Thoughts!
Jon
hardballcoach.com
quote:
"Fairmont right fielder Brendon Cunningham scored the winning run when batter Alex Marcano walked on a 3-2 pitch. In his exuberance at forcing in the run, Marcano failed to immediately touch first base. He instead went halfway down the line and joined his teammates and coaches in celebration.
"I started halfway to first, and I put my hands up, but nobody said anything to me," said Marcano. "The run scored and once it scored I thought it was over. Plus, it was a walk, so I thought it was a dead ball."
Thompson, who is in his 20th season as Elder's coach, protested the run.
"There really is no precedent for something like this but our contention was that he did not go to the base, that he just abandoned his attempt to go to the base, and there is a rule about that," said Thompson. "(The umpires) said for that to have happened, he would have had to have gone into the dugout."
If Marcano had entered the dugout, he would have abandoned his base on balls and the run would not have counted.
"You know what? That would have been pulling a rabbit out of the hat," said Thompson. "They won the game. We were trying to prolong it. If we could have, that would have been great, but they won it between the lines, that's the bottom line, and we're not going to dwell on it. But that will be something for the national rules committee to look into. It's not in the books now, so that will change. I thought I had seen about everything."
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During the controversy, Elder second baseman Selby Chidemo noticed Marcano had not touched first base and he went over and stepped on the base with the baseball in his glove. One of the umpires then ruled Marcano out. Marcano eventually left his group and touched first base in hopes of completing the play.
The three-man umpiring crew met and began a procedure of consulting their own rule books as well as making phone calls to others in authority, including their national rules interpreter.
After all of their discussions, they ruled that Marcano had never officially abandoned the play and that the walk, and the run it forced in, would stand."
