- May 29, 2015
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There are several examples where the statement by an umpire (even appropriately affect what the players do:
- Umpire calls ball 4 on a near swing and runner at first starts walking to second - late appeal from catcher gets a strike call from field ump - can the runner between first and third be thrown out?
- Pickoff at third - maybe the field ump calls out and the runner surrenders (to be tagged again) but on appeal, the PU sees the tag missed - is the runner out anyway?
If the umpire said/did something (even though they shouldn't have) that players react to, they have the right to negate any advantage or disadvantage that they they erroneously created. I've seen TB where the field was emptied between innings before the scorekeeper had enough gumption to talk to the umpire and confirm with the opposing scorekeeper. Those ump's may be on their 4th+ game and the situations blur together. Better to keep it fair than to take advantage of an umpire's mistake.
Situation 1 ... some rule quotes have been provided already, but I don't feel this falls in the same situation. The ball is live the whole time. The question then is when does the runner lose the protection of being forced on the walk? My answer would be once the call is changed from ball 4 to strike 3. When does that occur? On my field, we aren't making an appeal while the runner is between bases. Let the book keeper figure out how to punch a "sacrifice walk out" into Gamechanger.
Situation 2 ... not an appeal play. What the PU saw doesn't matter.
Umpires on their 4th + game ... that is typically when these things are going to happen. I'll almost always admit the things nobody else will ... after a few games, especially on a hot day, your umpires are giving you diminishing returns, no matter how good they are normally. If an umpire with no break is just as good on games 6, 7, and 8 ... then they weren't that good on 1, 2, and 3.
I have plenty of times that I lose track of the number of outs. You know what I do? Whatever everybody else does (but stay alert in case I was right).