fielder's choice

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A play made on a ground ball in which the fielder chooses to put out an advancing base runner, thus allowing the batter to reach first base safely.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun baseball An official scoring play in which a fielder puts out an advancing baserunner, instead of attempting to put out the batter-runner at first base.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a play made on a ground ball in which the fielder chooses to put out an advancing runner instead of the batter