Open-minded

or one year, 1994, it was illegal in NFHS for a runner to pick up a ball that had been declared to be foul — and therefore dead — and toss that ball back to the pitcher. The repercussions were felt clean down to the Pony and Colt Summer Leagues I was working back then in Austin. It even became an heretical act for a batter to use his bat to roll an errant pitched ball toward the catcher, even though there were no runners on base at the time of the heresy. These notes come from my journal.

It just goes to prove that if you are too open-minded, your brains might fall out. I found that the incident is also reported in Baseball Rules Differences 2006, pages 187-188. Mr. Childress reports the source of addle-brained rules as an incident in Idaho. But I don't think Idaho is anywhere near a consistent source for games played under normal conditions. It's too close to BFE!

Continued...