Maybe @Smiling_Tiger ?? I know you are the baseball rules guru here.
We had an odd situation in a 8u (coaches pitch) rec league game last night. My youngest is a baller and sometimes gets ahead of herself so I'm not saying the ump was wrong, but she didn't seem to be able to quote the rule. Now I'm finding mixed results in my online search this morning.
One out. Runner on 2nd. Batter had 2 strikes. The batter swings, and looked like she barely got a piece of it, but ump calls strike 3 and the runner at 2nd out for leaving early. 8u can't steal. My understanding is a runner can leave the base once the ball is contacted or crosses home plate. However, this ump said the batter has to make contact for the runner to leave. Further, if it would have actually been a foul ball the runner at 2nd would not have been deemed to leave early. That made zero sense to me.
I wasn't watching the runner so I have no idea if she left or not. One rule I did find that seems clear is that if a player leaves early, the ball is dead. In that case should the batter have been called out for the strikeout since the out call for leaving early had to be before the swing?
It's just fun rec ball so I didn't contest this much at all last night. It didn't hurt that we were up by 10+ runs either. But, I've seen similar things happen a bunch over the years and just would like to understand the rule better. I do think the ump could have shown a little discretion and maybe issued a warning since the leaving early had zero impact on the play, but that's just me.
We had an odd situation in a 8u (coaches pitch) rec league game last night. My youngest is a baller and sometimes gets ahead of herself so I'm not saying the ump was wrong, but she didn't seem to be able to quote the rule. Now I'm finding mixed results in my online search this morning.
One out. Runner on 2nd. Batter had 2 strikes. The batter swings, and looked like she barely got a piece of it, but ump calls strike 3 and the runner at 2nd out for leaving early. 8u can't steal. My understanding is a runner can leave the base once the ball is contacted or crosses home plate. However, this ump said the batter has to make contact for the runner to leave. Further, if it would have actually been a foul ball the runner at 2nd would not have been deemed to leave early. That made zero sense to me.
I wasn't watching the runner so I have no idea if she left or not. One rule I did find that seems clear is that if a player leaves early, the ball is dead. In that case should the batter have been called out for the strikeout since the out call for leaving early had to be before the swing?
It's just fun rec ball so I didn't contest this much at all last night. It didn't hurt that we were up by 10+ runs either. But, I've seen similar things happen a bunch over the years and just would like to understand the rule better. I do think the ump could have shown a little discretion and maybe issued a warning since the leaving early had zero impact on the play, but that's just me.
- Strikeouts and Dead Balls:
When a ball is dead, the batter cannot be called out for a strikeout. The game must be restarted before a strikeout can be valid.
- These seem to contradict each other some.
- Dead Ball:
When a runner leaves their base before the pitcher releases the ball, it's a dead ball, and the runner is out.
Any other outs that may have occurred during the play still count.
Runner's Position:
If the ball was not put into play, all runners are returned to the base they occupied at the time of the pitch.
No Strikeout:
The batter is not awarded a strikeout or any other penalty on the dead ball
