Correct. Doesn’t matter when the runners got to the base, if two runners occupy it, the lead runner is entitled to the base, and the trailing runner can be tagged out, even if he’s in contact with the bag.
This actually came up in a recent spring training game and a player’s misunderstanding of the rules resulted in a weird triple play.
This might be the most Spring Training triple play we’ve ever seen
Summary: Cubs batting, no outs, runners on first and second, ball is hit into shallow right field, hitter tries to stretch the play to a double, gets out. Cubs end up with the two base runners on third, for reasons. Third baseman tags them both, and the trailing runner is called out. But the lead runner, thinking HE was out, walks toward the dugout, gets tagged and now really IS out.
As a long time Cubs fan, we get used to stuff like this…
Figuring out when the play is well and truly over is always a bit of a trick in baseball. Some situations are real clear-cut. Others not so much.
If the play can stay live past a couple of umpires issuing rulings and runners correctly leaving the field, it’d be easy to fall into that lead runners mistake.
The play is never really over in baseball. The umpire can grant time or call the ball dead. But otherwise the ball is always live.
(I know you know this, just putting it out there in case anybody thought the lead runner might have thought the play was “over”)
Yeah. The ball is live until an umpire signals it is not. Some of those signals are easy to miss, or easy to assume already happened while you (a player) were looking at something else.