roothog66

Sure. I was only addressing his situation where he'd have the catcher "touch" the runner as soon as he stepped over the plate. Yeah, I guess you could make a verbal appeal, but I'm assuming this would not go over well and that FED rules have some definition of abandonment, otherwise, there'd never be a reason for a catcher to try and tag out a runner that slides past the plate on a contested play, he'd simply have to just scream out an appeal to the HU immediatley after the slide.

In the above scenario...tag him with what? The previously live ball is in the stands somewhere and any ball the catcher possesses isn't live until put in play by the HU.

If second is occupied, you don't have to actually throw the ball. In fact, many times, with bases juiced, you want to wheel, feint to second and see if you can get R3 caught too far off.

Yep. At lower levels it works great. I stole a lot of easy outs just like this over the years, even through high school ages. The worst case scenario is you end up with a runner at second and you can try it again without worrying about the balk. However, you need to do it either early to put it in their head and slow down the jump from first in that situation or keep it in your back pocket for a strategic moment in the game, because if it works once, they won't be leaving so quickly again.

Also once saw Turk Wendell pull it off twice in one game.

Actually

The problem, Dan, is the ellipsis in your quote of the Rules. There is an important context in the rule that you replaced with the ellipse: "In a non-force situation." The first half of your quote correctly identifies "in a force situations" but then you go on and omit from the second half of your quote the very important qualifying phrase "in a non-force situation."

Haven't been on in a while, so I'm late to answer this, but, no, it is not like opposition to the other rules/laws/arguments you mention. Those all had statistics to back them up. I am unaware of any statistics involving the slug bunt - near-miss or otherwise. Are you? I can't even think of any near-misses I've witnessed, though there may be some I'm forgetting. Now, if you really want LL to take something up that's dangerous, move the mound back. One thing I have seen plenty of - both actual injuries and near-misses - is line drives back to the pitcher at 46 feet. THIS is actually a problem and the only real argument against it in LL circles is that changing the fields would be an economical burden.

Not sure I get the logical connection here.

I have spent over 30 years on youth baseball fields, including almost 20 years as a youth baseball baseball photographer where I spent 12 months a year standing on youth fields 10-12 hours a day often 5-6 days a week in all seasons. 10's of thousands of youth games at all levels. Never seen an injury from the slug bunt. Never. Any rules to outlaw it are simply solutions in search of a problem.

I'll be honest. I've been in youth ball for 30 years and had never even heard of the USABL - had to look it up. Seems to be pretty local to NJ. I've dealt with hundreds of rec and local leagues throughout the west, midwest and south and seen only a few leagues outlaw it.

A ball would still be a dead ball if the umpire's ruling was that a batter did not attempt to avoid a pitch that hits him. Saw this call last weekend. 3-1 count. Pitch hits the batter and umpire says "batter didn't attempt to get out of the way! That's a ball...Oh. It's ball four - batter take your base." Not sure why a batter with 3 balls would NOT attempt to avoid taking one in the ribs, but...

OK. Got a serious question on "Play 2." Given the 6.02(a)(4) comment the ruling seems wrong. If a "runner bluffs going to third base" how can this not be construed as a situation where the runner "creates an impression of his intent to advance?" A bluff is - by definition - an act meant to create a false impression of an intent. It was my understanding that this comment's purpose was to address this exact situation and take away the array of different ways umpires used to rule on this - "runner was halfway," for example. Seems that if the deciding factor for making a play on a runner is that the "runner did not go" in fact, then the comment has no purpose whatsoever.

A HBP, though I've always thought that a three ball count HBP should be recorded as a BB.

Been there as a coach. A few years ago at 16u, my team in the field - bases loaded, one out. Tie game in a semi-final game, bottom of the seventh. Dropped third, B/R and all base runners take off. I yell at my catcher to step on home plate. PU calls the out and we move on. I immediately realize my mistake. Unfortunately, so does the other coach, who comes out and points out that because first base was occupied, there was no force at home. Could have easily been a double play if I'd kept my mouth shut because I think my F2 understood the situation better than me. PU counts the run - game over. Now, I'm an experienced coach who knew better, but just lost focus for a second. The other thing that bothers me to this day was another argument I DID NOT make. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure R3 took a right turn into the dugout and never actually touched home. The PU had missed the situation as badly as me. Lesson learned.