Fastpitch Softball 3rd Base Lead

For fastpitch softball, we teach taking a lead from 3rd base outside the foul line. Do you players know why they should do this? We were talking about this on our 10U team and I assumed they all knew why they were supposed to do this. Then, for the heck of it, I asked them if they knew why. A bunch of them said they were just going to ask whey they should take their lead in foul territory. Some of these players were 11 years old. This is their 2nd or 3rd year playing 10U and they've been playing this game for 5-6 years.

Now that I think about it, we even had a couple of high school players this past season that didn't understand what we meant when we told them to take their lead foul and come back on the inside.

Do you know why leads are taken in foul territory? Do your players (if you're a coach)?

Some of our10U players said they thought it was to avoid being hit by the ball, which is partially correct. But you can still get hit with the ball even in foul territory. So why take your lead foul? For those of you who aren't sure, the big reason is that if you're in fair territory and the batter hits the ball down the line and it hits you, the ball is dead and you're out. You just took away a potential base hit for the batter and any chance to advance runners that are on base.

Yes, there is a situation in which you wouldn't be out even if the ball hit you in fair territory (i.e. 3B is playing tight and already made her play on the ball, missed, then it hit you), but more often than not the play is dead and you're out. This is why we take our lead in foul territory - to avoid this situation, then return to the base in fair territory (to take away the clear shot from the catcher to the person covering the bag). It's not because you're less likely to get hit with a batted ball in foul territory, it's not because the footing in foul territory is better than in the baseline, which is what one person thought. I'm just surprised at how many people don't know this.