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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
With video!
Yes, that Raul Mondesi, Jr. He’s in the Brewers organization, at Rookie League Helena. Mondesi came to the plate in the bottom of the 10th with the Brewers down 2-0 to the Missoula Osprey, the Diamondbacks’ affiliate. With one on and two out, he cranked the pitch over the left field wall for what should have been the game-tying home run.
But Osprey catcher Michael Perez noticed Mondesi clearly miss home plate, and more importantly, umpire noticed it too, setting the stage for the rare walk-off appeal. Helena’s manager sounded nonplussed, but accepting. This is a teaching moment!
“Don’t bother, Case. He didn’t touch second either.”
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1. smileyy Posted: June 26, 2012 at 02:37 PM (#4166851)What would have happened if he would have made a "pitch" from the rubber? I expect that would have counted as a play (dead ball? ball for the next batter?) and rendered the touch of home unappealable.
You are correct. No game action can happen between the play and the appeal.
If Mondesi had seen them getting ready for the appeal could he have just sprinted out of the dugout and touched the plate? I don't think so but that brings up a second question. After the Pierzynski play in the 2005 ALCS I think the rule was changed that if a base runner abandoned the base path he was ruled out. Does Mondesi not touching the plate meet that criteria making the appeal unnecessary?
Ok, I presumed so. Do you (or anyone) know what the relevant rule is for a pitcher pitching to an empty batter's box (outside of the no-more-than-eight warmup pitches)?
7.08(k) covers making no attempt to return to the plate by the runner, but doesn't make note of at what point he's no longer able to try to return to the plate. I thought the "Pierzynski" rule was in the rules comments somewhere, but not finding it right now. Pretty sure the LL rule is you're done once you hit the dugout, though, as another poster mentioned.
If the umpire calls "play" and the hitter isn't in the box, the hitter is ###### is the rule there I think. In this case he is not throwing a pitch because he disengaged the rubber first so the pitcher became an infielder at that point. If the pitcher had thrown a pitch to get the ball to the catcher then the appeal would have been rejected.
Little League* uses the same "makes no attempt to return" language. Doesn't mention a Rubicon that he must cross. An explanation follows to clarify that the rule is intended to prevent a situation where the catcher is trying to chase down the runner headed away from the play, and that it does not apply to a runner trying to get to the plate, who has to be tagged to be out.
* - Assuming you mean THE Little League organization and not a generic youth league.
That is correct. Once in the dugout, the runner cannot return to touch the plate.
Suppose it wasn't a HR, but say a runner scoring from third on a single. How does the pitcher appeal then? Presumably, a throw home while off the rubber and runners on is a balk, no?
In that case, the ball would be live without the ump having to put it back in play (assuming time was never called), and they can just appeal directly without having to engage the rubber.
And a throw home (or to another base) after disengaging the rubber is legal. Ball should be live, so the runners can do as they please at their own risk.
You deliberately step off the rubber. You fire to the base being appealed. The fielder catches the ball and steps on the bag where the appeal is being made. No balk. It's the same process if you believe the runner left the base early.
So, if the pitcher is off the rubber and throws home, it is not a pitch. Can the batter swing at it?
only if he's Vlad Guerrero (he was grandfathered in)
If the pitcher steps off the rubber he is an infielder. Any throw he makes at that point is a "throw" and not a "pitch". In your example the batter swinging would be the equivalent of sticking his bat out to block a throw by the catcher to second base.
Got it.
You can only score a run by safely touching home, and you can only safely touch home after safely touching third, and you can only safely touch third after safely touching first.
Are you suggesting rules should be changed so that when a home run is hit, the batter and any base runners should just walk directly off the field to the dugout?
Precisely. Or he can jog around and touch all the bases if he wants, or he can do the macarena. But to require him to touch every base is entirely silly.
That's entirely different, given that there is a non-trivial possibility of either a wild pitch, or a pitch so close to the strike zone that the batter might take a whack at it. The game is actually being played.
Once the ball clears the fence, the game is not actually being played in any meaningful way until the next pitch. The defense is powerless to do anything, except hope one of the runners misses a base, or collapses from a heart attack or something. It's very silly.
because its BASEball!!1!11!!!
besides, i don't think there is a batter in the world who wouldn't want to jog the bases after hitting a homer.
No. If a batsman hits a boundary, the runs are automatically added to the total, but he doesn't have to actually run.
Likely true, but wanting to do something because it's joyful and being required to do something because of a rule-for-a-rule's-sake rule are quite different things.
I don't think that would matter.
I think rewriting (or hell, initially writing) the rules of what is required for a run to be plated in this one specific instance would be sillier.
Heck, it's an endurance game anyway, so you should have to throw every pitch. I always find people touting the just give them the base argument to be missing some of the point of the game. I don't agree with you on the not touching the base thing...well not exactly. I don't really care if they touch the base, but they should be required to run the bases. If making them touch the base is the only way to enforce that, then stick with the rule, if you just say that they have to run in the base lines for a homerun, then that is fine also, but there should be no "swing, go to the dugout" type of thing going on.
What would be so silly about a rule that says: once a batted ball is ruled by the umpire to have cleared the outfield fence in fair territory or is otherwise meeting the ground rule qualifications for a home run, it is a home run, and the batter and any baserunners are counted as scoring a run.
That's all it has to say. It doesn't have to require the batter/runners to do anything.
You've got to think of it like this: a homerun is 99.9% hitting the ball over the fence, and 0.1% touching all 4 bases. You've got to touch home to score, and you have to touch the first three bases before you can touch home. Physically touching the bases is a small but significant part of the scoring process.
to me, suggesting otherwise is missing some point of the game. ymmv.
or occasionally, 99.9% over the wall 0.1% touching 3rd and .0001% breaking your ankle
No, you don't have to think of it like that. That's the way the rules are, I understand that. It doesn't make the rules optimal. It doesn't mean that's the way it has to be.
Right. In addition to this, we wouldn't have:
Kendrys braking his leg
Robin Ventura grand slam single
The weird ending to the Haddix game
One flap down
And so on. Once or twice in a generation something interesting would be lost.
There's no reason whatsoever to think that you wouldn't have Kendrys breaking his leg, or one flap down. The notion that batters wouldn't do home run trots, or that teams wouldn't engage in raucous celebrations following walk-off HRs, is, well, silly.
Seconded. A favorite hobby horse (that I am alone in riding, as far as i know) is to see an MLB-level game played without fences. I'd love to see how many homers hit by slow sluggers would turn into triples or outs.
This was exactly the question my soccer-fan coworker asked when I tried to explain the video originally shown in TFA. I settled for the old "that's just how it is" response.
Re the IBB - my dad long ago told me there's a rule that if the pitcher "goes to his mouth" the HPU can call a ball, and wondered why some genius somewhere didn't start licking his palm 4 times to issue an IBB.
Don Drysdale liked to say, "Why waste three extra pitches? I'll just hit him in the a$$ on the first pitch."
And I think that umpire was right. That is the way I think it should be. I do think they have to do the trot of course(as I mentioned earlier) but outside of rule lawyers,(and the other team) who really cares if they actually touch all the bases?
Um, fans have mobbed the field in huge numbers like, forever. Look at photos of big games in the 19th century.
My point exactly.
I take it if there's a runner on second and a batter hits an automatic double, that runner would also be free to simply walk to the dugout under your preference.
What is suboptimal about the existing rule? How on earth has it detracted from the game in any way?
Honestly, I can't think of a single reason why baseball would redefine what constitutes a run scored simply because the batter happened to hit one over the wall.
Because "accidental" breaking of the rules incurs a small penalty (the ball), but deliberate repeated breaking of the rules tends to impose more severe penalties (I'd guess a warning followed by ejection)
WTF not? Who cares? What is it with this obsession over what meaningless runners might do?
"What is suboptimal about the existing rule?"
Its stupidity. Other than that, nothing.
"How on earth has it detracted from the game in any way?"
By being stupid. And creating statistical black holes like the Ventura grand slam single and the weird ending to the Haddix game.
Baseball, like life, can sometimes shock you in its unexpected weirdness. Like you being this annoyed by this rule, which I also did not expect. ;-)
Life, as well, is filled with obnoxious things, the alternatives to which are all worse.
But without the Ventura grand slam single, all of BTF couldn't have yelled at its collective TV in unison after Nelson Cruz hit the "first walkoff grand slam in playoff history" last year! Where would be the fun in that?
Also, are celebrities really targets of assassins nowadays?
Otherwise, what is legal about getting an out from a baseball that wasn't in play?
Wikipedia says Monica Seles was stabbed 19 years ago: (a) is 19 years ago really "nowadays", and (b) given that you had to go back 19 years to find an example, doesn't that suggest that celebrities aren't notable "targets of assassins nowadays"?
19 years ago is nowadays?
Gabe Kapler feels her pain. Of course, no one was going to carry his creepily toned ass around the bases, so he didn't get credit for the homer.
You seem to be arguing from the position of why should a player be forced to touch all the bases if he's hit a home run. I don't think that's the proper way to look at it.
The way I see it, if you're going to exempt a player from one of the fundamental rules governing play (that a runner must touch all four bases, in order, to score a run), it's up to you to provide a pretty compelling reason why. Not only have you failed to provide a compelling reason, you've failed to provide much of a reason at all.
Requiring baserunners to touch every base does not drag out the game. It doesn't unnecessarily tax anyone on the field of play. It can provide entertainment or controversy or, yes, the occasional statistical quirk (the kind of thing I thought a guy liked you treasured, not railed against). And very, very rarely, Raul Mondesi's dumbass son can still be put out for failing at one of baseball's basic tasks.
But sure, I suppose all of that doesn't stack up against, "but it's stoopid."
Gives you an idea how quickly he faded from my memory, I was expecting to see a link to Welcome Back Kotter injuring himself during a celebrity softball game.
People confuse something working with whether it's necessary. People do that a lot--like with the exclusionary rule. It's effectiveness in stopping something doesn't make it unnecessary. It seems pointless only because it works. You can't use that against it.
Like touching 4 bases on a four-bagger! Boom, argument over.
He didn't get credit for the homer because he didn't hit it. He was on first at the time.
Because the play is over; the ball is long gone and irretrievable. It is literally impossible to get the player out since the ball is out of play, so the player is awarded home plate. If he doesn't touch it, well whatever you can go get him and force him to touch it if it makes you feel better, but by allowing the team to use a new baseball to then throw him out with (and force him out which what should be a tag play,) you are already altering the rules in silly ways.
Ha! That's right--it was Tony Graffanino, wasn't it? Oh well. That'll teach me to remember things.
Appreciate the sentiment, but that was quite obviously not from a major league umpire .An MLB umpire would have said:
"It's not a HR till I Fu$%ckin say it is. I don't care where that Fu*&%in ball landed it aint a HR till I say it is."
Bill KLem
NOwadays they simply have to make it out of the batter's box without puking on themselves.
Batter hits a grounder to SS. SS airmails the ball into the stands. Batter misses first base on his way to second. Ump puts a new ball in play and the defense appeals the play at first, which is upheld.
Runner on first, batter hits a grounder to right. Runner tries for third, and the RF airmails it into the 3B stands. Runner gets home, batter goes to third. Ump puts a new ball in play, and the pitcher appeals to 2nd that the runner from first missed the base, which he did and is called out.
Do those offend your sensibilities as well?
Your failure to comprehend that abject stupidity is a compelling reason does, I would suggest, settle it.
Yes.
Again, why does the trailing batter have to stop at 3rd, why can't all the runners just go home? Right, because the play is dead, and the umpire awards them whatever base they deserve.
But the ball was alive when the runner missed second base.
Suggest away. That you are the first person I've ever heard suggest that requiring a home run hitter fulfill the basic requirements for run scoring is stupidity makes me question the abjectness of it.
Oh well.
In this example, it is actually beneficial for the fielder to throw the ball into the stands rather than throwing to third, which is ridiculous. If he saw that the runner missed second he should have thrown to second directly instead of throwing to third.
Oh, please. Your lack of familiarity with the notion (which has been alive in the game for, oh, I don't know, about a hundred years) doesn't address its basis.
That's how it was until 2007, IIRC. The rule was changed from "disqualified from the game" to "subject to fine by the league president" (for some reason I think it is 10K, but I can't find a source for that).
I once played in a fairly competitive softball league where the rule was that you only had to run to first on a HR (now THAT was silly- why make you run at all?) Anyway, after my first league HR, not knowing the rules, I ran all the way around the bases, and got thoroughly chewed out for showing the other team up.
Yep.
I didn't care either way until this, but now I disagree with you strongly. Immediately, all the Molinas and Manny would stop running the bases. Anyone with an ego would stop too, just because they could. As soon as a guy comes back from a nasty leg injury there will be talk about how he shouldn't bother. In a generation it would be showing the other team up, and the exception not the norm.
Absolutely. Immediately you'll be having people saying Manager X is the biggest idiot ever for letting Carlos Lee or Ryan Howard or whoever aggravate his hip flexor or whatever by rounding the bases in this hot weather or cold weather or rainy weather or whatever.
This is not a situation where we want players to be making a decision about what to do.
Even so, having to actually touch the bases is stupid in a world where the phantom double-play tag exists.
Agreed. If only sportsmanship was a thing that existed, we wouldn't have to care about this nonsense.
as for the idea that 'it's stupid' is a compelling reason to allow circling the bases to be optional, well ... i've offered much more compelling reasons for making it mandatory that are consistent with the bedrock rules of the game that aren't stupid. saying 'its stupid' is, well ... you know.
Well, Manny isn't playing and the Molina brothers combine for about 20 homers, so that's still under the 1-2% figure I cited.
I just don't really agree...players like to celebrate and this is an accepted celebration. But, this debate can only be settled one way...
They don't. It was far more prevalent in the 70s and 80s, not coincidentally when the rules governing take-out slides were far more liberal. When MLB began to crack down on Hal McRae-style rolling blocks and other middle infielder mangling plays, MLB umpires also began redefining the "neighborhood."
Appeal plays are NOT FORCE PLAYS. A force play is when the batter's attempt to reach first forces other runners to attempt to move up a base.
Both a force out and out by appeal may be recorded by touching the base with the ball in possession, in addition to touching the runner in question with the ball in possession, but that is coincidental.
In fact the distinction between "force" and "tag" plays is in itself stupid. What's the point of that?
Steve - baseball is stupid. It's grown men playing with sticks and balls. Enjoying baseball for any reason other than the inherent beauty of the game is also stupid. In order to score a run, the batter-runner must touch all 4 bases, otherwise, by definition, they have not scored. That's the nature of the game, and while it may be stupid, it's baseball. That's why we're here.
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