Rules interpretation

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Past weekend in ASA game, runners on 1st and 2nd, no outs. Pitcher starts and finishes pitch, illegal pitch is called before release by home plate ump. Field umps calls runner on 2nd out for leaving before release.

After conference and questions by both coaches, verdict was runner on 2nd Out. Runner on 1st advances to 2nd. Ball on the batter.

My question, the illegal pitch is a delayed dead ball, which came 1st, How does leaving the base early come into play? I'm thinking that the runner is awarded to advance without liability anyway. How can they be called out?

Thanks for any insight...

 

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Thats a darn good question. I would think if its an illegal pitch, the baserunner automatically advances. By no means do i know the correct answer. But if the runner should automatically advance how can she or he leave early? Even if they did leave early, unless i completely dont understand the situation? Hopefully theres an ump around here to help us out.

 

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Unless they determined that the runner on 2nd base left the base before the illegal pitch act.

 

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Your umpires got it right. Good job, Blues! I've never had this happen in one of my games and admit that I had to look it up. But I did recall an official interpretation in the past from ASA. It took some digging to find it- this was published on their website in 2008.

In a nutshell, you enforce both the leaving early and the illegal pitch (assuming that the illegal pitch happened first- if the leaving early was first, the ball was dead before the pitching infraction and it is a no-pitch).

On the surface this may not intuitively seem right, but that is exactly why sanctioning bodies issue rule interpretations. If there is a seeming contradiction between two rules, an official interpretation clears up any confusion and takes precedence.

Here is the ASA interpretation:

PLAY: R1 on 1B and no count on B2. F1 commits an illegal pitch, by bringing the hands together a second time, which is called by the plate umpire, but continues the pitch. Just before releasing the ball R1 leaves the base before the release of the pitch. In (a) B1 does not swing at the pitch. In (b) B1 swings at the pitch and gets a base hit. In (c) R1 is on 1B and R2 is on 3B at the start of the play.

RULING: The illegal pitch happened when the pitcher brought their hands together, paused, the hands separated to begin the pitch, then the hands came back together prior to the release of the pitch. In (a) and (b) the ball became dead when R1 left 1B before the pitch was released. The fact that the batter did not swing in (a) or got a hit in (b) is irrelevant because the ball became dead when R1 left 1B early. Enforce both the leaving early and illegal pitch infractions, The Ball is dead and R1 is out and a ball is awarded to B2. In (c) The plate umpire should call illegal pitch when it occurs and then ?dead ball? when R1 leaves 1B too soon. R1 is out, R2 is awarded home and B2 is awarded a ball in the count.

 

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Well, that shoots my guess all to smitherines

 

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and that is how you learn little facts about the game.. very interesting!

 

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Thanks for clearing that one up. A bit confusing till you actually read it.

 

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Thanks, Bret...I guess being so rare interesting to see it was called correct. This particular ump is very good and doesn't miss much...thought I had him on this.