Intentional walk

[justwannaplay]

Hello all:

I have a question regarding intentional walk with no runners on ? The catcher receives the first ball and throws the ball to first base the firstbaseman drops the ball. Is that ball 2 or does it not count as a ball ?

JWP

 

[SoCal_Dad]

It depends on the rule set. It would be a ball under ASA.

For NCAA, it is a warning the first time and ejection(s) subsequently. It also would not be a ball if the umpire determines it was done intentionally to walk the batter without pitching. Interestingly, Baylor did this twice in the last super regional game against Georgia to intentionally walk Hugo in the 3rd and 5th innings - and the umpires failed to enforce either part of the rule. Baylor pitched an intentional ball, the catcher threw to 3B for ball 2, intentionally pitched ball 3 and catcher threw to 3B again for ball 4. The Baylor scorekeeper didn't know what happened the first time and recorded it as HBP.