Wild pitch hits bat.

Actually, I think I can address this question pretty well.

HBP exists to protect the batter from getting injured. The penalty is reasonablly severe for the defense as it puts a baserunner on 1B. It's not intended to be a gotcha where the offense can take advantage of the penalty when there was no danger of harm (i.e. the ball rolls into the box and comes to rest against the batter's foot). There are times when a batter gets hit and has no real chance to react to avoid (nasty bounce in front of the plate, for instance).

Having read the text if the rule again ("If no attempt is made to avoid being hit...") I would rather it said something like "If no reasonable attempt is made to avoid being hit..."). This is the enforcement I expect.

Now, as for the check-swing foul on a wild pitch, the penalty is a foul ball. Not a very severe penalty and more importantly, didn't do a very good job of getting away from the pitch, either.

 

Ball off of the bat is a batted ball regardless of it being on a wild pitch behind batter. If it stays fair it is live batted ball. She better be prepared to run because I have actually seen this turn into a base hit. There is no rule that I am aware of that protects the batter on a wild pitch.

 

Yeah, that was understood... the point of the thread was to compare the use of intent(or not) in somewhat similar situations. I have never seen one go fair from that situation but can imagine the startled look on some faces if it did.

 

cmmguy, have you seen this (from http://www.asasoftball.com/umpires/clarifications_2010_July.asp)?

(Emphasis mine)

 

intresting - having ony been on the field for 1 softball game (in ump uniform) never thought about what the rule for being out of the box getting hit by pitch would be.