Retouch on Lead-off?

[rwou812]

I think what we have is a couple of coaches that are coming out of Little League where you can't leave the base until the pitch passes the batter. Obviously, this would constitute a return to the bag, but not in OBR. I asked a couple of the 14-15 managers at a meeting tonight about this and none of them had heard of this before either.

The other thought I had on this is that these guys have seen baseball on TV and notice that the runner at 1st base always goes back to the bag. Usually the runner at 2B will hang off the bag, but it's not as widely televised as the runner at 1B....leading to the perception that it's illegal to be off the bag. I even heard one of the coaches (it was a scrimmage with no umps, so we were umpiring our own pitchers to allow two adult base coaches..and coaches are thin in our league) telling my other coach that since he didn't retouch after the pitch he could call my runner at 2B out. Not knowing for sure, I didn't argue with him. And it was a scrimmage.

Granted this is a risky proposition by not having the runner go back to the bag, but I didn't think it was illegal. You guys are great and have helped me immensely going into the season. Nobody likes an uninformed and uneducated coach!

Thanks again!

rw