Batted Ball Hits Bat for a Second Time

[Guest Colin]

A batter hit a ball that bounced straight up from fair territory.  His backswing hit the ball a second time and put it in play.  Is the ball fair or foul?  His feet were still in the batters box if that matters, call was fair.

[Jimurray]

17 minutes ago, Guest Colin said:

A batter hit a ball that bounced straight up from fair territory.  His backswing hit the ball a second time and put it in play.  Is the ball fair or foul?  His feet were still in the batters box if that matters, call was fair.

His feet do matter in OBR/MLB and because he was in a legal position in the box this would be a foul ball when the ball hit his bat. 

[The Man in Blue]

OBR 5.09(a)(7)

 

[beerguy55]

On 7/21/2020 at 7:31 PM, Guest Colin said:

A batter hit a ball that bounced straight up from fair territory.  His backswing hit the ball a second time and put it in play.  Is the ball fair or foul?  His feet were still in the batters box if that matters, call was fair.

This is an example where coaches need to get in the habit of protesting - if for no other reason so someone - either the ump or the protesting coach - learns the right rule.

Now - if the umpire for some reason didn't see the first contact with the ball (or the second), then that's just plain old judgment and can't be argued...but if the ump saw both hits and ruled it fair, protest.

To your last statement - it does matter, as said above...if he was out of the batter's box (there's slight variations on what the threshold is, but for sake of simplicity say one foot is out of the box) when he bats the ball (either time) he would be out, dead ball, runners return Time of Pitch.

[The Man in Blue]

Didn’t we have a heavy debate a while back about “second swings”?