Extra Ball on Field

[chalen]

OBR. No runners. Before the pitch, F8 yells to the dugout that he was paged and has to leave immediately, and begins running off the field. The plate umpire doesn’t realize this, and time is neither requested nor granted. Batter hits a ground ball to F6, who overthrows 1B before the batter runner reaches 1B. The ball rolls toward the 1B dugout, and comes to rest in live ball territory. The batter runner heads for 2B. A defensive substitute planning to take over at centerfield exits the dugout. (Yes, of course they cannot substitute while the ball is live.) He does not realize the live ball is there, and he discards a different ball that he had been carrying, a few feet away from the live ball. The sub intentionally dropped the ball, but not with intent to confuse. F3 runs over and picks up the wrong ball and throws to 2B for a play on the batter runner. In the umpire’s judgement, if the wrong ball not been there and F3 played the correct ball, the batter runner would have been (a) safe at 2B, or (b) out at 2B. Call it!

This is similar to intentional interference by an authorized person, in which case the umpire imposes whatever would have happened without the interference--but the sub wasn't authorized to be out of the dugout, and he didn't touch the live ball.

[maven]

Day game or night?

[DVA7130]

Cluster.

I probably would leave the runner on second no matter what because the defense caused the headache for me.

[JaxRolo]

Put him on 3rd

[chalen]

Put him on 3rd

My partner did put him on 3B. That seemed reasonable at the moment, considering the defense screwed up. But there doesn't seem to be any rule support for this other than the dreaded 9.01(c). Maybe we should have held him at 2B. He would have been safe at 2B without the extra ball.

[Jimurray]

Would this be a "less than 8 on the playing field". Nullify any action?

[chalen]

 

Would this be a "less than 8 on the playing field". Nullify any action?

Clarification: F8 was still on the field throughout this action.

[Senor Azul]

There was a two-balls in live territory occurrence in a game between Cincinnati and Cleveland on August 6, 2014. Also, on August 30, 2013, Chase Utley hit a ball (triple) into the ivy at Wrigley Field and after the outfielder crashed into the ivy two balls came tumbling out at the defender's feet. Video is easy to find online of these two instances. 

In fact, the comments posted on the Wrigley Field occurrence leads me to believe that this is not as rare as we might think. Some posters stated this kind of thing happens as many as 5 times a season. Perhaps Wrigley has a ground rule on two balls in live territory? Any Cubs fans know about this?

[Senor Azul]

Perhaps the most famous (probably because it involved two future HOFers) extra ball on the field incident took place on June 30, 1959 at Wrigley Field. 

Stan Musial took a ball four pitch that got away from the catcher and went all the way to the backstop of Wrigley. Seeing the ball got away Musial started running to first base. The pitcher and the catcher immediately started to argue with the HP umpire Vic Delmore that the reason the ball got away was that the pitch hit Musial's check swing. During the course of the argument Delmore handed a second ball to the catcher. The catcher sees that Musial is on his way to second and overthrows second base with the second ball going into center field. Musial saw the overthrow and started for third base. While all this was happening the third baseman ran in and picked up the first live ball and threw it to the shortstop Ernie Banks who applied a tag on Musial and he was called out. That out was upheld by the umpires after lengthy discussion.

 

Umpire Delmore was let go after the season ended.