So, by definition, scoring involves touching all the bases in order.
Hitting the ball out of the park does not officially score a run. It simply allows the batter to advance around the bases without being thrown or tagged out. And the rules specifically state that the run isn’t scored until all bases have been touched:
Bolding mine.
This is why, after someone hits a homer, you see the umpire following him around the bases to make sure that he touches each bag.
It’s different, for example, in cricket, where hitting the ball over the fence on the full scores six runs. Those runs are automatically added, and the batter does not have to run up and down the pitch six times in order to score the runs.
Does the batter have the option of staying at, say, second base, and just taking the double … or would the batter still be out? Ridiculous, of course … just wondering what the letter of baseball law would say about that.
A batter refusing to complete the circuit of the bases after a home run could be ejected by an umpire and a substitute runner put in for him or, even worse, under rule 4.15, could end up having the game forfeited for “Refuses to continue play during a game unless the game has been suspended or terminated by the umpire;” or “After warning by the umpire, willfully and persistently violates any rules of the game;”
Rule 4.09(b) has a provision that in a bases-loaded situation, if a runner on third is forced home with what would be the winning run because of a walk of hit batter, and refuses to touch home, the umpire can call the runner out and order the game continued.
It’s interesting that this situation is addressed specifically. The implication is that this had been tried in baseball’s distant past … if that is indeed the case, I wonder why?
If you were playing the first game of a doubleheader and you knew the nightcap could be rained out or not played because of darkness, you could just have a guy refuse to go home to keep the next game from starting. Or the guy could keep crawling home.
The rule is also in place for other innings, presumably to avoid stalling.
Is there some rationale for this rule? Why don’t they just say “If you hit the ball out of the stadium, then your team is awarded a run for the batter and for every member standing on base, and those team members must now leave the field?”
That was the case in 1976 and after that, the rule was changed to allow any automatic runs to count if spectators on the field prevented the players from making the circuit of the bases at the end of the game.
Sure they might- especially if they had money riding on a game, or were closely associated with people who did. Point spread betting is nothing new, and baseball had a bit of trouble with that in the past…