Slide... Crash

[jmkupka]

Originally Posted by KJUmp

For the reasons MD pointed out, let's take out the word crash and the whole 'cleats catching thing' here.
I'm assuming at this point in the thread that you're in agreement (as am I) that there's no interference here on the part of the runner.

Being devil's advocate, and going back to the sitch....

Catcher in possession of the ball blocking the plate, runner slides, comes back up (IYO unintentionally), they meet hard enough to take out the catcher and send the ball rolling. "I have an out."

The ball is on the ground. We've established here that there was no interference on the part of the runner. OC comes out to argue the call. How do/would you handle the argument?

My reasoning is that, while there is no "must slide", there is a slide, avoid, or surrender-whatever is needed to avoid a collision-that didn't happen here. Catcher had the ball, was waiting to apply the tag, and the collision took her out.
I misused the term "crash". I see "crash" as the unfortunate case of ball, fielder, and runner all meeting at the same time, and no INT or OBS is called.
At game speed, this was my rationale, and it's what I explained to the OC.