented a run from scoring.
Runners on 1st and 3rd, 1 out. Weak little pop up toward second base. Both runners do not tag up. F6 catches the ball in the air, throws to F3 for the double play. The runner on third had crossed home plate before the third out. I'm not sure if my players forgot how many outs there were or what, but in the chaos, one of them throws the ball to the 3B for the fourth out, preventing that run from scoring. While we didn't need to get the fourth out to win the game, since this is a timing play, that run counts unless properly appealed.
(What I didn't know then is that, for scoring purposes, the third out doesn't count, and the fourth out is the one recorded in the book)
Sometimes the defense needs to get a fourth out in the inning to prevent a run from scoring. There are a few different ways this could happen, but I think the most common is a live ball appeal.
We were up 6 runs in the last inning so this didn't affect anything but the final score, and no, my girls didn't know what they were doing. I think I'm the only one at the field who realized the fourth out actually prevented a run from scoring.
Runners on 1st and 3rd, 1 out. Weak little pop up toward second base. Both runners do not tag up. F6 catches the ball in the air, throws to F3 for the double play. The runner on third had crossed home plate before the third out. I'm not sure if my players forgot how many outs there were or what, but in the chaos, one of them throws the ball to the 3B for the fourth out, preventing that run from scoring. While we didn't need to get the fourth out to win the game, since this is a timing play, that run counts unless properly appealed.
(What I didn't know then is that, for scoring purposes, the third out doesn't count, and the fourth out is the one recorded in the book)