Situation #14: Runner Passing

            A following runner passes a preceding runner…though it doesn’t happen often, the umpire must be prepared to make a ruling when it does.

            In this play, the batter-runner assumes that the right fielder is going to catch his lazy fly ball but he runs it out in case the ball drops. At the same time, the runner from first can’t wander too far from the bag at first in the likely event that the ball is caught. As you can see, the batter-runner has passed the original runner from first. At that moment, the umpire shall point to the spot of the violation with the index finger of the right hand and verbalize, “That’s passing!”. The ball remains alive and in play. The runner originally on first could possibly be retired on a tag play or he could legally return to first since the force has been removed.

            If the ball is caught, the passing is disregarded. In this second illustration, the ball is caught before the batter-runner passes the runner from first. No signal for passing is necessary in this case since the batter-runner was already out before the passing occurred.