Clipping:Fair-foul hits in the air
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| Date | Wednesday, October 16, 1889 |
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| Text | [from Chadwick's column] A Knoxville, Tenn., correspondent asks me the following question. He says:-- “Please give in the next issue of The Sporting Life your opinion of the following described play, one frequently happening in base ball, yet which is not at all thoroughly understood:--A ball hit up into the air, falls two or three feet inside the foul line, but takes a side bound into foul ground. Is this not a fair ball by rule 37 of Spalding's Guide, which says, 'A fair hit is a ball batted by the batsman standing in his position, that first touches the ground, first base or third base, any part of the person or a player, umpire or any other objects that is in front of or on either of the foul lines,' etc. The rule then goes on to state the difference in the case of balls batted directly to the ground. In the play mentioned above the 'pop fly,' which fell on fair ground, but bounded onto foul ground, was called a foul by the umpire, and this is but one of several similar decisions I have seen. Was not this a violation o Rule 37?” It was. A case in point occurred in one of the Brooklyn-Columbus games of September. Collins bunted a short ball in the air which fell on fair ground and then rolled to foul ground. Marr went for the ball, and seeing it rolling towards foul ground, did not handle it, and when he picked it up and claimed a foul he then leatned of the mistake he had made, as Collins was, of course, given his base on the hit. The difference lies in a ball hit direct from the bat to the ground and one hit so as to rise in the air at least the height of the batsman's head. In the former case wherever the ball settles after the hit it becomes fair or foul. In the latter case it becomes fair or foul according to where it first strikes the ground, regardless of where it may afterwards bound or roll. |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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