What By The Rules of Major League Baseball...?!

The Game Room
1

My son likes to think of the corner cases… I’m pround of him that way.

These are some rules questions he asked me the other day at a baseball game that I told him I’d have to look up, which means of course, I’m asking the SDMB because using Google is going to be more work and less amusing.

Every so often a major league baseball player forgets how many outs there were, and starts jogging towards the dugout after the second out. (I don’t think this ever happens after the FIRST out.) Sometimes, if he caught a fly ball for the second out, he even tosses the ball into the stands… And some of THOSE times, there are runners on base. In which case, all runners get to advance two bases.

Same thing if an infielder or catcher slings the ball to first base REALLY wildly, and it goes into the stands - all runners advance two bases.

Meanwhile, it happens every so often that a ball in play bounces into the stands for a ground rule double, which limits a guy on first base to stopping at third base, even if there were two outs and he was a fast runner already in motion with the pitch and would obviously have scored.

So, what prevents an outfielder from intentionally throwing the ball into the stands to keep a runner on first base from scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth? I think there’s some kind of clause that the umpires can award MORE than two bases at their discretion under certain conditions, a general “you’re making a mockery of the game” clause or something, to give them leeway to deal with creative attempts to game the system.

He also wondered, in watching all the trash blowing around the field on a windy day: is airborne debris deemed “in play”? What if the shortstop was just about to glove a ball when the ball hits a hot dog wrapper that suddenly blows right in front of it, and he messes up the pick - is that an error? Certainly any baserunners get to take advantage of it, I’d think, but would the batter get credited for an infield hit?

What if that wrapper messed up a ball as its pitched to the batter, is it a do-over or is it just a ball? If it’s bad enough that the catcher can’t catch it, is it a wild pitch or a passed ball?

Or would it be like the time Randy Johnson threw a fastball that an unlucky seagull got in front of somehow, and exploded in a shower of feathers? That is the canonical example of the very rare call of “no pitch”. But I don’t think there is a fielding equivalent, is there? If an African Pinstriped Swallow swooped down and carried off a fly ball into the distance just as Tony Tarasco was about to catch it, too bad, it’s a home run?

Is a pitch grazing a player’s beard considered a hit by pitch? Since the ball grazing the uniform (and not actually striking the batter’s body) is deemed a HBP, it would see one’s beard would count, too. So, could a batter grow out a really long, Pharaonic or Ancient Assyrian type beard, waxed stiff, that jutted out 2 feet from his chin… And move in such a way as to intentially draw contact with a pitch to get on base?

I said that could get ruled by the umpire as not trying to avoid the pitch, but we all know there are times when a batter all but or even clearly attempts to lean into the pitch to draw a HBP and still get awarded first base (so long as he doesn’t actually project himself into the strike zone), so maybe “Walk Like An Egyptian” could find another life as “Get To First Base Like An Egyptian”?

2

I’m not going to give you specific cites on this as they’ve revamped and reordered the baseball rule book since I gave up umpiring. You can get a pdf of the rules on line. Here goes:

If the throw into the stands is by an infielder, each runner is awarded two bases from his position at the time of the pitch. If the throw is by an outfielder, each runner is awarded two bases from the last base he touched at the time of the throw. If the runner had not yet reached second by the time the outfielder had the ball, I very much doubt he could score.

If a batted or thrown ball hits something on the field like a bird, it is in play. There was a minor league game in which an apparent home run hit a bird in flight and the ball was then caught by an outfielder for an out. I suspect if some animal picked a ball up off the ground and flew or ran it into the stands an umpire would not award a home run, but a double. If a bird caught one in flight, I don’t know, but that would be a big bird.

Being hit on the beard would be considered a HBP. Intentionally getting hit wold not work, though an ump is not a mind reader. Also if the beard was hanging into the strike zone when it was hit, that would also not be a HBP.

3

Yes, but imagine a guy doing the hip jerk back out of the way of an inside pitch… Looking down at the ball… Which points his chin down pointing at his feet… And the ball grazes his two foot beard. Aww yeah.

4

I think your son has a fine career ahead of him as a defense lawyer.

Dennis

5

Here’s another situation I’ve always wondered about. Why does someone attempting to steal a base wait until the pitcher has the ball before taking off? Wouldn’t it make sense to try to steal when the catcher is throwing the ball back to the pitcher after a pitch that the batter didn’t swing at?

6

If the intention is to make the beard, and therefore the batter, more hittable, I think you’d want it to cover as much area as possible. Rather than a slender, Pharaonic beard, I think you’d do better with a large fan shape, akin to a pelican.

7

You do see “delayed” steals sometimes, but I suspect it’s not as easy as you’d think. When a pitch is coming in, the catcher is in a crouch and usually must stand up to throw it well, may not be catch it cleanly, is watching the pitch intently, and needs to throw the ball 120+ feet to second base, and doesn’t really have any “motion” that the runner can run on.

The only advantage a delayed steal has over a regular steal, apart from surprise, is that the cather’s throw to the pitcher is going slower. A pitcher throws at about 90 mph or about 120 fps. So it takes the pitch about half a second from the pitcher to the catcher. If the catcher throws back
at half the pitcher’s speed (?) you only gain half a second of time, and the pitcher has a much shorter second throw than the catcher would.

8

Use hair gel to shape your beard into many long, thin spikes, to increase the chance of a pitch hitting any one of them. :D:D

9

While this does happen occasionally, it’s a surprise play. The reason the runner usually begins a steal as the pitcher is delivering the pitch is because that gives him more time to steal the base.

10

Hmm, maybe Blackbeard style chin-dreads would be a good strategy. You can claim it’s a legitimate Pirate Look you’re going for, while getting a facial bead curtain to work in your favor to keep looking help get on base on the inside pitches.

11

But when Jose Canseco misplayed a fly ball short of the warning track and it bounced off the top of his head and over the wall some ten feet away - the infamous “Dome Run” was scored a homer.

So if an actual fielder can record the assist, so to speak, and a live bird is considered not “fan interference” but simply part of the field in play - which also happened to Kevin McReynolds in 1987 when a bird in flight converted a routine double play into an RBI double - then wouldn’t it stand to reason that an avian interception would be like if a blown hot dog wrapper somehow scooped a deep fly ball over the wall?

I mean, it’d be a different story if it was a trained bird working in tandem one of those self-named “ball hawks” who pursue catching home run balls at ballparks. But I’m talking a wild bird.

12

Birds and ballparks do not always mix well. (video)

13

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

14

As said earlier, it is two bases from the time of the throw. Presumably, if the winning run has not reached second yet, it makes little sense to throw the ball into the stands.

I’m pretty sure you treat the pitch as if it didn’t touch the wrapper (e.g. whether it is a WP or PB depends on whether or not the catcher could have caught it with ordinary effort).

Usually, he waits until the pitcher starts his motion toward the plate - because if the pitcher then stops to turn around, it is a balk. I have seen a number of high school games where, with a runner on first, the pitcher starts a full windup, and the coach (and usually a few of his teammates as well) immediately yells at the player to steal second.

15

I have seen baserunners steal on the throw back to the pitcher. It can happen if the catcher gets lazy and inattentive, and just lobs the throw without paying attention to the runner. An alert catcher can make a snap throw to first base if a runner is taking too big a lead. The danger of being put out this way forces the runner to retreat to the bag once the catcher has the ball.

With a conventional stolen base (i.e. the runner takes off with the pitch), the ball has to travel a lot farther than with this type of “sneak” stolen base. First the pitch has to go from the pitcher to the catcher, and then from the catcher to the base. This negates a lot of the advantage a runner might get with a “sneak” steal attempt on a lobbed throw back to the pitcher.

The pitcher Jon Lester of the Cubs has problems throwing to first base, both on batted balls hit back to him and on pickoff plays. He tends to freeze up and make inaccurate throws. I don’t know if he has the same problems throwing to other bases; if so, it would probably be possible to do the “sneak” steal against him.

16

Here’s one I’ve wondered about for a while. The rules say that baserunners are supposed to return to their bases after an uncaught foul ball, and that the umpire-in-chief shouldn’t put the ball back in play until this happens. It’s common, though, for a new ball to be put in play without the runners retouching their bases. The rules don’t specify a penalty for this, as far as I can tell. What would happen if, say, on a foul ball a runner on first base wandered over to within a foot of second and then stepped over and touched second as soon as the pitcher toed the rubber? Of course, this would be a big mistake on the part of the umpires, but how could they fix it? Would it be possible to tag the runner out at second even if he’s touching the base (because he’s not entitled to it)? Would an appeal play at first be possible? Would the umpires just call time out and order the runner to return to first?

17

The proper call is to call time and return the runner to first.

18

I have to question this. I always thought it was two bases beyond the base last possessed at the time the ball is thrown by the fielder, regardless of who it is. Unless it’s the pitcher, in which case the “one from the rubber, two from the field” rule applies.

Sometimes you’ll see a fielder hand the ball to a fan, thinking it was the third out when indeed it was second. Then sometimes they get it back and throw it in. It seems to me that this is equivalent to the throw in the stands rule, give the runners two bases and the ball is dead.

19

Rule 5.06 (4) (G):

20

This just happened the other night. Ryan Braun stole second without a throw from Lester. Moments later, when he tried to steal third, Lester easily threw him out.