Runner called out

Last weekend I saw something strange. Runner on 1st, batter hits hard line drive to RC. As runner is rounding 3B to go home, coach tells her to stop. As she puts the breaks on, she loses her balance and almost runs over the coach, who grabs her to keep her from falling (she literally ran into him and he instinctively grabbed onto her arms to keep them both from falling). She returns to 3B. Field umpire smiles, says nothing, and carries on like nothing happened. As soon as ball was dead, the plate ump called time and ruled the runner out. She said the coach stopped her from advancing.

My question is: whose call is this? It was obvious that the coach wasn't trying to keep the runner from advancing. He was trying to keep himself and his runner from falling down. It was a spontaneous reaction from her running into him. The field ump seemed to recognize this and let it go, but the plate ump did not see it that way. Also, the coach was in the box when the runner ran into him.

Last part first: The coach being in or out of the box is irrelevant to this call. The box defines where the coach needs to be prior to the pitch. After that, coaches are free to move out of it to direct runners. Being in the box doesn't absolve them from anything. Coaches are obligated to not interfere or assist runners no matter where they're at on the field.

Which umpire "owns" this call? Whichever one sees it and judges it to be assisting the runner! The call isn't exclusive to any certain umpire on the field.

Is what happened on this play a rule violation? Even if the coach/runner contact was an accident, nothing in the rule says it has to be intentional. Whether or not this falls under "physically assisting the runner" is left up to the judgment of the umpire.

It's not illegal just because the coached "touched" the runner. For instance, if the runner had just overrun the base and barely bumped the coach, you might not judge that the contact had any material effect on the runner's ability to properly run the base. Generally, to "assist" the runner the contact must have some real effect on the runner's speed or direction.

Just going by the description, the contact with the coach prevented the runner from being sprawled out on the ground and not in contact with the base. That's a pretty disadvantageous position for a runner to be in- and the coach prevented it! Apparently the plate umpire judged it to be a rule violation (but if he did, he should have called it right when it happened and not waited until the ball was dead).

As described, I would agree the correct call was made by the letter of the law, even though I've only seen it called once in my life. It's the coach's job to avoid giving the impression they may have been assisting the runner during a live ball situation. Coach was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If a coach pats a runner on the shoulder as she rounds 3B on the way to score standing up, there's no violation. But if a coach grabs the runner to direct her back to 3B to avoid being thrown out at home, ball remains live, runner is out.

But if a coach grabs the runner to direct her back to 3B to avoid being thrown out at home, dead ball, runner out.

Click to expand...

It is not a dead ball, the runner being assisted is simply out ball remains live. Only time ball is dead is when a runner who has crossed home plate and missed it and is assisted back to home plate.

My mistake. Not sure why I said that! Edited.