In short: is there any advantage to sliding into first base?
It’s time once again for the All-Japan Spring High School Baseball Tournament, and I was just watching a few games on TV when I saw the following play: A ground ball was hit to one of the infielders, who then threw it to first. The runner, seeing that it was going to be close, suddenly made a diving slide. Unfortunately, the throw was faster, and he was called out.
Like US basaball, Japanese rules allow the runner to overrun first base without being tagged out, so it seems to me that the most effective way to reach first would be simply to sprint as hard as you can and run through the base. Sliding would just slow you down, wouldn’t it? But then I’ve never played the game, so I could be wrong.
Does anyone know of a good reason to slide into first base, or was this just a case of a young player having a single rule so firmly drilled into his head (if the play is close, SLIDE!!) that he forgets there are cases when it doesn’t apply?
There have been other threads on this I think. The rule of thumb about sliding into first base is that you should only do it if you are avoiding a tag, e.g. a high throw that makes the first baseman come off the bag.
Barring that situation, the best way to get from Point A to Point B is to run fast as you can and not dive on the ground.
I never saw Carl Lewis slide over the finish line.
The friction of sliding, as Gunslinger pointed out, would slow you down. Much less friction moving your bod through air. Although a head-first, diving, PeteRosesque slide might not make that much of a difference, time-wise. You’d be hurling your body through the air and belly flopping with your hands out to touch the base. So most of the time you’d be moving through the air. Plus there’s the (admittedly slight) advantage of extending the body from an upright position to a prone position.
**BobT:
Along these same lines, does it drive you crazy to see a runner try to beat out the throw by taking a great big step to cross first? Seems to me they’re breaking stride when they do that, and slowing themselves down. Shouldn’t they just keep churning it out? Or doesn’t it make any difference?
Thanks, I figured it was probably just a mental lapse on the part of the runner, but I wasn’t sure. It’s kind of like another play I see sometimes in the tournament where the pitcher picks up a short bunt and tries to run it to first base. The pitcher and runner end up sprinting side by side, trying to reach the base first, when all the pitcher has to do is reach a few inches over and tag the runner out.
Or throw the freakin’ thing. You don’t need an arm like Randy Johnson to throw faster than a man can run. I assume the first baseman is standing there, with his mitt out, waiting for the throw. Duh.
Watch the end of a 100m dash sometime folks. What do the runners do at the very end? They lunge forward as hard as possible. Their speed slows down considerably thereafter. Now, they are hitting the tape, not a base so no need to actually fall down. (Although many do, being unable to maintain the burst of speed.) If the tape where held down to the ground and the goal was to touch it first, I guarantee you they’d all dive head first at it.
So, diving into first base does pay off in a very few situations where the play is extremely close.
Sliding into first, on the other hand is not good. That is, you have to hit the base with your hands upon landing, not after sliding.
But on the other hand, diving/sliding head first into any base is quite dangerous. The disadvantage of being hobbled, missing games to let that new kid Gehrig play, shorter career, etc., all will outweigh the advantages of one or two extra BH’s a season.
Just to make it clear: Diving into first does get you there faster. Anybody who tells you different don’t know Nike about running.
Sprinters lunge forward at the tape so that their chests will break the tape first. If they just kept on running, their feet may cross the finish line, but not their chests, which is what counts. Their feet can’t break the tape. You’ll notice it’s only the front runners who do that.
Related point-the primary purpose to sliding into bases beyond first is not to avoid a tag (although it’s useful for that as well). It’s primarily to take advantage of the rapid deceleration of full-body ground contact. To stop on the base without overrunning it, you’d need to start slowing your run well back from the base. You can reach the base faster by running full speed, then sliding; the friction over your whole body decelerates you faster than your feet alone can.
If you see an indoor meet, there are all sorts of ways they use to get the runners to stop after a 60 meter run. There is usually a rope or a big pad that the runners hit to slow them down and stop them.
At the speed they are going, there isn’t enough room in an indoor facility for the runners to decelerate.
Baseball players have the whole right field foul line to use and also aren’t running nearly as fast.
Actually yes. Sometimes if a throw is off the mark the first baseman has to pull off of the bag. Usually if the ball is thrown either high, or wide to the home plate side, the first baseman pulls his foot and then goes for the tag instead of waiting to hit the ground or get back to the bag. But on a decent throw there is no point.
And, to answer the “why to they [baseball players] lunge” question, the answer is that if they don’t, their “natural” stride will lead them just short of the base, causing them to have to stutter-step to hit the bag – a great way to be injured. It goes without saying but although you are allowed to overrun first base you at least have to touch it on the way by . . .
Well, I’ve seen this, and of course, you’re right, but I was thinking of specific instances last season, where Mike Piazza would try to beat out an infield hit. It didn’t look like a case of him adjusting his natural stride in order to step on the base. It always seemed to me that he was lunging to beat the throw. I could be wrong, but the impression I had when I saw it was akin to watching someone take stairs two at a time, i.e. covering more ground with one step.
My original comment on this was that it didn’t seem to me to be an efficient way of trying to cover ground. Does lunging like that really make a difference?
Um, I seem to recall some rule that prohibited or discouraging sliding in to 1st, but I can’t recall the details - this is a vague memory from both a baseball computer game I played about 15 years ago and from my nephews’ Little League games.
…When I played baseball. The first base ump looks at the bag, listens for the sound of the ball hitting the glove. Whichever occurs first is what is ruled. If the ball hits the mitt prior to the runner touching the bag, he’s out. If the batter touches the base before the soundd, he’s safe. A tie always goes to the runner. I was always coached (Little League, high school, and some college) that, if it’s going to be a CLOSE play, slide. The dirt that gets kicked up will sometimes confuse the ump, and he may not be able to tell whether or not the runner was really out. In a case like that, according to my old coaches, the ump will usually award first base to the runner. If he couldn’t tell for sure, it’s ruled a tie, which means that the runner is awarded first base.
