About Geoff Expertise Huge baseball trivia lover! I will attempt to answer anything you can think of when it comes to major league baseball. I have a large reference library of all things baseball. Try to stump me!
Question Is a batted ball that hits homeplate FIRST and then lands in "fair territoy" a fair ball? And how does an umpire determine if the ball first hits the ground in the batters box or just outside the box in fair territory? And why do you never see this call questioned? It has got to be a gray area........
Answer Hi Steve,
Thanks for writing.
The reason why you never see this play challenged is because so long as the ball has not gone past first or third base, it doesn't matter where the ball first hits - fair or foul, what matters is where it is first touched by a fielder.
I'm sure you've seen plays of balls rolling down one of the lines, as soon as the balls rolls foul, the fielder touches it making it a foul ball. If the ball rolled back into fair territory (before reaching first or third base) it would again potentially be a fair ball (if it was touched by the fielder while the ball was in fair territory).
So regardless of if the ball starts out by hitting off of home plate, or the fair portion of the batter's box, or the foul portion of the batter's box - it just doesn't matter! What matters is where it ends up when it is either touched by a fielder or goes past first or third base.
The only gray area is whether or not the batted ball hits the batter in foul territory. If so, it's a foul ball. If a batted ball hits the batter when he's in fair territory the batter is out.
