The bases are loaded in the bottom of the ninth, score tied.
The batter gets beaned by a high fastball. This will, of course, force in the winning run.
But, the batter has been knocked unconscious by the pitch and is therefore physically unable to advance to first base.
Can the runner on third simply trot home to end the game, or must the batter (or a pinch runner) actually reach first to successfully complete the play?
Rule 6.08(b) says
(bolding mine), and 7.04(b) reads
My interpretation is that the runners are not entitled to the next base until the batter has touched first. But in a walk-off situation, how likely is this to be enforced? Can the defense appeal?
Here is a similar case, where Gabe Kapler blew out his Achilles tendon, while trotting home when someone else hit a homerun. A pinch runner was inserted while the batter waited on second, so as not to pass Kapler and thus be out.
They quote this rule in the story
That substitution was allowed under the Official Rules of Major League Baseball 5.10 (c), which reads: ''When an accident incapacitates a player or an umpire:
:smack: D’oh! I should have realized that. I thought I had an idea for a short story; turns out, “Simpsons did it.”
I might be able to put a different spin on it, though.
Merkle’s Boner is a fascinating bit of history indeed. My scenario differs, though, in that nobody is in danger of being forced out, but the run can’t count until a particular task is completed, even if uncontested. I’m trying to get a feel for how this situation might play out if it were to actually happen.
If it happened in a professional game, I’m sure that a pinch runner would be put in to touch first base. In that situation they’ll go by the book.
What might be more problematic is a situation in an extra-inning game in which all possible substitutes have already been used, and there is no one on the bench who can be sent in as a pinch runner. I think we may have had threads about this before, but I don’t recall what the conclusion was.
I doubt this would happen in a real game. There would most likely be a starting pitcher who was being saved to play the next day.
Well, unless something like this happened twice in a game, which in case I could see them using the next days pitcher as a throw away pitch runner in this case… But even then, I would think they would use someone who could play the injured persons position to go ahead and touch first… Unless of course it was a pitcher who was due up to bat first next inning who got beaned.
Rule 5.10, read plain text, clearly means to put in a runner to ensure the play is completed. There’s no doubt whatsoever that the batting team will be awarded the base and the run.
In the unlikely scenario that there are no players left to serve as legal substitutes I’d bet a week’s pay the umpires would simply declare the run to have scored and the game over.
Yeah, if nothing else, baseball has a rule something to the effect of prohibiting “making a travesty of the game”, and I imagine that the officials could rule that not counting the run would be making a travesty of the game. Certainly, you don’t want to reward the other team for knocking their opponents unconscious.
IIRC there’s a rule that uncontested runs like this score, even if nobody actually touches the bags. My impression is that it’s to keep the game legal even if the fans swarm the field, but it should count. I’ll try to look it up later.
Also, you’d have to look at the wording of the rules, but ISTM the runner on third is entitled to home on a hit batter even before the batter-runner makes it to first. So the winning run scores regardless of where the batter is.
I thought this situation has been covered, and the answer was that there’s a rule that allows you to substitute immediately when someone is rendered unable to advance to a base to which they are entitled. I think this rule is crucial if, say, the runner on third somehow injured himself and couldn’t walk to the plate.
But, for this situation regarding
I don’t know if MLB has published an authoritative interpretation of this rule, but I see another interpretation, which is that (as the plain text of the rule says) the batter-runner’s advance is what lets the other runners move up. Arguably, that advance begins the moment he is hit (or, perhaps, the moment the umpire declares that he was hit).
After all, if a runner is off of a base between the batter being hit and the batter touching first, he can’t be tagged out (at least as baseball is currently played), so clearly the runner has some protection even before the batter touches first. The simplest and most logical way for the runner to have gained that protection is that the runner is now advancing to the next base under the rule.
So it’s reasonable argument that the run scores when the batter on third touches home, regardless of whether the batter has touched first yet.
The comment to rule 6.08(a) states: “A batter who is entitled to first base because of a base on balls must go to first base and touch the base before other base runners are forced to advance. This applies when bases are full and applies when a substitute runner is put into the game.”
Now this doesn’t specifically say it applies to hit by pitcher, but it presumably would give the umpires guidance.
This is interesting because the ball is not dead just because ball four is called and base runners always walk to the next base while the batter is walking to first and do not wait to literally be forced to move. Suppose the bases were loaded and all runners advanced after a walk. Then the batter refused to go to first. I presume (unless two were already out) the run would score and be credited as a stolen base. After a hit batsman, the ball is dead though so I guess the runners would be told to go back to their previous bases.
I think the “travesty of the game” thing only deals with shenanigans like stealing first base (when standing on second) and the like. It doesn’t have anything to do with situations like the no-available-pinch-runners situation.
However, I believe that there is a rule that covers situations not otherwise covered by the rulebook. In this case, the umpire gets the final say. I suspect that the umpire would indeed count the run in the beanball situation.
