Expert: Andrew Senger - 8/26/2009

Question
Happened in a jr high baseball game last night.Runners were on 1st and 2nd and a groundball was ht towards the shortstop, the runner on second was running to 3rd was hit by the batted ball, the ball then went to the shortstop who through to second for a force play The umpire ruled it a double play and called it a delayed dead ball.Is this the correct call or is the ball immediately dead

Answer
Mark,

In every ruleset I umpire under, the ball is immediately dead when it hits a runner prior to passing an infielder other than the pitcher.

In these situations, the runner that was hit is declared out, the batter is awarded first base, and all runners forced by the batter advance one base. The umpire was wrong to call it a delayed dead ball and award a double play.