Tie goes to the runner

I've had several umpires tell me there is no such rule. It's purely a judgment call.

 

Safe or out.

Tie to the runner does not exist.

 

This, so I've been told more than once. I'd always heard, and maybe this is a sports version of an urban myth, that a tie isn't addressed in the rule book so what's been accepted is that the runner will be called safe because the ball didn't beat him to the base. And that is left entirely up to the umpire to determine.

 

The MLB link quotes an ump as saying ties don't exist, but he says the runner must beat the throw -- not that the throw must beat the runner.

 

"It ain't nothin' until I say what it was" -- Bill Klem on calling balls and strikes.

Same deal here. There CANNOT be a tie, because the umpire will call safe or out, and whether the rule says the throw must beat the runner or vice versa, the ump is enforcing said rule with his judgment. There could only be ties if baseball had a call for ties.
Do runners get more of the really, really close calls, thereby causing this cliche to come into being? I dunno. Have the sabermetric mob get themselves a few billion feet of video and do a study.

 

No, there can't be a tie. Either he's out or safe. But there's a perception that "ties go to the runner." It's probably just something that's become sort of a sports urban legend. But the umpire has to have a definition in his mind to determine what an out is. When I umpired, my interpretation was, "ball must beat the runner." And my thought on a bang-bang play wasn't, "There's a tie, so he's safe." It was, "Ball didn't beat him, so he's safe."

Even if that's not right, at least I had a reason and that was better than most of the coaches in the league. I once had a coach argue with me that the runner on third shouldn't have been allowed to score on a sacrifice fly because the fielder caught it in foul territory and he thought that made it a dead ball.

 

I agree with this. I think it's in the same category as the make-up call in basketball.

 

.....and therefore the difference between safe and out.

 

There are a few things that have achieved this status.

There is no tie to the runner, no hands are part of the bat, no wrists have to break for a swing, no bat has to cross the plate for there to be a swing, and so forth in the rule book. They don't exist.

These are all judgment calls for an umpire. Did he swing or not? Did it hit the batter or the bat? Did he beat the throw or not? And as judgment calls cannot be argued. It's that simple.

 

Wait a sec...are you saying you're not out if you hit the pitcher?

 

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