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As one of the trainers in our local chapter I always invite the new umpire prospects to come up with possible scenarios (what ifs) that I can use to illustrate rules and applications. About 99% of the time there is no problem referring to an appropriate rule to explain what governs their question. Once in a while, however, they come up with something (the evil 1%) that I never entertained a thought of happening and subsequently had no definitive answer for.

To wit: Batter hits line drive that the short stop leaps high for. As he leaps for the ball his glove accidentally slips off of his hand. Ball enters glove and ball stays in it. Glove with ball in it descends and short stop catches it.

Is it:
a) A catch
b) no catch, play on
or
horror of horrors
c) the short stop, after catching the glove with the ball in it, is now guilty of touching a batted ball with detached equipment (glove is "held" rather than "worn" on the hand) and award the B/R three bases.
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quote:
Originally posted by pilsner:
Batter hits line drive that the short stop leaps high for. As he leaps for the ball his glove accidentally slips off of his hand. Ball enters glove and ball stays in it. Glove with ball in it descends and short stop catches it.

Is it:
a) A catch
b) no catch, play on
or
horror of horrors
c) the short stop, after catching the glove with the ball in it, is now guilty of touching a batted ball with detached equipment (glove is "held" rather than "worn" on the hand) and award the B/R three bases.


d) Three-base award when the ball touches the detached glove.
quote:
Originally posted by pilsner:
In the scenario I presented, the glove was not pulled off by the ball. That was neither stated nor implied. .


Pils......this sentence alone leaves me no choice but to agree with Dash..if the glove is not pulled off by the ball then the glove must have been propelled into the ball.....

Confused
quote:
Originally posted by pilsner:
OK dash, I get it. Ease of administration.


No, not ease of administration, Rule 8-3-3-b.

Although, with respect to ease of administration, when the coach comes out and says: "He threw his glove and it hit the ball. That's three bases." Are you going to tell him it was an accident? That reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit where Claudine Longet "accidentally" shot 6 alpine skiers.
quote:
Originally posted by pilsner:
Thanks Matt.

Any reference for that?

You cited the reference four posts ago pilsner. And I am not disregarding it, as you claim.

Take a step back. We have a problem. A batted ball has touched a detached glove over fair territory. 8.3.3.f makes it very clear that the ump fixes the problem by applying, or not applying, a penalty to the defense. It is up to us to get it right.

The batter hit a line drive over the head of the shortstop. He leaped high but he couldn't reach it. The only reason the ball didn't go into the outfield was the shortstop's detached glove. To me, that makes it automatically an intentionally thrown glove.

Instead of nitpicking the rule and trying to determine whether or not the fielder threw the glove on purpose, sometimes you just have to umpire a baseball game. Three bases.

One of the results of this call is ease of administration. If the D coach comes out and tells me the detached glove was an accident. I give him a YGBSM look. I doubt there is an ejection. If I keep the ball in play and give the D an out or two, the O coach will probably have to go.
I can't imagine a glove coming off accidently, nor do I see any way to decide the difference. If it is obvious that it is not thrown then don't enforce the three bases but unless the the ball takes the glove off I would go with intentional.
I had a protest the other week. I enforced a BI on a batter on strike three. Since he is out then you call the runner out. The problem is Fed adds a caveat that says that if you don't think there would be additional outs to just send him back. Unless the runner is almost there at the time of interference, stole on the pitcher, then get the out.
This is the same thing, they give you the out but it highly unlikely.
quote:
Originally posted by 3FingeredGlove:
The shortstop reaches for the ball, which hits the pocket of the glove, tears the glove off his hand but stays in the glove, and then the shortstop catches the glove with the ball in it?

As long as F6 can subsequently voluntarily release the ball, this is a catch. It meets the definition of one.


Compare this to FED, unlike the pros, not allowing a fielder to toss a glove with the ball inside to another fielder for an out.
Last edited by Jimmy03
I believe pilsner is referring to FED, and before posting I considered the FED ruling you mention. The key to 5.1.1R is that ball is lodged in the fielder's glove. 5.1.1Q is closer to pilsner's scenario, with a line drive knocking the glove to the ground with the ball still in the glove. Again the rationale is the idea that the ball is lodged in the glove.

For the revised scenario which pilsner posted, I don't consider the ball to be lodged in the glove.

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