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I know malicious contact when I see it. When I read it, it is more difficult. If a runner runs into a fielder with the ball, and the fielder drops the ball, I may have a simple drop. If the runner runs into the fielder maliciously, I have a dead ball, out, and ejection regardless of whether the ball was dropped. The fact that the collarbone was broken on the fielder seems to imply it could have been malicious contact, but I can't tell without seeing it. At the time of the event, I can't rule malicous contact on the end result, I have to rule on what I saw. I had this situation this weekend on a play into 2B. The slide was ugly, but IMO, not malicious. Coach for the offense was arguing for MC, but IMO it was a bad slide, not MC. He said "I bet if the 2B had been injured you would have ruled malicious", and my reply was that if it had been malicious I would have ruled before I had any idea whether 2B was injured.
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