No rule against it.
I’ve never seen it happen. I’ve thought about it, and heard it discussed, but when you’re at bat it’s hard to remember that sort of thing.
You are wrong. If the ball (like a bunt) starts out fair on the infield and rolls foul before passing over first or third base (which means it stayed in the infield), it’s foul. Haven’t you ever seen the situation when a ball is hugging the foul line on the infield and as soon as it goes foul the catcher grabs it or swats it futher into foul territory? He does that to make sure that the ball stays foul.
Also, given that we’ve already established that the batter can’t leave the batters’ box to swing at a ball, he would have to be careful about taking Strike 3 against a wild pitch. If the pitch is close enough to swing at from the batter’s box, he could never be certain that the catcher is going to miss the ball, so a swing would probably get him out while letting it go for a ball would keep him alive.
It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? And the other way round too. I forget which player in the Red Sox/O’s last night - his foul grounder rolled fair and he thought it was still a foul ball.
Thanks! I’ve wondered about that for years.
rfgdxm accepted my comment–you guys are just adding exceptions as if they contradict my statements, when they actually support them. Those were the instances I had in mind.
We shouldn’t get too hard on people for misinterpretation of the rules though. Baseball’s current rules are probably a shade more complex than the US Constitution–but the Constitution was developed in a simpler time. I think the primary reason given by French voters for rejecting the EU constitution last weekend was that they hadn’t had time to read it yet.
I once participated in a tee-ball league when one of the team’s coach was a Division I-A baseball head coach. He was kinda frustrated by all the rule accomodations (like the first baseman only had to touch the ball within a three foot circle around first in order to put the runner out) so he blew up when one of his opponent’s runners was hit by a groundball between first and second but was not called out. He started lecturing the kid on second about how he would be out in real baseball. However, he had played all his fielders five feet in front of the baseline (because most of the groundballs were dribblers), and the ball had even scooted almost unnoticed between the legs of his firstbaseman, before hitting the runner. I guess that sort of thing just never came up in college ball.
:smack:
Don’t pay any attention to me. I just realised that, even if the ball is 15 feet outside the batter’s box, you don’t have to actually leave the batter’s box to take a swing. I see now what you were getting at.
I think the closest example of this occuring was in the 1941 World Series. Dodger catcher Mickey Owen let strike 3 get passed him, which ignited a Yankee comeback victory.
Dropped third strikes that allow a batter to reach first have been part of baseball since its infancy. The principle behind it is that a fielder must catch a ball and hold on to it for some reason (fly ball, force out, tag play) to record an out unless there are some extenuating circumstances (interference, infield fly rule, dropped third strike with a runner on first, as examples). Those exceptions exist to ensure that the offense doesn’t do something unsporting to keep the defense from recording an out or to keep the defense from gaining an unfair advantage by getting more than one out on a play by deliberately making an error.
We had a baseball rules discussion in here last year, I think - I can’t remember when, exactly - wherein we never did figure out absolutely for sure what the correct interpretation was. I’ll be darned if I can remember exactly how it went but I think it was related to interference or obstruction, or possibly both.
The rule aren’t perfectly written, and a lot of the rules - like dropped third strikes, appeal plays, etc - do seem wholly unnecessary.
The dropped third strike rule makes sense to me. Appeal plays are different. They seem to get by without it in amateur baseball.
Now if you want weird, go read the rule about batting out of turn.