malicious contact on fake tag
 

Had a strange play tonight in a FED game. Runner on first, advances to third on base hit to right field. Throw is not made to third base, but the third baseman, without the ball, makes a hard tag on the runner. Umpire immediately declares "dead ball", and ejects the third baseman for malicious contact. The umpires confer, and determine the runner should not be awarded home, since he would only have made third base on this play. My understanding is that the runner is to be awarded a minimum of one base from where the obstruction occurred. If that is true, the runner should have been awarded home.

If the obstruction took place as the runner was coming to third, then the base they are awarded is third. You cannot give home at that point unless you deemed that the obstruction prevented the runner to get to home without the fake tag (contact). This is hard to really determine by your post when the obstruction took place. And this is a judgment call if the runner had not reached third first.

Peace

Your understanding is incorrect. He is awarded a minimum of one base from the last he legally held at the time of obstruction, or where the umpire believes he would have reached absent the obstruction. If he was obstructed attempting to reach third, the minimum award would be from second.

Your wording is a bit confusing. I prefer: "He is awarded the base where the umpire believes he would have reached absent the obstruction. However, he must be awarded a minimum of one base from the base legally occupied at the time of obstruction"

Your wording allows an umpire to keep R1 at 1B when F3 obstructs him on a pick-off.

To clarify where the play took place, the 3rd baseman was straddling the 3rd base bag, the throw from right field was cut-off by the shortstop, and the 3rd baseman applied a tag without the ball. Therefore, the runner was contacted on 3rd base.

It's isn't as obvious as your ""Therefore" would have it to those of us who were not there.

Just because the 3rd baseman applied the tag doesn't mean the runner had reached third. Straddling the bag means nothing. The runner may have been sliding into third at the time and tagged prior to touching the bag...we don't know.

Really? "a minimum of one base beyond...." means that?

Hmm,
 

After reading the OP and the additions I would be highly suspect that there was Malicious Contact on this play.

Don't get me wrong -- I can see that there could be an ejection in this situation but it is highly questionable if it would be for MC.

When "we" (and yes, I was a part in writing the MC definition for the NFHS) wrote the rule we knew it would be "primarily" an offensive infraction. We also understood that, in a rare case, it could also cover a defensive player.

In the small percentage of defensive MC calls I am not sure that we considered "a fake tag" as malicious. While it is true that a very hard fake tag could lead to ejection it would not be for Malicious Contact it would be simply for an unsportsmanlike activity.

In closing, the protection and awarding of bases based on a fake tag "can be" subjective but the NFHS Rules Committee would like there to be severe penalities for the action (especially if the fake tag leads to an unneeded slide by a runner).

Regards,

T

You said:

or where the umpire believes he would have reached absent the obstruction.

and the use of "or" means you pick one of the options and ignore the other - thus you could throw out the "minimum one base" part and pick the "base he would have reached" part

so on a pickoff attempt at first, given those words, one could think you award first.

This.

Wow.

Sorry coach. I'll be much more careful of my sentence construction in the future. I shan't confuse you again.

I'm not the one who was confused. Verily thou shouldst try to keep it straight.

For the record, I wasn't confused either. My point was that the "or" changes the way the rule can be applied.

Proper mechanic for obstruction by F3 on R1 on a pickoff:

"Time. That's Obstruction. You (point at R1)...2nd base (point at 2nd base)."

After reading your original post, where's the obstruction? MC, maybe but obstruction, no.