Out of Play Call Resuls

Question
Dear Mark,

In slow-pitch game under ASA rules, the pre-game ground rules designated each team's "bench and beyond" as out of play.

With runners on first and second, the batter hit a double. After the runner on second scored, the throw to home rolled away from the catcher, toward the batting team's bench. It came to a stop close to or right under the bench, depending upon one's angle of view. The umpire, who aligned himself to see where the ball went, remained silent.

Members of the batting team yelled, "Out of play!" and told the runner on first, who had reached third, to advance home, and the batter to advance from second to third.

The catcher retrieved the ball and threw to the pitcher, covering home. The pitcher ran up the third base line, tagged the runner walking home and then threw to third, where a tag was applied to the batter-runner before he reached third base.

The offense contended that the ball went out of play and it had two runs in and a runner on third. The defense contended that it had a cool double play.

The umpire contended that the ball did not go out of play; it only reached the line, hence he made no call initially.

Due to the "confusion," however, the umpire ruled that one run scored, the runner originally on first was sent back to third and the batter-runner sent back to second.

It may have been a compromise worthy of Henry Clay, but was it the correct ruling?

I will have a follow-up question to this.

As always, thank you for your help!

Sincerely,
Ken Boos


Answer
Good morning Ken,

Sounds like you had a mess!

You ask me if it was the correct ruling, based on the info I have here...NO, and here's why.

If a ball goes out of play an umpire should immediately signal dead ball...that didn't happen here so we continue to have a live ball.  The umpire is correct that if the ball was on the line it continues to be a live ball.

The offense make a serious error by calling "out of play" and their runners responed without direction from the umpire.  If the ball was out of play the umpire would have both arms up to signal "dead ball" and he would also be calling out "dead ball".  The fact that the offense thought the ball was out of play has no bearing on what followed.  The ball was live and it seems by your info play continued.  If the umpire had responded to the offense by calling out "live ball" a few times that would have helped.

So my opinion is the defense has a double play.

Now Umpire Henry Clay makes a compromise....based on what?  The ball was either live or dead and by your info he stated the ball was on the line and hence "live".  If he had killed the ball immediately runners would have advanced based on the last base touched at the time of the throw. If after the play and he felt he put the runners at risk, he would have stated no, the ball was out of play and I was late in making the call he would have to advance the runners based on the throw. Neither of those things happened.

The run certainly scores and he seems to kill the play where it would have ended had the defense had simple control of the ball.  A nice move if you can get away with it BUT the defense did not have control of the ball and play was allowed to continue.

Sometimes "stuff" just happens but that doesn't mean rules don't apply.  If the umpire felt the ball was live he did not put the runners at risk the offense did,  

To summarize...(based on your info) the ball was live, play continued, the offense made an error by calling out "out of play" and the runners responded without an umpire's direction, the umpire could have handled it better by making his opinion of live ball clearer,...but double play and the offense has to live with it.
Mark