Couldn’t #5 be two different ways?
5a: Passed ball on third strike
5b: Wild pitch on third strike
Haj
Also, a balk just advances the baserunners. There is no effect on the batter or the batter’s count. If a pitch was delivered to the plate and the umpire has called a balk, it is not counted as an official pitch.
As far as blowing into the hand goes, on cool/cold days, the umpiring crew will often make it known it is okay for a pitcher to do this without penalty. Absent this assurance, if a pitcher goes to his mouth with his hand (whether he blows on it, licks it, or whispers sweet nothings to it), the umpire can call a “ball” for the batter. Not “balk.” “Ball.” At least, that’s the only result of this situation I’ve seen.
Um, I’m not a huge sports fan but I do occasionally watch baseball and I still don’t get this…
Fielder’s choice simplified
Batter Jones comes up to bat with runner Smith on first base.
Batter Jones hits a ground ball to the second baseman Johnson.
Johnson opts to tag out runner Smith at second instead of throwing out batter Jones at first base.
Batter Jones is safe on a fielders choice.
There are many variations on this.
Soooo… That wouldn’t count as a base hit for Batter Jones?
No. It would be a Fielder’s Choice. The fielder could have thrown Jones out but decided to tag out Smith instead. After Jones’ at bat, the situation is the same (man on first) but there is an additional out. It’s up to the Official Scorer to decide if Jones should have gotten a hit or fielder’s choice.
Haj
The Fielder’s Choice … in Official Rules speak.
Rule 2.00 (Definitions)
Regarding the slugger reaching an intentionally thrown “ball”–I thought the hitter had to remain in the batter’s box.
No. In fact, Jones is credited in his statistics as having made an out as a batter, just as if he had been the one thrown out.
Note that this generally only applies if a runner is made out before he can reach the next base. If Jones hits a ground ball, and Smith at first is forced out at second, that’s a fielder’s choice.
However, if Jones were to smack a ball into the outfield and Smith advanced to second, and then Smith tried to take third base as well and was thrown out there, Jones would be credited with a base hit. A fielder’s choice literally means the fielder had an immediate choice between the batter and another baserunner.
When a batter hits an infield popup, there’s something that prevents the fielder from dropping the ball, thus forcing a runner to run, tagging him out and throwing to first for a put out. Thus getting two outs where there should have been only one. Is this an application of Fielder’s Choice?
No. That is the Infield Fly Rule.
Haj
He does. Those rare situations when a batter hits an intentional ball occur when a pitcher, either through carelessness or error, does not throw far enough off the plate to make it unreachable. The batter has to lean way out to make contact, but his feet remain in the batter’s box.
Hrmm, but why choose such a confusing name.
Here’s Jackknifed Juggernaut’s post, broken apart.
Divemaster addressed this part, to which I didn’t know the answer. My post was in response to:
As for the last question in that, I suspect that there is probably some rule about intentionally doing a violation of the rules in order to set up a situation you want to have happen. (As in, you cannot intentionally blow on your hands to “walk” Joe Sluggard, power hitting catcher, who last stole a base in Little League, attempting to set up a double play – you must do a pitchout and hope he doesn’t try and succeed in hitting it out of the park. My hunch is that instead of merely imposing the penalty for blowing on one’s hands in such a situation, not only would Joe be awarded first but the pitcher would be ejected for intentionally and grossly violating the rules to set up a situation advantageous to his team.)
Actually, it’s the same question. Think of it as: “Why do pitchers throw 4 pitches to walk somebody when they could just blow on their hands instead?”
There’s no rule as you describe, but what would probably happen is that the umpire would get extremely pissed at the pitcher for being smart-ass/cute, and the strike zone would get noticeable smaller for the rest of the night. Players know that only bad thing happen when you show up the umpire or violate the spirit of the game.