You make the call!

A pitcher in baseball, while attempting to throw a pitch, stumbles, throwing the ball to the ground. The ball slowly rolls about eight feet to the first base side of home plate. While the ball is rolling, and the catcher fields the ball outside fair territory, the batter, while in the batters box, takes a "warm up swing", the umpire calls "strike three"! Is that actually a "strike"?

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biandlargeny · 56-60, M

Technically it would be a strike if the catcher hasn't thrown the ball back to the pitcher. It's a live pitched ball.

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biandlargeny · 56-60, M

@WizardofOz it's a crazy scenario but it could happen. Pro ball player would no to wait..... But maybe not.

WizardofOz · 26-30, M

@biandlargeny I'm thinking a pro player would automatically step out of the batters box. I'm guessing. lol I've never seen that happen but the catcher and umpire were definitely on top of it! I was impressed.

WizardofOz · 26-30, M

Oh, I should say I actually saw it happen yesterday. Everyone was confused!

biandlargeny · 56-60, M

Catchers tend to be the most baseball aware players on the field.

Iumpired a game once where there was a fly out to end the inning. The catcher picked up the opposing players bat to toss it towards their dug out. The bat felt funny. Turns out the weight was outside the range allowed .

The catcher waited for the same batter to come up in a later inning. When that batter got a hit. He picked up the bat showed it to me and I saw it was an illegal bat. I called the battery out. Very smart.

ChipmunkErnie · 70-79, M

Evidently so.

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