tag play at home-catcher in baseline question

[jicecone]

"What do you do if the catcher is in the base path and there is no play at home. The runner coming home runs him over. Do you call obstruction by the catcher and then eject the runner for causing malicious contact? Is a malicious contact always an automatic out?"

Avoid Contact. If there is no play at home, there is no need to run the catcher over or even have contact. Go around the catcher. If as a result of the runner going around the catcher, the runner is put out at home then enforce the obstruction. (But, you said there is no play at home). If runner does not avoid contact, call him out. Malicious contact will result in an out and ejection before the plate and just an ejection after the plate.