Expert: Brian Flaspohler - 6/7/2005

Question
I coach a 12year old team. We play 50-70.High school rules.

Runner on 1st, My 1st. baseman( lefty) playes infront of the runner(or behind him for that matter).As the runner leads my 1st. baseman comes off the bag with him. A timing play is about to happen. My 1st. baseman says to the pitcher" come on Joey throw a strike" That is the key. A mental count between pitcher and 1st. starts. At the count of 3 the 1st. baseman breaks to the bag and at the same time the pitcher throws to first, leaving the runner frozen and tagged out...
The umpire in our game called it a balk and awarded the runner 2nd.base . His reasoning was you cannot throw to an un occupied base...
never heard of that

Jimmy Fay

Answer
Jimmy,

Maybe the rule the umpire was thinking of was this section in rule 8.05:

(d) The pitcher, while touching his plate, throws, or feints a throw to an unoccupied base, except for the purpose of making a play;

But in your instance, the bag was not unoccupied.  There was a runner on the bag.  An unoccupied bag means that a runner is not there, not a fielder.

I believe the umpire made the wrong call.

Hope this helps!

Brian