Here's the situation. ASA/USA Softball rules. The batter has a 2-1 count. Next pitch, she swings and misses. Thinking it's the third strike, she runs to first. Catcher, reacting to batter-runner, overthrows first and ball lands in outfield. Runner makes it all the way around home due to various bad throws. As she crosses home, ump tells her that was strike two but she doesn't hear or doesn't understand what he's trying to tell her and she goes into the dugout. The next batter gets in the box.
Assuming no runners are on, this is where the umpire makes his real mistake. You know it is only a second strike, so you kill the play ASAP - go out in front of the box and make a loud call so everyone knows what is happening. There is no reason to let the girl run the bases or extra throws when they are not going to matter - no way with no one on that the batter should have been allowed to run all the bases..
If there are runners on - you need to wait until everything is over (either the runners on score or the ball is back in the circle) before killing it because the ball is live, but you are still killing it as soon as you can and doing it loudly. Here the batter is going to be running because of the live ball but the players are meant to know the count and so forth.
In this confusion it is important that you not just tell the girl or the just the coach that it was only strike two, but that you tell EVERYONE. If you loudly announce "That was only strike two" you can bet the girl stays at bat (especially if her parents are in the crowd)
Not sure how the umpire didn't notice her wander off to the dugout either, but I guess in all the confusion it could happen - perhaps it happened when he was telling the coaches the run didn't count or something.
Ump and scorekeeper (that's me) don't realize it's a different batter because both girls have the same helmet, are the same height and same build with similar hair that covers their number. Next two pitches are balls and ump sends the runner to first for a walk. At that point, batter says the count is 2-0 and when I look at the on-deck batter I realize that the prior batter did not finish her at-bat and this is the next girl in the order.
Umps, how would you resolve this situation?
Ugh.. as Comp and MTR state this isn't one that is covered by the rules directly. There MAY be a case play or clarification out there and it will not surprise me when Comp finds it and lets us know. When it comes down to it, I feel as an umpire this is primarily my fault and whatever I decide is probably not going to go down all that well, but it is my job to make a decision and also in general falling on your sword is probably the best way to go. That there have been additional legal pitches thrown makes it even worse. Right or wrong, I probably do what the umpire did - tell both coaches it is on me and since the original batter left because of my original error I need to correct this error in the best way I can, and that the original batter comes back with the correct count and that we are going to kill the additional pitches (not unlike when a runner enters the dugout because of MY error - I am going to put her back on base - though I must say I have only seen this in cases - it has not happened to me in a game (yet)).
I have a feeling if there is a case play it going to say that the pitches have to count and it is a walk and the proper batter/runner is placed on first and I am going to learn something new. But if I made this error in any of the games I did today, I think I would have probably done what your umpire did.
I am actually going to present this to my umpire room locally and see what their thought are.
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