Stealing on ball 3 play

[maehem1]

I saw a defensive play that was questionable at 18 gold Nationals. Runners on 1st and second one out. Line drive to second baseman...caught and then oops, dropped it and got both runners out to end the inning. Clearly intentional, nothing the runners could do, so it works on both sides of the ball. Infield fly was not called because it wasn't a sky ball, but the trick worked effectively.

[Martin]

Sam, do you want to resurrect this topic?

[wadeintothem]

I saw a defensive play that was questionable at 18 gold Nationals. Runners on 1st and second one out. Line drive to second baseman...caught and then oops, dropped it and got both runners out to end the inning. Clearly intentional, nothing the runners could do, so it works on both sides of the ball. Infield fly was not called because it wasn't a sky ball, but the trick worked effectively.

Umpire could have and maybe should have called the intentional drop but that is purely judgment. And umpire who worked mens ball would probably be quicker to recognize cheating like that... since that is where you see it most.

[MTR]

I saw a defensive play that was questionable at 18 gold Nationals. Runners on 1st and second one out. Line drive to second baseman...caught and then oops, dropped it and got both runners out to end the inning. Clearly intentional, nothing the runners could do, so it works on both sides of the ball. Infield fly was not called because it wasn't a sky ball, but the trick worked effectively.

Are you sure the ball was caught? Simply stopping the ball and letting it drop or knocking the ball to the ground or even guiding the ball to the ground, intentional or not, is not considered an intentional drop.

[Ace]

Whenever I see this play or any of its varients (I saw an entire team leave the field after the 2nd out. F3 tagged out R1 when she came off the bag in the confusion), I wonder how long it took the coach to practice this play and what other skills could have been taught that would actually improve the players on his/her team.

My team runs this play. We learned it at the expense of walking around and not doing anything.