Soccer season just finished, and now the kid is talking nonstop about baseball, wants to go to the park and play wiffleball in the dark when I come home from work. He doesn't get it from me, I never got past tee-ball and find televised baseball a tiny bit less boring than golf. Still, I thought I could be an adequate instructor, and could probably work out the details of the infield fly rule if I think about it. But his questions about rules made me recognize an ambiguity. The batter is allowed to overrun first with immunity from a tag out, but if he decides to go for second, he is again in play. The status seems to depend on the runner's state of mind. Does this ever come into play, and how do the rules, or the umpire, decide? I love being able to research these questions online, but I also miss the time when the best way to get answers was to interact with other people. Sometimes asking someone questions leads to more and better insights. The kid now has a wooden bat and glove but keeps asking for more gear. He never asked for toys before this year, and now he is making up for lost time, always asking for more stuff. While he was searching for catcher's equipment, an autocomplete mishap caused us to learn that body armor for cats is a thing.
Judgment call, generally based on the runner's trajectory. It's pretty obvious the vast majority of the time, because runners either a) are going to make the turn to second automatically in case of an error in the outfield, or b) need to run for their lives to be safe at first and will find themselves well into foul ground. Note that the call itself is entirely about intent and has nothing to do with fair/foul. For context, many judgement calls in baseball cause a lot of controversy, but this isn't one of them. What's the kid doing with a wooden bat? Is that a league rule, safety thing? Wooden bats are rare until the pros, normally.
I don't know! Maybe because that's what I used when I played in the same century as Hank Aaron? We played a lot, in fact probably through the majority of daylight hours, over the weekend. Two-man baseball is a good deal of running. First session of the winter training program is tonight. We will see what kind of equipment they have and recommend. I was unable to master my dread of throwing a hard object at a minor, with the result that my pitching was wild. Perhaps a batting helmet will help with my aim. I did send him some lively grounders and he took one or two on the chops, but no long term damage. There was one YouTube video showing a guy being put out near first after having "squared up" toward second base, probably exceptional. Lots of great trick plays and charging incidents. I love baseball highlights on TV, it's just that they are so infrequent during games. Only one other tricky question came up: Is the catcher ever called the home base man?What's the kid doing with a wooden bat?
No, but the dad in Calvin and Hobbes would say yes out of spite, and that's your blueprint, yeah? EDIT: by the way, the thing I regret most about my baseball career was not strengthening my arm from an early age via long toss. However far he can throw, for some amount of time each day or every other day that you look up on the internet, then gradually expand. And don't forget to stretch and build up to it first.Only one other tricky question came up: Is the catcher ever called the home base man?
I learned it the exact opposite - that the batter could be tagged out after running through first into fair ground, but not after running through first into foul territory. Maybe my coach didn't want to bother teaching the nuance of it, and decided turning into foul territory was a clear indication of not running to second.Note that the call itself is entirely about intent and has nothing to do with fair/foul.
Your second sentence is probably correct. You can feel free to look up the rule if you don't believe me. EDIT: of course, it's a good idea to run through in foul if you have no plans of advancing to second, to eliminate uncertainty on the part of the umpire.