I read somewhere today that if the pitcher delivers to the plate, it is dead when the catcher catches the ball. The ball is also dead when the fielder catches the ball. It goes on to say that if the fielder/catcher does not catch the ball and the ball goes past, through, or wild, the ball is live until all plays are over. But after replying to a post on another forum trying to use this interp (which I did not know whether to be credible or not)I realized that this interp is not correct since in the rulebook it states as follows for a penalty of a balk...
PENALTY: The ball is dead, and each runner shall advance one base without liability to be put out, unless the batter reaches first on a hit, an error, a base on balls, a hit batter, or otherwise, and all other runners advance at least one base, in which case the play proceeds without reference to the balk.
If it is a count of 3-2 and the pitch is a ball, the batter gets first... what really screwed up everything on this balk call on this other forum was that the bases were loaded no outs and the R3 took off for home, and the pitcher balked by not pausing in the set, before you know it balk was called and R3 was out...
In OBR, the correct ruling in this situation would be...For me at first I thought that you would enforce the balk since R3 was out since I thought you never counted a pitch on a balk...But due to the penalty above, since a batter can walk...if the batter does have a count of 3 balls, you can enforce the walk...in fact, you have to...
If the count had been 2-2 however, since the runner was out, you enforce the balk and the pitch does not count...correct?
Ultimately that is how I ruled on that situation, but I just wanted you to see my very unorganized thought process into what constitutes a delayed dead ball to finally be dead...
If you disagree with me allowing the walk and R3 to score since he is entitled to home, please reply as well.
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