67L48 posted:A few years ago, NFHS game, JV level. Batter hits a laser line drive over the 3B head. F5 jumps and waves at the liner. He actually catches it, but has no idea he was successful. F5 believes that the ball glanced off the top of his glove. Upon landing on his feet from his jump, he immediately spins to LF to locate the ball. Standing in place, scanning the OF, the ball slowly rolls out of his glove (now at his side) and falls to the ground.
Ruling: batter out, ball was dropped after the ball was declared a secure catch.
I don't believe it's possible to voluntarily release something that you don't even know you possess. Thus, this would have to be involuntary release in my book. However, I thought it was a good call (even though it went against our team). I believe that the player definitely caught and controlled the baseball, even though he didn't know it was in his glove. He made no subsequent baseball play, other than to turn and look over the field.
Presumably, this would have been no-catch, no-out in NCAA rules. That just seems wrong to me. The whole concept seems wrong to me. These aren't bang-bang plays we're discussing. What happens next should affect what happens next, not what just occurred moments ago. But, that's why we have rules, to eliminate the sliding scale of people's individual "common sense."
Because we are talking about a catch, this would not have been a catch under any code.