Baseball

[Guest Me109]

If a ball bounces in bounds before first base then bounces out of bounds before first base is it considered fair or foul ball?

[Gfoley4]

A ball is not fair or fair until it bounds past a base or is touched by a fielder. If no fielders touched it and it bounced past first base in foul territory- not going over any part of the base- it's a foul ball.

[ElkOil]

32 minutes ago, Guest Me109 said:

If a ball bounces in bounds before first base then bounces out of bounds before first base is it considered fair or foul ball?

Foul.

[Jimurray]

38 minutes ago, Gfoley4 said:

A ball is not fair or fair until it bounds past a base or is touched by a fielder. If no fielders touched it and it bounced past first base in foul territory- not going over any part of the base- it's a foul ball.

You typed too quick. 

[Rich Ives]

1 hour ago, ElkOil said:

Foul.

Nothing yet. Has to go by 1B or be touched before it's determined.

[ElkOil]

22 hours ago, Rich Ives said:

Nothing yet. Has to go by 1B or be touched before it's determined.

Sorry, Coach, that's incorrect. If the ball is untouched and hasn't passed 1B and has no chance of becoming fair, it's foul. By your logic, if a ball is batted into foul territory and caroms off the dugout or wall, then comes to rest in foul territory, it's nothing. Plus, it is by definition foul once the umpire calls it so. In FED, this cannot be undone.

Thanks for playing umpire. Try again next time.

[ALStripes17]

Sorry, Coach, that's incorrect. If the ball is untouched and hasn't passed 1B and has no chance of becoming fair, it's foul. By your logic, if a ball is batted into foul territory and caroms off the dugout or wall, then comes to rest in foul territory, it's nothing. Plus, it is by definition foul once the umpire calls it so. In FED, this cannot be undone.
Thanks for playing umpire. Try again next time.

There is nothing in the rule book for fair/foul that says "and has no chance of becoming fair"... The batted ball must meet the definition of a fair ball or a foul ball before it is to be declared as such.

A ball could be rolling in foul territory and hit a rock or a lip that sends it back into fair territory. That ball status is fair if it comes to rest or is touched there.

@RichIves has it right. I don't know what you are citing here...

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[ElkOil]

7 minutes ago, ALStripes17 said:

There is nothing in the rule book for fair/foul that says "and has no chance of becoming fair"... The batted ball must meet the definition of a fair ball or a foul ball before it is to be declared as such.

A ball could be rolling in foul territory and hit a rock or a lip that sends it back into fair territory. That ball status is fair if it comes to rest or is touched there.

@RichIves has it right. I don't know what you are citing here...

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 

When a foul is called, the ball is foul. Particularly in FED, and the call cannot be reversed. The ball can be called foul at any point, but by Rich's logic, even a ball that is obviously foul and as I stated, has come to rest untouched and before reaching 1B, isn't actually foul unless it's touched or passes the base. 

Are you telling me that a ball that dribbles 10 feet from home in foul ground and stops isn't actually a foul ball because nobody touched it and it hasn't passed 1B? We would all call that a foul, and don't try to make me believe otherwise.

I'm not citing any rule that says anything about a ball having a chance of becoming fair. But why do we not call anything when a ball is close to the line and wait for something to develop? Because there's a chance it could become fair. The inverse is true that the reason we call obviously foul balls that have no chance of becoming fair, foul, is because they are just that.

The OP had a simple question. Why in the world are you trying to make it more difficult than it has to be?

[Rich Ives]

10 minutes ago, ElkOil said:

 

The OP had a simple question. Why in the world are you trying to make it more difficult than it has to be?

Because it wasn't fair or foul yet.

[ElkOil]

Just now, Rich Ives said:

Because it wasn't fair or foul yet.

Once it's called foul, it is foul. If the ball comes to rest untouched, it is foul. There is never a time when a ball sitting idly in foul territory is fair. You're adding confusion to a very straight-forward situation.

[MadMax]

It is considered a batted ball in motion, neither fair nor foul... yet.

23 minutes ago, ElkOil said:

Once it's called foul, it is foul. If the ball comes to rest untouched, it is foul.

Why would it be called foul, @ElkOil? If we take the OP at face value – especially in its vagueness – that ball has not yet satisfied any of the criteria for us to judge (and therefore, call) it foul... or fair, for that matter.

Our Guest did not present to us a conclusion or any further information. According to the OP, that ball is still moving and is somewhere between HP and 1B.

[Aging_Arbiter]

[Mussgrass]

I am a bit confused as to what is so difficult here. The OP said "If a ball bounces in bounds before first base then bounces out of bounds before first base". That would mean it passed over foul territory before going out of bounds. It did not pass 1st base, nor was it touched in fair territory. FOUL BALL!

[maven]

7 minutes ago, Mussgrass said:

I am a bit confused as to what is so difficult here. The OP said "If a ball bounces in bounds before first base then bounces out of bounds before first base". That would mean it passed over foul territory before going out of bounds. It did not pass 1st base, nor was it touched in fair territory. FOUL BALL!

First of all, I suspect that by "out of bounds" the OP meant "foul ground." It would be highly unusual for a ball that lands anywhere in fair territory to go out of play before 1B.

If that's right, then OP doesn't say whether the ball passed first base, nor, if it did, where it was when it passed the base. It says only that the ball touched both fair and foul ground before the base. That's not enough info to answer the question.

Part of the problem with people not knowing the definition of fair/foul is that they don't know how much information to provide when asking about a particular play.

[noumpere]

1 hour ago, Mussgrass said:

I am a bit confused as to what is so difficult here. The OP said "If a ball bounces in bounds before first base then bounces out of bounds before first base". That would mean it passed over foul territory before going out of bounds. It did not pass 1st base, nor was it touched in fair territory. FOUL BALL!

IF you were being sarcastic / literal -- I agree (I almost posted the same thing because of that).  But, given the section we are in, and how I read the post in it's entirety, I think it's more likely that Maven's interp is correct -- the OP meant "fair" and "foul" and not "in bounds" and "out of bounds."

[Mussgrass]

@maven and @noumpere Sorry guys! I guess I was reading it too literally. 

Now I get it.

I need to remember where this question was asked.

[maven]

No biggie. Frankly, I didn't even notice the first time I read it that the post had "out of bounds."

[ALStripes17]

When a foul is called, the ball is foul. Particularly in FED, and the call cannot be reversed. The ball can be called foul at any point, but by Rich's logic, even a ball that is obviously foul and as I stated, has come to rest untouched and before reaching 1B, isn't actually foul unless it's touched or passes the base. 
Are you telling me that a ball that dribbles 10 feet from home in foul ground and stops isn't actually a foul ball because nobody touched it and it hasn't passed 1B? We would all call that a foul, and don't try to make me believe otherwise.
I'm not citing any rule that says anything about a ball having a chance of becoming fair. But why do we not call anything when a ball is close to the line and wait for something to develop? Because there's a chance it could become fair. The inverse is true that the reason we call obviously foul balls that have no chance of becoming fair, foul, is because they are just that.
The OP had a simple question. Why in the world are you trying to make it more difficult than it has to be?

Nowhere in the OP does it say that foul was called... And that summary statement is also still partially wrong as a verbal foul must be accompanied with the batted ball touching the ground also (think fly ball that is caught but umpire calls 'Foul'). But I digress.

Coach was not wrong in his response. The OP is not clear by any means. The batted ball is not fair or foul as described in the OP until it meets the criteria for a fair or foul ball. It's THAT simple...

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[ElkOil]

On 8/17/2017 at 6:20 PM, ALStripes17 said:

Nowhere in the OP does it say that foul was called... And that summary statement is also still partially wrong as a verbal foul must be accompanied with the batted ball touching the ground also (think fly ball that is caught but umpire calls 'Foul'). But I digress.

Coach was not wrong in his response. The OP is not clear by any means. The batted ball is not fair or foul as described in the OP until it meets the criteria for a fair or foul ball. It's THAT simple...

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Given the brevity of the OP, I added some criteria that would allow me to answer the question. Read through almost any other post in this section of the forum to see that we all do it out of necessity because we are often asked incomplete questions. And given my initial interpretation of said incomplete question, and picturing what I can only imagine to be the type of play described as it was, I gave my answer. It sure beats shrugging and saying "I don't know" or "we can't know."

Foul ball. It's even simpler than you describe.

 

[ElkOil]

On 8/17/2017 at 0:16 AM, MadMax said:

It is considered a batted ball in motion, neither fair nor foul... yet.

Why would it be called foul, @ElkOil? If we take the OP at face value – especially in its vagueness – that ball has not yet satisfied any of the criteria for us to judge (and therefore, call) it foul... or fair, for that matter.

Our Guest did not present to us a conclusion or any further information. According to the OP, that ball is still moving and is somewhere between HP and 1B.

I agree that we weren't presented a conclusion and have limited information. My view is that assuming the ball is still moving is just as valid as assuming it isn't. I chose to answer based on the latter assumption in order to give an answer. When you read as many posts in the Ask the Umpire section, it's remarkable how so many simple questions get dissected to the Nth degree and we wind up calling a clear blue sky red and convincing ourselves it's true.

We tend to over-think and over-analyze. I made an effort to simplify the process. When a non-umpire asks what they think is an easy question, we have a collective bad habit of giving analysis instead of an answer.

[ALStripes17]

I agree that we weren't presented a conclusion and have limited information. My view is that assuming the ball is still moving is just as valid as assuming it isn't. I chose to answer based on the latter assumption in order to give an answer. When you read as many posts in the Ask the Umpire section, it's remarkable how so many simple questions get dissected to the Nth degree and we wind up calling a clear blue sky red and convincing ourselves it's true.

We tend to over-think and over-analyze. I made an effort to simplify the process. When a non-umpire asks what they think is an easy question, we have a collective bad habit of giving analysis instead of an answer.

Haha, then how do you tell someone they are incorrect when they are, in fact, correct? This all only comes back to your Rich Ives directive, not your initial post, which contained no information on assumption.

 

Your unmentioned assumption tells the OP that any batted ball that crosses fair > foul is immediately foul. That's a pretty tough one to swallow as umpires when WE know that's nowhere near enough information.

 

One simply added variable tells the OP the answer... It's not creating 3rd world plays, it's answering the question.

 

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[ElkOil]

15 hours ago, ALStripes17 said:

One simply added variable tells the OP the answer... It's not creating 3rd world plays, it's answering the question.

 

 

 

...which I did. Foul ball.

[beerguy55]

On 8/18/2017 at 10:04 PM, ElkOil said:

Given the brevity of the OP, I added some criteria that would allow me to answer the question. Read through almost any other post in this section of the forum to see that we all do it out of necessity because we are often asked incomplete questions. And given my initial interpretation of said incomplete question, and picturing what I can only imagine to be the type of play described as it was, I gave my answer. It sure beats shrugging and saying "I don't know" or "we can't know."

Foul ball. It's even simpler than you describe.

 

No, but you can say "We can't know because..."...or you can say "it's foul because..."

On 8/18/2017 at 10:12 PM, ElkOil said:

I agree that we weren't presented a conclusion and have limited information. My view is that assuming the ball is still moving is just as valid as assuming it isn't. I chose to answer based on the latter assumption in order to give an answer. When you read as many posts in the Ask the Umpire section, it's remarkable how so many simple questions get dissected to the Nth degree and we wind up calling a clear blue sky red and convincing ourselves it's true.

We tend to over-think and over-analyze. I made an effort to simplify the process. When a non-umpire asks what they think is an easy question, we have a collective bad habit of giving analysis instead of an answer.

I'm not assuming it is moving, nor am I assuming it is not moving.  In fact, assuming either can lead to a foul ball answer.

In this case, we can't know because we don't know if the ball has stopped or not, nor what it did after bouncing foul.

I took the question to ask whether it was a foul ball at that point in time.

As described, the ball is neither foul nor fair because we don't know what it did after it touched foul territory before first base - did it stop, did it hit the coach, did it bounce back fair, did it pass first in foul territory, did it kick right into the dugout...at that point in time it is nothing.

The most reasonable assumption is likely that it continued to pass first base in foul territory - but in declaring the answer to be foul I would highlight that assumption.  

What we don't want to accidentally tell this guy is that the ball is foul once it touches foul territory before first base.

The most complete answer was gfoley's - explaining when it would become fair and why it would be foul.

The accurate answer is Rich Ives'.   Deride me for being a coach all you want.

[The Flush]

Schrödinger's Foul.