I’ll go way out on a limb and suggest that the AA player’s manager wasn’t particularly accepting of any excuses offered by him for that maneuver. 
I’d just like to say, now that we’re out of GQ, that the dropped third strike is the stupidest rule in sports, followed closely by the tuck rule in football.
Why? You don’t think that the ball needs to be caught in order to be an out?
Taking first by swinging at a wild pitch has happened (bottom of the 7th, Davis at bat).
A dropped third strike is an error (top of the 7th, Wilson at bat).
In the vast majority of cases, it’s either a wild pitch or a passed ball. In rare cases it will be an error if the batter reaches as a result of a fielding misplay not involving the pitch itself, such as (a) the catcher rolling the ball out to the mound by mistake–see 2005 ALDS; (b) a wild throw to first base; or (c) the first baseman dropping the ball
By the way, if first is occupied with less than two outs, the batter is out anyway.
Baseball wasn’t invented to be played like it is today, with professional athletes spotting 95-mph overhand pitches to equally skilled batters. In original form it felt more like slow-pitch softball, where the contest is between the batter and the entire defense and the pitcher serves just to get the action started.
Even when the batter struck out (which happened much less often), it was considered appropriate to involve the defense in some way. The catcher had to catch the ball, or retire the batter at first base.
No, of course they could change the rule. Baseball has changed its rules many times. But why bother? It would make the game less interesting. And, the dropped third strike preserves at least the principle that baseball is a team game, and (except in limited circumstances) even the best pitcher can’t retire batters all by himself.
Speaking of baseball rules, can a batter purposefully step into or stick his hand out to get hit by a pitch, and then go to first base? If there’s a rule against that, I would assume a lot of people could make a weak swinging motion to get their hand out in front of the pitch but not make it so obvious.
I don’t have the exact rule at hand but the batter is required to make an effort to avoid a pitch.
Deliberately getting your hand in the way of a major league fastball is a REALLY bad idea. Doubly so if you’re swinging so as to get your hand in the way.
You must attempt to avoid being hit by the pitch, although this is rarely called. Many players have increased their on-base percentage by sticking elbows out over the plate in hopes of being hit (Craig Biggio being one famous example).
Also, if you swing (even a “weak swinging motion”) and are hit in the hand, it is a strike.
Would that be an iteration of the infield fly rule?
Same idea, yes.
The most famous example of the rule coming to play occurred when Don Drysdale of the Dodgers was en route to pitching a then-record 56 consecutive scoreless innings. As this article puts it:
Didn’t know that, but I see Munch and you explained it well. In one of my 12 year old son’s games this spring, that situation came up. Bases were loaded, two strikes, dropped third strike, and we were playing one of our less experienced catchers. The proper play was to pick up the ball and step on home plate. This catcher made a throw to first, but they didn’t get the out there due to a bad throw or catch, and the guy on third scored. Knowing now what you just said, I guess this had to be a two-out situation, assuming they follow MLB rules for this scenario.
It seems like to me the default approach. Three strikes make an out, I should think, and as soon as the batter swings and the ball isn’t hit, that’s the third strike and he’s out. To implement the stealing-first rule, someone had to purposefully override the default and make up a rule about a dropped third strike. Seems like someone had to go out of their way to implement a really stupid rule. The infield fly rule, I understand the rationale. Not so much with stealing first.
The requirement that the third strike be caught was part of the earliest rules that are recognizable as baseball–the Cartwright rules of 1845.
The “default” was that a ball must either be caught, or thrown beating the batter to first, for an out.
The part about being out with first base occupied and less than two out was an amendment after the fact, tacked on in the 1880’s. Before that you could strike out into a double or triple play. If you were klutzy enough to strike out against the primitive pitching of earlier eras, you took your chances. As pitching became more sophisticated (and overhand), the K-DP and K-TP had to be banned.
One thing that I don’t think anyone has mentioned: The batter is not stealing first. He is reaching first on a wild pitch or passed ball. There is no Stolen Base awarded.
Mental errors of this type do happen in the big leagues, although they’re most common in the outfield. Which makes sense, because they might go a whole inning or more without any action. Probably the most common thing you see is an outfielder making a great catch with less than two outs and then just tossing it back in, which a runner tags up for a base (or a run!) he never should have gotten. (I’m sure you’ve seen the film of Willie Mays’ fantastic over the shoulder catch in the '54 series, but just as important is what happened next – Mays whipped around and shot the thing back to the infield, preventing Larry Doby from tagging up and scoring from second. That’s what you’re supposed to do, but not everybody is Willie Mays.)
Once last year in a Nats game with a runner on first, the batter hit a sharp grounder to the shortstop who tossed it to 2B Felipe Lopez. Lopez touched the bag for the out and then fired the ball over to first for the double play. Except there had already been two outs. The mistake didn’t cost anything, but it was sort of the last straw for Lopez in D.C. because it was thought to illustrate how unseriously he took the game.
–Cliffy
Isn’t there also a tradition that after the third out and the team is returning to the dugout, that someone flips a ball to one of the players? If so, who is the flipper, and who is the flippee? And if I didn’t dream this up, where did this tradition come from?
It is someone in the dug out giving a ball to the first basemen to use during warmups before the next inning. No tradition, just practicality.