Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Dunaier
How?
Once a ball is taken out of play it's dead.
The only "control" I can think of is when the umpire reaches into his pocket to put a new ball in play. And "control" is an extreme word in this context, because the ball is randomly chosen from all the baseballs in his pocket. It's not like he pulls a ball, decides he doesn't like it, pulls another ball and tosses that one to the pitcher, then puts the rejected ball back in his pocket.
(At the risk of undermining my own point, I suppose the umpire could "legitimately" not like a particular ball because he feels it's defective for some reason. But in that case, he'd toss the defective ball to the batboy, right?)
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Hi Gary,
My point is that the HP umpire is the only umpire in the crew that holds onto balls prior to them being brought into play as well as removing them from play. The HP umpire does toss balls out that he feels are scuffed, damaged, etc. to the
ball boy. Additionally, if additional balls need to come into the game during an inning of play, the ball boy brings more out to the HP umpire. The other three umpires do not actively participate in these activities.
I hope this helps clarify what I meant...