Clipping:Calling strikes on bunt fouls
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| Date | Wednesday, August 15, 1888 |
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| Text | [from Chadwick] In regard to calling strikes on bunted balls which go foul, all four of the [AA] umpires interpret the rule in a manner which I do not thing the rule was intended to admit of, and that is, that they call strikes on every bunted ball which goes foul, no matter whether it was an accident hit or not. Rule 47, section 8, says, that “the batsman is out if, after two strikes have been called, the batsman obviously attempts to make a foul hit. Obviously means, easily seen and understood, and unless the attempt is plainly intentional a strike on such a hit cannot be legally called. A case in point occurred in the St. Louis-Brooklyn game of August 4. O'Brien was on second base and no man was out, and Caruthers was at the bat with two called strikes charged to him. He then made an effort to hit a short ground ball to right short, in order to get O'Brien round to third on a sacrifice. In doing this he bunted the ball and it rolled to foul ground, and under the illegal interpretation of the rules adopted by all four of the umpires, the hit was called a strike because it was bunted. There was certainly no obvious attempt to hit the ball foul” in this case, for Caruthers' point of play was the very reverse; consequently, whether the ball was bunted or regularly struck at—a “bunt” being the pushing of the ball by the bat and not swinging the bat to meet it—the decision was an illegal interpretation of the rules, but it was an interpretation agreed on at the meeting of the president and the umpires last April, and in the Association, book, at the end of the code of rules, the umpires are instructed to enforce Rule 31, Section 3, as follows:--”all balls that are bunted foul will be called strikes by the umpire.” Rule 31, Section 3, simply says:--”A strike is any obvious attempt to make a foul hit.” In this case there was no such obvious attempt, nor is there in one instance out of twenty in which balls are bunted. The misinterpretation of the rules by the umpires has almost put a stop to bunting, simply cause it is taken for granted that every ball that is bunted foul is an obvious attempt to hit a foul ball. |
| Source | The Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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