Thoughts on a Look-Back Rule case

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by youngump

The relevant portion of the lookback rule states:
Once the runner stops at a base for any reason, the runner will be declared out if leaving the base.

The relevant portion of the leaving early rule states:
When the runner fails to keep contact with the base to which the runner is entitled until the ball leaves the pitcher's hand.

If you believe leave and lose contact with are the same thing than there is no difference between what can happen during a pitch and before it. If you hold that leave means not to simply lose contact with the bag but to move away from it then you understand the rules differently.

In colloquial usage it's the same. I'm touching my desk right now as I type. If I take my hands off my desk and move my chair back slightly, I will no longer be maintaining contact with my desk but nobody around me is going to think he just left his desk.

I continue to believe that whether intentional or not that wording distinction is clear and to the point, conforms to how the game is usually called, and matches the intent and spirit of the rules.

Now, I take it you don't call runners out for cleaning their cleats while the pitcher has the ball in the circle. How do you justify that by rule? I'm imagining this scenario:

Coach: Blue did you see her clean off her cleats.
Umpire: Yeah, so?
Coach: Well was she in contact with the base when she did so.
Umpire: No.
Coach: Then she's out.
Umpire: Coach go back to your dugout.
Coach: We protest your misapplication of the lookback rule.

At some point while the pitcher has the ball in the circle, the rule being violated morphs from the look back rule to the leaving early rule. So, when, exactly, does your enforcement standard change from leaving early to losing contact? 10 seconds from now, if she lifts her foot she would be out, but now she is not?

Do you think that change-over in interpretation is what the rule writers intend?