First, yes the umpires should have gave a signal on the play of safe (or out if they ruled it a catch, which they didn’t). However, it’s not mandatory to rule something safe on a catch. Only mandatory to rule something out. I mean every ball that is in the air that isn’t caught isn’t ruled safe.
I umpired baseball for 20 yrs from little league to High School. You are to signal and even sound any negative play toward the batter/offense. For example on a foul / fair ball down the line you just point toward the field for a fair ball (a batter might not see you for example). But for a foul ball you yell foul. Also point foul/wave hands above you like jumping Jack, etc (whatever your personal style is, I usually used both arms pointing foul and also yelling foul and just used one arm and pointed toward field of play for a fair ball). You should however NEVER yell fair as that can confuse the batter or runners. Same thing for safe / out on catches that are close. You should signal safe but a no call or no sound means no out had been recorded.
So in reality if the umpires didn’t signal anything that’s basically a safe ruling on the field. The batters and coaches should know that and act accordingly (I’m assuming that’s what happened, if they signaled out then we have another story). So I really lightly blame the runners and coaches here (meaning it’s a tough deal but a no call is a safe call).
My question is, say they make a no call, all the runners advance without tagging, then Upon replay they change to out. Do they then Punish the runners for following the umpires call. Anyone know how that works. I can understand calling the batter out after replay but runners shouldn’t be punished if they followed what the umpires did, at worse they should be allowed back to their original bases without penalty.
Anyone know how that would work? It’s a big flaw of replay in baseball if a runner can get doubled up due to an umpire wrong ruling initially.
In this case I do agree with the VU runners that didn’t advance and also left the field being called out as a no call is a safe call and runners should of treated it accordingly (Again assuming no call was made).
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