Had a similar situation happen in my son's Knothole game a week ago. Bases loaded, but only 1 out. Batter strikes out, catcher drops the ball right in front of him...picks up the ball and steps on home plate, as the runner from 3rd started coming home. Umpire yells "out", and catcher proceeds to throw ball to first base, beating the batter. Defensive team feels they've gotten a double play and exit the field. Umpire says that there's only two outs and that a run scored (runner who was on third, did come all the way in and touch home eventually).

 

So, the already-discussed rule was gone over. Defensive team said it should have been a dead ball, if the batter was automatically out. Ump said "no, live ball, and runners advance at their own will". The only thing the ump did wrong, in my opinion, is not stating WHO was out, at the very beginning of the play. If he had said "Batter's out", that could've helped.

 

There was not a force out at home due to the batter being out, so the run should have counted.

11 year olds...with a lot of them having played only 1 or 2 years. Most of the time, you hear "on a dropped third strike, hustle down to first".

 

Fair enough there, they might not know that rule or at least aren't completely familiar with it. I know I had learned it by the end of my middle school years but at the beginning I may or may not have (can't remember, too old now haha).

 

Yeah, the umpire should have tried to make the clarification but it is what it is at that point.

There was not a force out at home due to the batter being out, so the run should have counted.

 

The run did count. The defensive team though, thought that it was a situation similar to having two outs, where the catcher could just step on home and get the force out...but since there was just one out to start with, could then still throw to first to get the batter out.

 

In all honesty, if the ball had gotten away from the catcher and gone anywhere but where it did, there would have been enough time lapse between when the ump said "out" and when the catcher could've stepped on home (thinking that he'd have a force), but it happened bang-bang...so there was confusion as to who exactly he was calling out.

I see 2 errors by the umpires. The first one in declaring the batter out. As soon as that happened the inning should have been over. The second error was in "correcting" the first error by awarding the batter 1st and scoring the run. Calling the batter out is like an inadvertent whistle in football or basketball. It kills the play.

 

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