Settling a bet…say a foul tip rebounds off the catcher’s glove (or some other part of the catcher, as long as it struck the glove first) and is then caught by another fielder. Would the batter be automatically out in this instance, or would this just count as a strike?
I’m looking at the definition of “foul tip” in MLB rules 2.00 as “a batted ball that goes sharp and direct from the bat to the catchers hands and is legally caught. It is not a foul tip unless caught and any foul tip that is caught is a strike, and the ball is in play. It is not a catch if it is a rebound, unless the ball has first touched the catchers glove or hand.” Since the rule says “legally caught” but doesn’t specify who does the catching, my argument is that this is just a foul tip strike, no matter how spectacular such a catch would be in a real game.
As long as the foul tip is caught by the fielder before touching the ground (and the ball did not touch an umpire after becoming a foul tip) then it would be a strike. The batter wouldn’t be out unless it was the third strike. The fact that it was caught by another fielder does not make it a pop out (the catcher can’t turn a foul tip into a pop fly.)
Yeah, it would just be a foul ball and a strike on the batter.
Now, let’s say it was strike 3 and there’s a runner on base. Say strike 3 was tipped by the batter and the ball bounces high off the catcher’s mitt and the pitcher actually comes in and catches it before it touches the ground. If the runner was stealing, I’m 99.99% sure he doesn’t have to tag up because, as mentioned above, it’s still not a fly ball. The batter, however, is probably out.
I qualified that the runner was stealing because I know it counts as “tagging up” as soon as a fly ball touches a fielder, whether it’s immediately caught by that fielder or not.