Collision at First Base

[nopachunts]

Originally Posted by Manny A

Touching the bag with any other part of the body while holding the ball in the hand or glove/mitt is not the issue. In those cases, you have clear, unequivocal evidence that the fielder maintained control of the ball after immediately pulling the foot off the bag.

Are you going to rule an out when the fielder immediately removes the foot from the bag, but then before she reaches into her glove to transfer the ball and throw to another base, she drops it? I hope not.

Rule cite, please. Where in the definition of Tag does it say that? And why is this different than the tag of the base?

As Irish said, this all boils down to judgment. And I will judge every time I see a fielder touch the base with the ball either in her hand or her glove/mitt and then lose it as not having control.

ASA definition: Tag
A legal tag is the act of a defensive player:
A. Touching a base with any part of the body while holding the securely and firmly in the hand or glove or:
B. Touching the runner or batter-runner with the ball while securely held in the hand or glove.

You, Irish, and me all agree that it is in our judgement. If all a defensive player has to do is touch the base to force a runner, if she has control of the ball when she first touches the base, I have an out. That's my judgement. If after she has touched the base controlling the ball, she drops it, I still have an out because she touched the base while controlling the ball. It's your judgement if she held the ball long enough or not to show control.

On a tag, in my judgement, she has to maintain contol of the ball before the tag, during the tag, and show control after the tag by showing me voluntary release. If I don't have those three things on an attempted tag, I don't have a tag.

I don't want to get into a seed spitting contest, but the fielder showing control is in our judgement as umpires.