When do you call contact with the ball with a foot out of batter's box? Bizarre play

I can't speak to whether the call was correct.

I can say that I have made this call in a nearly identical situation, and I signaled the hell out of it as soon as I had made the call--yet not a soul saw nor heard me other than my partner.

This would be a situation where video would be nice.

Tough call, especially late in a game where as you mentioned there was no batters box left.  Pretty tough for a lefty to be out of the box and still get a sac bunt down....either 1) the pitch was really far inside.....or 2) he was using a 42" bat.....lol.   Either way, as Matt mentioned tough to say without seeing it/being there

Buckeye 2015 posted:

Tough call, especially late in a game where as you mentioned there was no batters box left.  Pretty tough for a lefty to be out of the box and still get a sac bunt down....either 1) the pitch was really far inside.....or 2) he was using a 42" bat.....lol.   Either way, as Matt mentioned tough to say without seeing it/being there

When I've seen lefties out of the box in this situation, it's because the pitch is outside and they want to get as much extension as possible to push the ball. Once they're blocking my vision, I have nothing else to look at besides where they are.

In these kinds of situations, as Matt states, a video would be a great assist to "back-seat" umpire.....A lot of times you will see the answer HTBT...(had to be there)....but that answer would leave a lot of questions unanswered.

I often have to call games on "not the better" fields.........which often means that there are not well maintained or correctly lined.   In the Seventh inning, those plate areas are even more unrecognizable. I would have to have been totally convinced that I was right to make that call.

AS to other things....

I have called batter out/dead ball/time at the top of my lungs and the play still continues leading me to wait until it plays out to enforce a ruling..... Baseball is a passionate game, there is a lot of excitement and at crucial points the crowd noise can mask the umpires calls.

You cant let the fact that a ruling " takes that opportunity" from one team or another. If you have a violation and you call it. It is what it is.... and regardless of whether or not its the first inning or the 7th inning. As a matter of fact, If you make that call in the first inning, you darn sure better call it in the 7th inning.     

Also keep in mind that this was a FED game, which means that if he was touching the plate at all, he'd be out. That may be the violation instead of the foot being entirely out of the box, and one that requires far less judgment.

We also don't know whether PU (informally) "warned" the batter about his feet (as can happen if the batter is way up in the box, or had attempted a bunt earlier).

And, if PU doesn't make this call, we'd get a post from "the other side" exclaiming that the batter was clearly out and wondering why there was no call.

If PU was up the line, wouldnt that indicate that he thought the play was live?  Seems that if he had called it originally he would have stayed at home or something.  Not an umpire but doesnt make sense it would play out.  Of course, would have had to see it and even then might not have noticed in the heat of the game.

I honestly can't say whether he was out of the box or not...but I've umpired for many years as well and I saw no indication visually or verbally from the umpire until AFTER R1 had reached 3B, and from all appearances he was sending R1 home (which made our fans quite happy). The joy quickly changed, however.