I don’t know why this thought just randomly jumped into my head because I don’t recall ever having seen an example of this.
As far as I know from years of watching baseball, the rule(s) regarding a runner tagging up involve having to be in contact with the runner’s originating base sometime after the catch is made before the runner can advance to the next base.
What I’m wondering is, essentially, what if the fielder juggles the ball? Does the rule say the runner can tag as soon as the fielder makes any contact with the ball in play? Or does the runner have to wait until the ball is secured by the fielder before taking off?
BobLibDem has answered the question, but it’s surprisingly hard to find in the rules. You have to go to the Definitions section, which explains what constitutes a “Catch.” I had a hell of a time finding the reference for it.
Right. If you read the runner section, you don’t see where they get to leave at first touch. But if you read the definition of catch in section 2.00, you see this:
Is it just me, or does the MLB.com rules section only provide the rules in PDF now? On this page, the list of links on the left are all to PDF files, but i’m sure that the rules section used to have the rules in regular HTML pages. Is there somewhere i’m not looking? Because PDF is a pain in the ass, if the same thing is available as a regular web page.