Runner gets careless when standing after slide

[RPatrino]

Why do all the threads around here lately get hijacked into a debate about the strike? Enough allready.

Now, back to the thread at hand. The only place I have ever seen time outs called on the bases after every slide play was in slow pitch softball. Here in hardball, don't call time out everytime a player needs to get up after a slide. Let them learn how to get up and maintain contact with the base.

When a player slides, and and asks for time, I don't ever automatically grant it unless he's injured, or the base has come loose. I had a 3rd base coach one time, after a play there, say "time out" and told his runner to stand up. F5 alertly tagged him out. The coach complained, " blue, I called time out!!". I explained, "coach, you ask for time, I call it".

If the fielder is standing there with his glove on the runner, trying to "trick" the runner into standing up, I just tell the fielder, "get the ball to back to the pitcher and lets play!!". Unnessecary time outs just make the game longer.

Bob P.