Sacrifice or Fielder's Choice

You can have a Sac without getting an out. That's what that was.

SACs, to me, are to not punish a batter for giving himself up to advance a runner. The batter can't help it if they chose not to throw him out. If you don't score it a SAC then the batter takes a ding as a FC.

I think that it should still be a SAC if the batter beats the throw to first rather than a hit, but, by the accepted scoring rules, it's a hit.

You can have a sac without an out, but only on an error, not the situation described according to NFHS. Rule 9-3

Art. 4 . . . A sacrifice is credited to the batter when, with not more than one out, his bunt enables any runner to advance or his fly ball enables a runner to score but which, in either case, results in the batter-runner being out before he reaches first, or would have reulted in his being put out if his bunt or batted ball had been fielded without error.

Notwithstanding that rule, which I think overlooks this specific scenario, I think the proper way to score it is one of the following two ways.

1. If you think that the fielder could have gotten the batter at first had the throw gone to first, then you score is a sacrifice, no AB charged, but the batter reaches on a fielder's choice. The use of the FC explains how the batter reached first, but you still don't charge him with an AB when he did his job properly.

2. If you think that the batter would have been safe at first even if the play had been made there, then it's a bunt hit.

You might chalk this up as a "mental error", i.e., throwing to the wrong base, where no E is formally charged and yet you don't punish the batter for the fielder's mistake.

quote:

Originally posted by Midlo Dad:
Notwithstanding that rule, which I think overlooks this specific scenario,

It doesn't overlook it. Rather it intentionally excludes it from being a sac. Big difference.

SAC.

It requires looking at all the rules in context.

What is a FC? It is where the batter would have been put out had the fielder chosen to have made the play on him.

What would happen in the described scenario had the play been made on the batter? He would have been put out. How would you have scored it then? SAC.

OBR is more clear an addresses this situation (provided there were not two outs). SAC.

quote:

Originally posted by Texan:
What is a FC? It is where the batter would have been put out had the fielder chosen to have made the play on him.

What would happen in the described scenario had the play been made on the batter? He would have been put out. How would you have scored it then?

That's exactly why it's a fielder's choice and NOT a sac. The play was chosen to be made on another runner.

Please read again what I posted. The point was missed entirely. I'm sorry if I didn't make it clearly enough.

You might want to read the OBR version of this rule. It clearly calls for scoring a SAC in this situation.

quote:

Originally posted by SJbaseball:
It doesn't overlook it. Rather it intentionally excludes it from being a sac. Big difference.

Gotta go with Milo Dad and Texan on this one, and I don’t see how the described situation excludes it from being sac under 9-3-4.

Sometimes, you’ve gotta do more than just read the rule. You have to take it apart and look at it in pieces.

Art. 4 . . . A sacrifice is credited to the batter when, with not more than one out,

his bunt enables any runner to advance

or

his fly ball enables a runner to score

Those two things are the only two ways a sacrifice can be scored for the batter. One’s a sac bunt, the other a sac fly.

but which, in either case,

The following two things apply to both of the above, whichever one it happens to be, and one or the other has to be met.

results in the batter-runner being out before he reaches first

or

would have resulted in his being put out if his bunt or batted ball had been fielded without error.

Those last one’s are what makes the whole thing tricky. The reason its tricky isn’t because there’s any question about it being a sac or not, but whether or not he would have been put out had the fielder chose to make an errorless play one him at 1st.

Now you have to look at whether or not the FC applies. If it does, the assumption is that he would have been put out.

Under NFHS 2-14, there’s no doubt it was a fielder’s choice, and by extension, means that the batter-runner would have been put out.

Now its entirely possible I’m wrong, but as Texan notes, it is much clearer in OBR, and also in the NCAA rules.

Sometimes you just have to look in other places in the rules to get the “best” or “complete” answer.

There are places where the NFHS and OBR conflict, or where the NCAA rules depart from OBR, etc. In those situations you have to respect the rules of whatever organization's banner you're playing under.

But unfortunately, the NFHS rules simply have gaps. And I think it is reasonable to fill in those gaps with standard baseball practices, for which there is no better source than the OBR.

quote:

Originally posted by Midlo Dad:
There are places where the NFHS and OBR conflict, or where the NCAA rules depart from OBR, etc. In those situations you have to respect the rules of whatever organization's banner you're playing under.

But unfortunately, the NFHS rules simply have gaps. And I think it is reasonable to fill in those gaps with standard baseball practices, for which there is no better source than the OBR.

Well stated, and precisely why I’m so much in favor of everyone using the OBR template, then making whatever modifications they like with comments, additions, or deletions.

Think about how stupid is to restate every single rule! Rules like what we’ve been discussing should be exactly the same whether its t-ball or the ML, but every rule set is at least a tiny bit different, and its maddening to those who actually have to use the rule book.

quote:

Originally posted by Midlo Dad:
There are places where the NFHS and OBR conflict, or where the NCAA rules depart from OBR, etc. In those situations you have to respect the rules of whatever organization's banner you're playing under.

But unfortunately, the NFHS rules simply have gaps. And I think it is reasonable to fill in those gaps with standard baseball practices, for which there is no better source than the OBR.

That's precisely my point. If you're using NFHS, FC applies in the situation. There is no doubt that OBR has that scenario spelled out. By the way, I agree it should be ruled a sac, I'm just arguing that the omission of this scenario in NFHS leaves no other choice but to rule a FC. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one!

quote:

Originally posted by SJbaseball:
You can have a sac without an out, but only on an error, not the situation described according to NFHS. Rule 9-3

Art. 4 . . . A sacrifice is credited to the batter when, with not more than one out, his bunt enables any runner to advance or his fly ball enables a runner to score but which, in either case, results in the batter-runner being out before he reaches first, or would have reulted in his being put out if his bunt or batted ball had been fielded without error.

I would suggest that the second part of that applies in this case...the error was not a "recordible" error, but an error in judgement, i.e. "I can get the guy at second." The fielder makes a judgement call on where to throw the ball, but clearly, the batter would have been out (SAC), giving himself up as he had intended, had the fielder thrown to first.

quote:

Originally posted by SJbaseball:
… I'm just arguing that the omission of this scenario in NFHS leaves no other choice but to rule a FC. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one!

It would be literally impossible to list every scenario possible in the rule book, and still have one that could be lifted without a forklift. There are lots of scenarios that aren’t spelled out specifically. Sometimes you have to use the knowledge you have to interpret the book correctly.

IMHO, the vast majority of times people there are issues with the rules, its because people refuse to understand that the whole book has to be looked at to truly come to the proper conclusion about any rule. And the whole thing starts with the definitions being so weak.

Its not that the definitions are bad, its that there should be more of them! I’m still waiting to see the rule change to OBR that’s supposedly finally giving us a definition of “ORDINARY EFFORT”. But even if all the crazy unexplained terms were defined well, a lot of problems would come because people simply won’t look everywhere in the book!

They’ll read until they find the first occurrence of something, then that’s all they look at. But that’s not the way rule books work. You have to go other places to see what else is said about the subject you’re looking for.

Here’s a good example. Let’s say someone wants to see something about a “dead ball” in OBR. Heck, that should be easy. You go to the definitions and read what a dead ball is. Then you might find it in the definition of “play” too, and you’ll also find it in rule 5.00. That’s it! 3 places.

But if you look for “ball is dead”, you’ll find it in over 30 different places, and nearly ever rule, and if you look just the word “dead” you’ll find it in over 50 different places! So which is the right one? Its impossible to say until you eliminate the ones that don’t apply, and its possible more than one occurrence will apply.

The problem with the whole rule book is, it isn’t a list of things that you start at the top and go down the list until you hit what you’re looking for and that’s the final answer! Sometimes you have to look around like I tried to show you with the FC thing.

The bottom line is, the rule book is a lot more complicated than most people believe, and it takes more than a few minutes of reading to know the rules.