With bases loaded can a batter intentionally walk to first (acting like he was hit by a pitch) in order to decieve the fielding team and have the player on third advance and score?

Which rule(s) govern this?

We would need more information. Explain how the play developed and what rule set you are playing under. Also, the age of the players would be good.

I see what you're saying. Most of the time when the count is sort of unknown (everyone is asking if it was ball 3 or ball 4), a runner on first or second base begins to walk towards the next base, assuming it's ball 4. I'd have to imagine that if the offensive team planned it out and made it look like a walk on ball 3, the catcher might be taken aback and it would be very easy to take a base.

As for the rules, you'll have to ask someone more informed than me whether this is legal or not.

My son was standing on first base and we had given him the sign to steal. When he didn't acknowledge the signal, we yelled "Take your base." He kind of walked-jogged to second without a throw. When we later asked why he didn't run his response was he thought it was a balk.

quote:

With bases loaded can a batter intentionally walk to first (acting like he was hit by a pitch) in order to decieve the fielding team and have the player on third advance and score?

Which rule(s) govern this?

MST has asked the important questions......and the answers are a bit different depending on those answers.....

If we talking kids here.........Im killing the play, calling the batter back to the plate and stopping any illegal action......

if we are talking players who should know better, then we can find numerous rules to apply....

understand most of us umpires take a coach cheating very unfavorably.........

Added....

Just to muddy things further..at a certain level.........players are expected to know the situation (the count) and react properly.........

You can call the batter back immediately saying it was only ball three or he wasn't hit by pitch, but any advance by the runners is legal. Kind of like a walking stolen base. The defensive team and coaches should be paying enough attention to know the count and know they are technically stealing after you call the batter back.

We had this situation happen in a game last year that was exacerbated by the ump.

Man on first 3-1 count the batter gets what he thinks is ball four starts to trot to first and the ump calls a very delayed "strike" after the kid was 1/3 to 1/2 of the way to first. Runner on first was picked off after the strike call as he was walking to 2nd. In my opinion he did this on purpose since I guess he thought the kid was showing him up.

This is off topic but thought I would add it so others know that many districts have umpire evaluators.

Since there were a number of other irregularities during the game with this umpire I wrote up a description of what happended and emailed it off to the umpire evaluator for the district.

There had been other complaints about this ump about similar actions and he was put under probation and I belive he has been disqualified to umpire HS games in our district.

quote:

Originally posted by BOF:
We had this situation happen in a game last year that was exacerbated by the ump.

Man on first 3-1 count the batter gets what he thinks is ball four starts to trot to first and the ump calls a very delayed "strike" after the kid was 1/3 to 1/2 of the way to first.

My question to you BOF is why is the player heading to first prior to the Umpire ruling on the pitch. Oh, I know. Because he sees it done on TV. Many umpires have delayed strike calls. If that is the umpires nature than whose fault is it really?