So based off the pics 1st pic....
3rd baseman is going for the catch SS is approaching him, ball is coming in
2nd pic is the ricochet both pics clearly show both defense players in fair territory. Ball is coming out (regardless if touched off player or ground) the ball ricochet into foul.

What's the call you make?

Sanctioned LL? Used to do a lot of "LL" in unsanctioned. Which is always amusing when you the league wants to use LL rules but cant actually get the rule books because at least back then you had to be a sanctioned league to get them. ASA(now USA) used to be the same way with the books. Since the county went to sanctioned, I havent done it since.

If the ball was first touched in fair territory and then goes foul, it is a FAIR BALL!

Yes, sanctioned. Times have changed from the " volunteer only" crap.

When they did finally steal a rule book from who knows where, one of the first things in the book said there was no good reason to pay the umpires.

Prefer to stick with high school softball anyways...60-100 for a game that you really have a bad team for a game to go past 75 mins :P

Yup! . . .

Just because the players are in fair territory does not mean the ball is. It looks like it is in the picture and the ump may have blown the call but there are umps who get paid big bucks and routinely blow calls in the major leagues. It's part of the game. Sucks for one team, but is great for the other. It's little league FCOL. I doubt very much that umps there would intentionally try to cheat any of the kids.

I have watched a lot of baseball games from T-ball to the Big Leagues, I don't think I've ever seen one where at least one of the umps didn't blow a call or two.

Doesn’t have to be cheating to be aggravating. I was looking forward to a great pitching duel between A.J. Burnett and Josh Beckett back when my son and I were doing the fantasy baseball thing. Both of them on my team, I was looking forward to a great scoring evening. The plate umpire gave them both a shoe box for a strike zone and they both got hammered and left the game by the third inning. lol

Yeah, appears Ump was indecisive on call. Should have IMMEDIATLY pointed Fair or called Time. That's a major problem with today's umpires. No consistency in training, rules, or within Leagues. QUALIFIED umpires are a dying breed. :-(

State high school associations are going to online classes for new official training. I had to do the softball class this spring as I wanted to get started again after a 10 year hiatus. If I hadnt done softball before or was still a basketball official who knew how to get the online versions of the rulebooks I would of been clueless because our class never did get physical or even online versions of the rulebooks. They did give us the online version AFTER we passed the test <_<. Local chapters are supposed to do training sessions with the new guys.

Most rec league officials are usually either conscripted into service or just wanted to make a few bucks and dont get trained at all. I keep offering to do seminars to some of our local leagues but never get taken up on it so they suffer with people that dont know what theyre doing.

Four Stages of Umpiring by: Bob Pariseau

The first stage is confusion. The new umpire finds the complexity of the rules daunting. There are so many details, so many special cases. How is anyone supposed to remember all this stuff? And why did they make the rule book so confusing? Why do you have to look in several places to find everything that applies to a given situation? What's the POINT of some of this stuff anyway? I mean all those words just to describe a catch? He may even have heard of interpretations but he can't fathom how an interpretation might be different from a rule. It just looks like someone is rewriting the rules on the fly or trying to make the confusing even more complex by drawing in all sorts of strange extraneous stuff. Some umpires never get beyond this stage and simply work games (poorly) by instinct or just give up. This is where you find people who "umpire" as if they were a "player" or a "fan" looking at the wrong stuff and ruling more by emotion than reason.

The second stage is overconfidence. This umpire KNOWS his rule book. He can find the right rule for every situation. There's nothing that can come up that he can't pull out the right rule or rules. Of course he enforces the rules as written because what else are they there for? This is where the "rule book" umpires come from. Some umpires never get beyond this stage, and wonder why people look at them funny when they enforce rules so literally. To this umpire, interpretations are something cited by umpires who simply haven't spent enough time studying the REAL rules. The constant complaints often cause such umpires to give up. But worse is yet to come.

The third stage is disillusionment. This umpire realizes, to his growing horror, that the rule book DOESN'T cover everything that comes up in real games. That sometimes, even when the rule book covers stuff, the literal result is patently unfair. He's been burned time and again by situations that force him to go beyond the text of the rules, but he has no game instincts or understanding of precedents to carry him through. This really is the last straw for some umpires. Some just throw up their hands and decide they are going to do whatever strikes their fancy because the rule book is clearly nuts, and by this point they've learned to BS their way past most common problems. Many "experienced" umpires fall into this category. Others are lucky enough to stumble across the "secret" rules, the precedents and approved rulings that guide them past many knotty problems. They view the rule book as a flawed document, only salvaged by what they NOW know are the "real" rules, the authoritative approved rulings. Some use these as a crutch to support what is still basically a fundamental lack of understanding of what the rules are trying to accomplish.

The final stage is respect. Umpires who keep working to learn inevitably end up here. It is impossible to study this material in depth without ending up with an abiding respect for a set of rules that has been honed by over a century of competitive professional play. These rules work. They are definitive enough to keep the game within traditional bounds while still being flexible enough to cover unusual circumstances. The rules support the role of the umpire without constraining him to a simplified set of solutions that might not really produce a fair and pleasing game. It is this very flexibility, which makes the rules so tough for new umpires to comprehend, but it is the essential factor in keeping the game ever alive and ever fascinating. Such umpires view the rules much like a constitution, codifying certain basic principles, which underlie all game discipline and enforcement. The interpretations flesh out this constitution, providing a more concrete framework for handling specific plays, but with a distinct degree of sensitivity to what's currently in vogue as regards such details. The traditions of the game are constantly at odds with modern trickery as players and managers try novel stuff. Umpires who reach this stage are keenly aware of the checkered history of the game, and that things like stealing a base or throwing a curve ball was once considered unsportsmanlike, while grabbing a runner by the belt was perfectly OK as long as you did it while the one umpire working the game was looking elsewhere. The rules do not exist in isolation. They have to work in real games where tradition meets new tricks daily, where umpires not only have to make calls, they have to sell them, and then they have to come back and work the next game with the same two teams. Understanding how to apply the rules effectively to this degree is a religious experience, satisfying, awe inspiring, and fear inducing all at the same time.

In softball if it land fair and bounces foul it is a foul. But if it rolls out it is fair. And if it is fair or foul and you touch it before it reaches the ground, it is fair whether or not it would have been.

No. If the ball touches fair territory and then bounces or rolls foul BEFORE passing 1st or 3rd base, it is a FOUL ball. If the ball touches fair AFTER passing 1st or3rd, it is judged according to the outfield foul lines. Fair and Foul balls have the same rule definitions in SB & BB.

all that mattters with a fly ball is location of where the ball is touched. If the ball is on or over fair territory when touched, its fair. On or over foul, its foul.

Of course, it's fair if touched in fair after 1st & 3rd. Thought that was already a known. . . by most people anyway. :-)

PS, it's a live ball if caught over infield / outfield foul territory and an out also.

Doesn't matter where in relationships to first and third on a touched ball. It gets status immediately on the touching.

Huh? I've been saying that all along. I was answering to Pofarmer10's comment.

Stop quoting me then

You Fed umps . . . BWAH HA HA