Rule 6.07 (c)

Everytime that I thought I had an answer, another question would come up that took a while.

A lot of thought went into the situation last night. I think that I dreamed of being chased by a gigantic baseball rule book last night...or early this morning...I can't remember we got in kind of late/early today.

Here is the situation from the Journal-Gazette.

Griffin Benedict did not bat the first time through Fort Wayne’s lineup, although he was listed as sixth in the team’s batting order.

Rymer Liriano – the No. 7 hitter – accidentally batted ahead of the No. 6 hitter Benedict in the second inning. Liriano grounded out to end the inning.

“I post the lineup card every day out there (in the dugout). If you are smart enough, you need to go out there and look every day,” TinCaps manager Jose Flores said. “The lineup I put (in the clubhouse) sometimes changes come time for the actual lineup card that gets exchanged.

“In that case, (Liriano) had taken what he saw in the original lineup posted before the game and just went out there when literally it was posted in the dugout that the switch had been made. He just went out there and hit.”

When the next inning started, the TinCaps’ No. 8 hitter, Dean Anna, was the first batter up.

Wisconsin noticed the change when Liriano came up the second time in the fifth inning, leading to the protest.

“There was just a mix-up,” Benedict said. “We had two different lineups up, and right before we went up there was a little confusion as to who was hitting.

“Unfortunately, I got skipped, but they tried to protest the game later on, but we were already back in order so it didn’t matter.”

Two questions that I had: Why change the lineup if you are just going to flipflop the #6 & #7 hitters? Why do it so close to game time?

It wasn't the exact situation, but in Wednesday's game, Everett Williams was listed as the center fielder and Danny Payne was listed as the left fielder on the original scorecard that we received.

But, when the game started, Payne was in center and Williams was in left. Apparently, this isn't the first time the manager in Fort Wayne has made a last minute switch. But, it was the first time that caused a lot of confusion.

For the record Rule 6.07 (c) is:

When an improper batter becomes a runner or is put out, and a pitch is made to the next batter of either team before an appeal is made, the improper batter thereby becomes the proper batter, and the results of his time at bat become legal.

Now, the Rattlers could have appealed this when Liriano batted in the second inning. But, once the top of the third inning started, the Rattlers could no longer appeal. At least that is my reading of the rule. I think that Benedict has it right when he says: [W]e were already back in order so it didn’t matter.

But the thing is that Liriano made the last out of the second inning and it there appears to be no penalty for the TinCaps batting out of turn had the Rattlers appealed.

Rattlers Manager Jeff Isom found a website (Oddly, it's a tutorial site for Little League umpires) that gets a little bit more in depth than the usual Able-Baker-Charlie terminology in the Baseball Rule Book. But, it does get very Marcus Aurelius-y with first principles.

• Principle #1: If the offense is to be penalized for batting out of turn, the penalty shall be what they were presumably trying to avoid - an out without advancing any runners.
  

• Principle #2: The actions of the incorrect batter must not be allowed to give the offense an advantage. Thus, if the incorrect batter advances runners, whether by a walk, a base hit, a sacrifice or whatever, those runners should be required to go back to their original bases.

• Principle #3: If we're going to call someone out, it's the person who should have batted, in order to keep things in their proper place, and prevent the offense from trading an out for a change in the position in the batting order.
  

• Principle #4: The mere presence of the wrong batter in the batter's box is not seriously disruptive to the game. Thus, we can treat this as an "honest mistake" up to, and until, the batter does something (like hit the ball) which would affect the flow of the game.
  

• Principle #5: Once the batter has completed the at-bat, the offense cannot correct the problem - only the defense is allowed to appeal the situation beyond that point.

Here is the deal from the Little League website:

If the defense leaves the field and waits so long that they can put a batter in the box and have him take a pitch, they've also presumably accepted what went before.

So let's assume that the defense decides not to appeal. At this point, we need to figure out how to pick the game up and continue from here. Presumably the defense is accepting both the outcome of the play and where this leaves us in the batting order, so just to clean things up, we have another rule paragraph:

6.07(c) When an improper batter becomes a runner or is put out, and a pitch is made to the next batter of either team before an appeal is made, the improper batter thereby becomes the proper batter, and the results of such time at bat become legal.

That's fairly straightforward - by going ahead with the game, the defense is giving up any right to object to the incorrect batter, so we'll just go ahead as if that at bat was perfectly legal. Now we just have to figure out who should step into the box next. Even if the defense does appeal and gets the out on the incorrect batter, we still should have some written rule that governs where we pick up from there. That would cut down on inconsistent rulings by different umpires.

So, at the end of the day, the umpires got it right...after a 16 minute delay.

Who says Little League can't teach you anything?