Contact rule
 

Contact rule (all divisions) Babe Ruth baseball (OBR rules)

"If a runner attempting to reach home plate intentionally and maliciously runs into a defensive player in the area of home plate, he will be called out on the play and ejected from the game. The objective of this is to penalize the offensive team for deliberate,unwarranted, unsportsmanlike action by the runner for the obvious purpose of crashing the defensive player, rather than trying to reach home plate. Obviously this an umpires judgement call."

This was copied directly from the 2006 rule book. The question I have is if this same kind of contact occurs at any of the other bases is the same rule in effect?
I know the rules for illegal contact and malicious contact for FED,LL and Legion.MY question is specific to this Division. We have a coach at the 12 and under age that thinks he's Billy Martin and loves to argue alot. He says that any other base but home his players can run into the fielder since it isn't specifically mentioned in the rule book.
This is only the second year for Babe Ruth ball in our area and I want to make sure that I'm calling this the right way.:confused:

Sounds like your "Billy Martin" will end up getting fired just like the real one did.

The reason for the additional wording to 6.05 (m) in the Babe Ruth rule book was to implement a more severe penalty other than just an ejection when a fielder crashes the catcher. If you judge malicious contact then he's out even if he contacted the plate first, unlike in other rules codes where the run is scored.

If he really needs a rule you can tell him that all malicious contact is unsportsmanlike conduct, which is covered in 9.01(d). Then, if that isn't enough to satisfy him you should tell him he can join his player in your ejection report if he would like.


Tim.

Tim,
I understand the contact rule as written. The question is if it also pertains to any other base but home and where that reference would be.

You won't find a rule that specifies what other bases this applies to. The best you'll find is 9.01(d) which lets us eject for any unsporstmanlike conduct. Perhaps an e-mail to Mr. Tellefsen is in order for a better clarification.


Tim.

I was a Babe Ruth Baseball coach in the early 90's when they did not have a malicious contact rule. I submitted several videos of malicous contact plays involving 10 and 11 year olds with my pleas to implement such a rule. Finally, a rule was adopted, that applied to plays at the plate only. Your quote is correct, and clear. Malicious contact only applies at home in Babe Ruth games.

I guess I'm not very clear on what you're saying, DG. Are you trying to say that there can be no MC calls at any other base except home? If so, I assure youi that's not the case. All contact judged malicious is an immediate ejection, including defensive MC(unnecessarily hard tag, trip, etc...) The rule clarification was put in place to allow for the runner at home to be called out on MC regardless of whether or not he reached the plate prior to the contact.


Tim.

You are reading between the lines and there is nothing there.

"CONTACT RULE (All Babe Ruth and Cal Ripken Baseball Divisions) - If a runner attempting to reach home plate intentionally and maliciously runs into a defensive player in the area of home plate, he will be called out on the play and ejected from the game. The objective of this rule is to penalize the offensive team for crashing the defensive player, rahter than trying to reach home plate. Obviously, this is an umpire's judgement call."

That's all there is in the Babe Ruth rulebook on malicious contact. Key words are "home plate". Unless of course the rule has changed for 2006, I only have the 2005 book.

DG,

The rule is specific to HP because it allows us to get BOTH an out & ejection, even if the runner were to 'score' on the play.

9.04 only allows an ejection, NOT an out or the ability to deny a run for MC.

9.04(d) covers ejections for all other MC.

Just to add to the confusion here a few years back we had a R1 slide in to 2nd with his feet about 2'-3' in the air. His plan was to take out the F5 & break up a dp. He took out F5 all right! My call: Malicious contact with intent to injure, R1 ejected & B2 out @ 1st.

My point is if I see blatent, malicious contact, espicially if there is intent to injure, no matter where on the field it happens someone is headed to the bench for the rest of the game!

I know it's a typo, but for anyone looking this up, it's 9.01(d)


Each umpire has authority to disqualify any player, coach, manager or substitute for objecting to decisions or for unsportsmanlike conduct or language, and to eject such disqualified person from the playing field. If an umpire disqualifies a player while a play is in progress, the disqualification shall not take effect until no further action is possible in that play.


Tim.

You can tell Billy Martin that his players can be malicious at other bases without risk of being called out. He's right. Then when he does it, eject the kid and the coach (for telling the player to be malicious). His kid isn't out (the out only applies at home), but he's done for the day.

This is the problem with coaches that only read the parts of the rules that they like.

Under Babe Ruth rules all the umpire can do is eject at the end of playing action for contact other then the plate. No out unless in the umpires judgment the runner interfered with a play.