No, You Can't Catch a Ball With Your Hat

Yankees center fielder Trent Grisham got away with an illegal play when he took off and used his hat to field Brewers batter Isaac Collins' fly ball to deep right-center, a rules infraction that should have resulted in a three-base award had the umpires spotted it.

Replays indicate that in the 9th inning of New York's 4-2 win over Milwaukee, Grisham deliberately took off his uniform cap and used it to help control a fair ball at the wall, which is against the rules, the penalty for which is a three-base award: "Three bases, if a fielder deliberately touches a fair ball with their cap, mask or any part of their uniform detached from its proper place on their person. The ball is in play and the batter may advance to home base at their peril" (Official Baseball Rule 5.06(b)(4)(B)).

The violation went uncalled, resulting in a double with Brewers baserunner R1 Joey Ortiz advancing from first to third base. Had the umpires called and enforced the violation and its penalty, Ortiz would have scored and batter-runner Collins would have been placed at third base.

Video as follows:

3B Umpire Calls Check Swing on Right-Handed Batter???

Ordinarily, crew-of-three 3B umpires handle check swing appeals for left-handed hitters and 1B umpires take righties...so why did a 3B umpire rule on a check swing for a righty in NCAA's LSU vs Louisiana game?

The prevailing wisdom for most umpire manuals in a crew of three is that check (or "checked" in softball parlance) swings for lefties get appealed to U3 and righties get appealed to U1. That's what most umpire manuals will tell you, such as a prior year's NCAA Softball Umpire Manual, which states, "The plate umpire should get help from the first base umpire for right-handed batters and the third base umpire for left-handed batters, regardless of where the base umpires are positioned on the field."

Professional baseball, at some levels, did experiment years ago with having the third base umpire take check swings on right-handed batters during situations in which the first base umpire is counter-rotated onto the infield, such as the runners on 1B & 2B situation in LSU-Louisiana...but the experiment didn't seem to work and umpire mechanics returned to the U1/righties and U3/lefties setup.

Looks like softball is angling for a new check swing mechanic experiment.

Video as follows: