Batting box question

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Ok, I do not understand everything about this game, but there are some things I thought I did.

Sidenote; DD was in a frosh tourney in SWO near Cincy this weekend. For those of you who were there and know where I am talking about, this place has an awesome facility, and at a school no less. Everyone there was pushing rakes with the rain...fantastic effort by sponsoring team!

On to my issue...tight game, two best teams late Saturday our #4 batter up. She fouls a ball off that goes behind her, umpire declares she is out. I am coaching first and ask why she was out when she clearly swung away. He said she stepped up to far out of the batters box. With all of the raking and everything that had been going on, the box was totally gone, there was no line, no could he show me where the line should have been, only that she had stepped out of the box and was out.

I became furious (but did not raise my voice) and I asked him to immediately have a line drawn so I could work with our batter on not to step out of the box. He told me I had to take it up with the tournament director. I said,"no, I am taking it up with you, sir, I want a line drawn." He said no, and went back to my first base box and we played the rest of the game. Fortunately we rallied late, and won the tourney.

Questions:
Was I wrong to demand a box be drawn if we were going to use this?
Is the rule that her whole foot has to be out during contact?

 

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He should have drawn a line if he was going to be that picky, or heck I would have drawn one myself.... The entire foot has to be out and on the ground. It can be out in the air with no effect as long as it does not interfere with a strike ball, if she's hit in the zone it's a strike.

 

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I with you on this one. I don't have a problem with my girls being called out if there is a box that they can reference, but if there is no box the umpire needs to scratch a line or something if he intends to enforce it.

 

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I with you on this one. I don't have a problem with my girls being called out if there is a box that they can reference, but if there is no box the umpire needs to scratch a line or something if he intends to enforce it.

I agree this is one of the things as a coach that send me over the deep end. Blue will tell you its his call if there is no box for a visual reference.

I have seen some of them that will scrape a line with their shoe, but have had as many just do the opposite and do nothing at all and them make a bone headed call.

 

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Even with no lines drawn, all rules pertaining to the batter's box still apply- the same as with any other line on the field (foul lines, pitcher's circle, catcher's box, three-foot running lane, etc.).

The only difference is that instead of having a nice white chalk line to help make the call, now the placement and dimension of the lines are strictly left at the umpire's judgment. (You can only hope that your umpire has a good handle of what size the boxes are and how they should be situated.)

BUT...and this is a big BUT...

With no visible line, we are told to NOT nit-pick this rule. Give every benefit of the doubt to the batter and only call them for being out of the box if it is grossly obvious and blatant.

What is obvious and blatant? That may vary from umpire-to-umpire and I don't have any way of knowing what this umpire saw. Maybe it was obvious and blatant to him.

A full striding step up out of the front of the box? That's easy to call, line or no line.

A foot so close to the line that even if the rest of the foot is out of the box, maybe 1/8" of the batter's heel is still touching the line (which is legal)? If it's that close, I probably wouldn't call it if there were lines drawn, so I really wouldn't be likely to call it with no lines to fo by.

Again, the key phrase in our training is "give every benefit of the doubt to the batter".

Might a coach ask to have a line drawn? There's nothing that says an umpire has to have it drawn. I would be inclined not to. But then I wouldn't be nit-picking this call either.

And, yes, the rule says that if the entire foot is on the ground completely outside of the box when the ball is batted (either fair or foul), the ball is dead and the batter is out.

 

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how far exactly does the batters box extend beyond the plate...I always thought 4', but obviously am not sure?

 

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Bretman, thank you as always for your clarification. This batter was right handed power hitter who had her right foot planted about even with the plate...girl is about 5'5". She doesn't take an extraordinary stride when she swings, not a slapper who seem sometimes like they are making contact in the pitchers circle - jk - .

By stating that, she was NOT "blatantly" out of the box...here we go, in my opinion...

The pitcher was from the home team and she was great, a couple of our girls had moved up in the box and hit from there, never received as much as a warning and the final outcome did not get affected.

 

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how far exactly does the batters box extend beyond the plate...I always thought 4', but obviously am not sure?

Box is 7 feet long X 3 feet wide. It is 6" away from the side of the plate. It extends 4 feet forward (toward the pitcher) from the center of the plate, 3 feet back (toward the catcher) from the center of the plate.

The plate is 17" square, so the front line of the batter's box is 39.5" up from the front edge of the plate.

That's a lot of real estate for batter's to work with!

 

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Box is 7 feet long X 3 feet wide. It is 6" away from the side of the plate. It extends 4 feet forward (toward the pitcher) from the center of the plate, 3 feet back (toward the catcher) from the center of the plate.

The plate is 17" square, so the front line of the batter's box is 39.5" up from the front edge of the plate.

That's a lot of real estate for batter's to work with!

So if the batter;s feet are more than 6" away from the side of the plate, that is considered out of the batters box correct? I had no idea it was that close to the plate!

 

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So if the batter;s feet are more than 6" away from the side of the plate, that is considered out of the batters box correct? I had no idea it was that close to the plate!

........

 

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Trying to get a picture loaded of her stance...how does one do that?