In Australia loss to Cuba in the gold medal match, apparently this happened:
Can someone interpret this for me. If the ball was caught of the wall (and the wall is in play) then wouldn’t the hitter be caught out? What was the contention?
If it hit the outfielder’s glove on the fly, bounced out, hit the wall, and back into the glove, it is no catch. The ball is in play in that it is not a dead ball, and the runners can advance as much as they can. It would be similar to if the ball had hit his glove at shoetop level, bounced on the ground, and then back into his glove.
If you could catch balls off the wall on the fly and still have them be outs, then a whole bunch of left fielders in Fenway Park are going to turn a lot of doubles and singles off the Green Monster in to fly outs.
You used to be able to retire batters after catching balls on the first bounce. This rule went out of use for fair balls in 1864 and for foul balls in 1883.
But who knows, maybe international rules are different. :rolleyes:
The face of any wall is equivalent to the ground. A ball touching the face of a fence or wall has touched the ground.
The TOP surface of a wall is handled differently; a ball touching the top of a wall is considered to have touched the ground if it bounces into a fielder’s glove. If it bounces off the top surface of a wall and then out of play (fair, presumably) then it did not touch the ground and is a home run.
How an umpire could make such a horrible call I cannot understand. Little League umpires could make that call.
There is no video umpire in baseball. The play should have been called by the umpire stationed at second base. It his responsibility to make calls on plays in the outfield.
If the ball did indeed hit the wall (and every account of the game says it did) then the ball was in play, and the runners on first and second were obliged to run since they were forced off their bases.
On a play like that, runners are taught to run halfway between their base and the next one. Although on a fly ball that deep, they may have even gone 3/4 of the way to the next base. Especially the runner on first. The runner on second would have scored very easily.
A fly ball off the center field wall almost always results in a double for the batter.
Okay, I’m confused. Did they call the batter out when they shouldn’t have? Or did the runners not advance thinking the catch was made, then forced out?