5 ms·
There is another problem of vagueness that the article didn't cover, vagueness in intent of the rule. This can come up when a rule was written assuming a level
by slg 7y ago
There is another problem of vagueness that the article didn't cover, vagueness in intent of the rule. This can come up when a rule was written assuming a level of vagueness in observation that was removed by the introduction of this video review technology. Tag plays in baseball are one example of this.
A baseball player is out whenever they aren't touching a base and are tagged by a defender holding the ball. There is very little vagueness there. However that specificity is assuming a certain vagueness in observation. Some players are running over 20mph toward bases that are fixed in place and don't have much give. Simple physics results in the players often bouncing off the base momentarily. This bouncing generally isn't something that is visible in real-time with the naked eye so for roughly 100 years everyone who initiated contact with the base before being tagged was ruled safe. Now in comes high def slow motion video to prove that there are fractions of a second in which it is clear the player isn't touching the base. Do you call that player out? The rule itself says yes, but all precedent of officiating says no. Do you go by the text of the rule or by what was expected by the people who wrote the rule? You might end up with a discussion about original intent that would be at home in a debate in the Supreme Court.
- schoen 7y agoSee also "The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule" (a legal-scholarly discussion of the principles underlying the rules of baseball). https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5322&context=penn_law_review https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl... I forgot if people have tried to write rejoinders to this based on other schools of legal interpretation.
- YokoZar 7y agoDo you have a video link to an example of this by chance? I'm having trouble visualizing the bouncing effect you describe.
- huffmsa 7y agoWatch a slow motion punch or other collision. At high speeds, the colliding surfaces will often deform faster than they're colliding and / or there is a slight rebound which separates them for a tiny, imperceptible amount of time, but you can see it on high speed camera.
- slg 7y agoMLB posts a ton of video to Youtube, but the descriptions on those videos are rather minimal. That makes it hard to find a perfect example without combing through hundreds of videos, but this one is close [1]. The call here was more a problem with the transfer from sliding to standing, but his front leg does the "bounce" I was talking about that is hard to notice in the real-time replay at 30 seconds but is obvious in the slow motion replay at 60 seconds. Regardless of whether the problem is the bounce or the transfer, this player clearly "beat" the tag which is in my opinion the spirit of the rule. He would have likely been called safe for 100+ years of baseball history. Yet with video review, he is clearly out based on the letter of the rule. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3J1QEwDmmg&t=30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3J1QEwDmmg&t=30