Came up in a softball game today. 1 out, here’s the order of events:
Force out at second;
Runner touches plate;
Force at first.
I thought because they were both force outs, it would be no run scored. But I heard otherwise. Anyone care to clarify, and provide a relevant cite to MLB rules?
[QUOTE=Official Rules, Rule 4.09]
One run shall be scored each time a runner legally advances to and touches first, second, third and home base before three men are put out to end the inning. EXCEPTION: A run is not scored if the runner advances to home base during a play in which the third out is made (1) by the batter-runner before he touches first base; (2) by any runner being forced out; or (3) by a preceding runner who is declared out because he failed to touch one of the bases.
[/QUOTE]
There is no form of baseball or softball I have ever heard of in my entire life where a run should have scored in that circumstance. A run cannot score on a play where the third out is a force out. That’s not possible.
I concur with RickJay. The only exception which might confuse sometimes is that a runner returning to a base after a fly ball is caught can be “forced out” by tagging the base before he returns. But this force out as a third out does not negate a run previously scored on the play.
It was a pickup softball game that we’ve been doing for some ten odd years, every Sunday in the summer. We ended up not counting the run (it is a friendly, after all) but someone said they swore they’ve seen it where a play like that went down, and the run counted.
The only thing I can think of would be if the batter turns the wrong way at first, gets tagged out, it…might?..look like that on the TV with the sound off.