[David B]

Originally posted by David Emerling

One of the biggest myths is that coaches teach their catchers to drill any runner who is out of the runner's lane. I assure you, they do not.

Why hit the runner with the ball then cross your fingers and hope the umpire calls him out when, the much easier way to go is to simply complete the throw to the 1st for the sure out?

Ask any big league catcher if he's ever intentionally thrown at a BR to get an interference call. He'll tell you NO. In fact, you see BR's out of the running lane all the time. And what do the catcher's do? They simply throw him out.

Catchers are taught to establish a throwing lane (usually on the inside) and to make a throw directly to the receiving fielder. If the ball happens to hit the BR, so be it. They should be called out. But the catcher never aims at the runner.

Here's why: What if the catcher misses the runner? Then it's just a bad throw with no assurance that the umpire will call the BR out for interference. The umpire will likely rule that, although the BR was out of the lane, the throw was not of sufficient quality to make a case that the BR interfered with the fielding of the ball at 1st.

Fielders are NEVER taught to throw at runners. They're taught to establish throwing lanes.

This also applies to the myth that pivot men are taught to drill a runner who fails to get down. Not true. All they are thinking about is making an accurate and timely throw to 1st. If R1 happens to be in the way, yes, he'll get drilled. But there is never any attempt to hit him.

Again - what if the pivot man misses? Where is the ball going to go? Believe me, the defense is more intent on completing the double play than proving to the runner that he must get out of the way.

David Emerling
Memphis, TN

[Edited by David Emerling on Mar 25th, 2005 at 01:54 PM] [/B]

I have to disagree. Obviously you weren't a catcher or F3 when you played ball.

I played both. No you don't aim at the player and I wasn't taught to aim at any player, but you do aim at your target.

But, as you descirbed. The ball bounces into the grass in front of home. F3 hollers what - INSIDE as you stated.

BR is now running in the line of fire. This increases the risk that he will get hit because F3 is locked into his position inside. If BR is less than halfway to first there is usually no problem, but if BR is over halfway, its a crap shoot because as F3 I have the target and BR is running right into my target.

Many young catchers will hesitate when BR is in that last half of the distance to first because BR is in their lane, and we know most HS catchers don't have the most accurate of arms.

So it might be a myth, but in reality, many times by BR running out of the running lane he does create interference for F2 because as you stated, no catcher WANTS to hit a runner, but when the runner is in the way ...

Thanks
David