[Dakota]

Since Hrbek was brought up (of course, we knew it would be), the umpire that made the call explained that the runner has to maintain control of his body after contact with the bag, and that (in his judgment) Gant was falling off the base and would have broken contact with or without Hrbek.

You can't make the same argument for the play in this thread, but you can make the comparison that MNBlue did... if a (legal) collision can cause the loss of control of the ball, why can't a (legal) collision cause the loss of contact with the bag?

Change the timing of the play by just a fraction of a second... tag is applied just before the foot touches the bag, but the collision causes the ball to fall out. Safe, right? Why does the offense get the right to demonstrate loss of control of the ball, but the defense doesn't have the parallel right to demonstrate loss of control of the body in maintaining contact with the bag?

BTW, I would not have ruled that an out in amateur fastpitch, but the discussion is interesting...