That is a bizarre method of sliding feet first, and much less effecting than going headfirst with the same intention.
I never said anything about sliding feet first, just that you might not always be attempting to touch the front of the bag.
But then the fielder is at considerably less risk of injury when the runner is sliding headfirst than cleats up.
So your response to treis doesn’t quite fit since treis was obviously referring to feet-first sliding.
I don’t see why treis’s solution wouldn’t work. Make sure that the foot touches the front of the bag if sliding feet-first, or remove the restricion if sliding head-first. But I don’t really care about baseball much anyway, so I’m following this thread more out of curiousity than anything else.
In the double play of the OP, the runner is attempting to touch second before the ball gets there, not attempting to avoid a tag. In addition to distinguishing between head-first and feet-first slides, you could distinguish between slides when a force is in effect and when it’s not.
I agree that runners should not have to touch the front of the bag.
The thing is, though, when they slide around the fielder to avoid the tag, it is quite obvious to everyone watching that they are, in fact, doing their best to avoid the tag and gain the base. And sliding around a tag is not an issue on double play balls anyway, because it’s a force play and the fielder does not have to tag the runner, only the base.
The quickest path to the bag on a force play is a straight line, and, as ZenBeam suggests, maybe this is a good way to write the rule about taking fielders out. Because it is usually quite obvious when runners throw their body at the fielder in a manner that has nothing to do with gaining the bag, but is designed only to disrupt the fielder’s ability to turn the double play.
As a fan, i find it very easy to distinguish between sliding around a tag, on the one hand, and sliding away from the bag to take out a fielder, on the other. I don’t think umpires should have any trouble either. And in cases where it’s a close call, they could give the benefit of the doubt to the runner.
I think that any such disruption should be incidental to the runner’s attempt to gain the base.
If the runner and the fielder arrive at the base at the same time, and it’s a very close play, i have no trouble if the runner slides in such a way as to make the fielder jump quickly off the bag or in the air to avoid a collision. When this happens, the action is usually right on the base.
On some double play balls, however, it is clear that the runner knows he is going to be out, and slides his body a long way out from the bag in a specific attempt to disrupt the fielder making the throw to first. In the most obvious cases, the fielder has already touched the bag, so the runner is already out. I don’t think that someone who has already been called out should be allowed to go out of his way to disrupt the ongoing action on the field.
I uploaded to my webspace an example of the type of takeout that should be prevented. It’s a 5-4-3 double-play turned by Boston against Kansas City. It’s a bit hard to see exactly what happens at second base during the first, full-speed run of the video; you have to watch the two slow-motion replay angles to really see what happens. The last shot, in particular, shows what i mean.
David DeJesus creates a basepath that is well outside the line of the bases. then, when he sees he is going to be out, he dramatically changes direction, and his slide clearly has absolutely no intention other than to take out Dustin Pedroia, well off the bag. DeJesus makes a lame attempt to reach back for the bag, but even if his hand actually touches the bag, there’s no way that touching the bag was the main purpose of his slide.
Anyway, judge for yourself. Here’s the video, in MP4 and XVid AVI formats. If your computer can play MP4, download the smaller file, because the quality is just as good as the larger AVI file.
the reason they allow this i s because thye have always allwoed it. Baseball is the land of unwritten rules, such as you don;t have to touch second, don’t act like you are happy you hit a home run, and don’t steal second if you are ahhead and some other stuff, that I am not sure about because it isn’t written down.
I think we’re in complete agreement. I was just reacting to what I thought (probably incorrectly) was a proposed change to restrict the way a runner can slide. In a force play that’s not relevant unless the fielder is pulled off the bag.
Sort of, but not really. That rule only applies strictly when running from home to first. Any player, when rounding a bag to take an extra base, runs outside the “basepath”. Think of runner going from second to home (or first to third)…their natural path takes them quite a long way outside the “basepath” drawn directly from one base to the next. Going from home to first, the runner must stay within a fairly narrow area, but once he rounds first he is given much more freedom in choosing his path.
Furthermore, if the runner in this situation is able to touch the base, then mustn’t they be within the “basepath” at that point in order to do so?
Regarding mhendo’s video: Yes, clearly his sole intent was to break up the double play, not to safely reach base. My question to you is this…
So what? That tactic is part of the game. Why should it be removed?
Because i think it should be removed.
There, that was productive, wasn’t it?
Edit:
if your whole argument, in any situation, is going to be “That’s the way it is, so why change it?”, i don’t know why you bother participating in conversations. It’s a completely unproductive and stupid mode of argumentation.
Make an argument for why the rule should stand, or rebut arguments about why it should be changed. But to simply argue “That’s the way it is” is completely pointless, given that this whole discussion is based on the fact that some people are critical of the way it is.
Well, it was certainly straightforward, I’ll give you that.
I do tend to be a “traditionalist” when it comes to baseball…and I won’t try to argue that my “That’s the way it’s always been, so I see no reason to change it” trumps your “Because i think it should be removed”…
Would you like to discuss the designated hitter, or perhaps aluminum bats? 
First, these are different kinds of “unwritten rules.” The “area” call at second on a forceout involves the umpire making a ruling which demonstrably contradicts the written rules. The others you mention are more nebulous ideas about sporting conduct, not the actual rules of the game.
Second, I don’t believe that umpires have always given this call at second.
Actually, I think mhendo touched the logic of it here,
A runner who is out is no longer intended to be a participant in the play. He should “disappear” from the field at the moment the force is made.
Mad props to Pedroia in mhendo’s video, who actually touched the bag before throwing to first. This despite longstanding precedent of not needing to plus a runner who was clearly trying to take him out.
Count me as another one who dislikes the way MLB allows this. This is the type of thing that prevents me from getting more into baseball. The way they handle it just seems scared or somehow unmanly to me.
For that matter, I also don’t like how the NBA allows travelling. Ironically, I was even more bothered when the NBA officially extended the travelling rules this season. Officially sanction showboating, IMO, but then again that seems to be the basic premise of the sport anyway.
IMHO the vast majority of plays as described in the OP occur when the shortstop is making the throw to first - I don’t believe that Pedroia’s play is worth any sort of special recognition.
Huh?
Do you have any stats for the relative frequency of 6-4-3 vs. 4-6-3 double plays? The fact that there are more right-handed than left-handed hitters suggests that 6-4-3 is probably more common.
Add to that the somewhat less-common 5-4-3, and it seems to me that it’s the second baseman who more often makes the relay throw at the bag. At the very least, they’re probably similar in number.
No stats, conjecture, and quite possibly utter bs - my reasoning has to do with the pivot, that the second baseman will come to a full stop before throwing to first, as opposed to the shortstop who will more often glide through the bag as he moves right to left.
You will note, the runner goes far out of the 2nd base direction to take out the 2nd baseman and break up the double play throw. If you forced them to stand in there and take the impact, it would result in a shortage of 2nd basemen. Catchers have protective equipment. The runner and the 2nd baseman are allowed to fudge a bit.
I specified feet first sliding, however:
So unless you are talking about feet first sliding your post makes little sense as a response to mine.
In the Angels/Yankees playoff series last season, there was a rather infamous play where Angels shortstop Erick Aybar was not even close to the second base bag while turning a double play, and the umpire (correctly) ruled the lead runner safe.
Angels manager Mike Scioscia and others argued rather vehemently, as it’s the kind of play that umpires usually just give the teams without a fight. But in this case, it was so blatant I think the umpire was absolutely correct in his ruling.
I’m always surprised that anyone defends things like the phantom double play with “well, this is always how it’s been.”
The thing is, when you start calling rules based on a fuzzy interpretation that’s contrary to the rulebook, the guidelines start to go off the rails. And if you don’t believe me, I’ve got two words for you: STRIKE ZONE.
Where the fuck is the major league strike zone, anyway? According to the rulebook it’s between the midpoint of the shoulders and uniform pants and the bottom of the knees, and over the plate, but for quite some time the actual zone being called was like the real zone had fallen on its side, and was between the knees and the bottom of the belt but extended anywhere from four to twelve inches off the outside corner depending on how famous the pitcher was. In the early 90s the strike zone was further shrunk on two-strike counts to include only the exact target set by the catcher as long as it was in the fallen-over zone; a pitch anywhere else in the zone was never a strike on a two-strike count. Then in 2001 they started calling the rulebook again, sort of, but now pitches between the belt and the midpoint line aren’t strikes anymore.
If you don’t call the game according to the rules you’re courting fiasco. In the case of the strike zone you have things like Game 7, 1992 NLCS, bottom of the ninth, when the Pirates just threw strike after strike and all were called balls; then the Braves got robbed in 1997 when Eric Gregg decided anything the catcher could reach was a strike. And in terms of the phantom double play, Chuck Knoblauch, enough said.
If you don’t call things according to the rules then there’s no rule, and so the game isn’t fair. How phantom is too phantom? A foot from the bag? Two feet? You pass directly over it but don’t touch it? Does it vary depending on how close the runner is - e.g. you don’t allow it if the runner’s far from the bag but you do if he’s close?
I’ve got a crazy idea for resolving this, though; what you do is define a square on the field that the fielder has to touch to make the out. Oh, wait, they already have one of those. It’s called second base.
Mike & Mike practically devoted a whole show (4 hours) to that when it happened, and since it was during NFL season I caught most of it. That’s the only reason I have an opinion one way or another.
They went and checked every play of that game and in every case, the bag was actually touched. Until that one. Thus disproving the argument that the refs had been inconsistent that game. (Or was it that whole series? I forget.) Anyway, it could still be argued that the teams had no way of knowing the precedent for that game/series since this was the first time that happened. Meaning that the Angels probably assumed the general MLB standard was in force and so they got blindsided.
This is the exact type of problem that bugs me, though. Every time I hear about an MLB unwritten rule I roll my eyes. I just can’t buy into the concept.