View source for Clipping:Foul call not heard by batter or runner: direct return path at issue

{{Clipping
|Type of Date=Day
|Date=9/30/1860
|Title=foul call not heard by batter or runner: direct return path at issue
|Text=<p>[Henry Eckford vs. Harlem 9/28/1860] An incident worthy of note occurred in the seventh inning, when the [Henry] Eckford Club had two of the five runs now placed to their credit and had two hands out.  Holt took the bat, with O’Farrell occupying the first base.  The striker got a good square hit at the ball, sending it well down in the direction of the left fielder, and at once made tracks for the first base, and kept on running around to the third, while O’Farrell got home, neither one hearing the call of the foul ball by the umpire.  The ball, in the meantime, was fielded to the pitcher of the Harlem side, who turned around and threw the ball to the second base man, and demanded judgment.  The umpire decided that no one was out: the striker was not out, because the ball being foul he had no business upon the bases, and that O’Farrell was not out because the ball just struck being foul, he had to return to the first base, and the ball had not been fielded to that base.  At this instant, O’Farrell, who was home, started off to return to the first base direct from the home base, and the ball was sent to head him off, but was not held, and he reached the base safely.</p>
<p>Permitting the player to regain the first base in the manner in which he did, was wrong.  The plain meaning of the word return is retrogression–the act of moving back to a former place.  The intent and meaning of the rule, thus, is that the player–no matter how far he may have proceeded on his homeward way–must retrace his step (not move forward) to the starting point.  It was clearly O’Farrell’s duty to return to the first base, by way of the third and second base.  He had no more right to run from the home base to the first–commence his run de novo–than he would have had to have crossed the field from the third to the first base.  Such being the case, and the ball being fielded to the second base by the pitcher, the question arises was not O’Farrell out–he having, by right, to return to the second base on his way to the first, and his retreat having, by the act of the pitcher, been cut off by the ball being held on that base?  We think he was: but we shall not discuss the matter further at present.  New York Sunday Mercury September 30, 1860 [see also Clipper 10/06/60]</p>
|Source=New York Sunday Mercury
|Submitted by=Richard Hershberger
|Origin=Initial Hershberger Clippings
}}