My father coached HS Softball and was quite successful. For some reason I thought of this play the other night and thought I'd share it. It happened in 1989, so I'm not sure if there are any significant rule changes that may have occurred. (Most likely not.)
We were playing a rival who's coach was know for some pretty bush league tactics. The opposing shortstop had had a major knee surgery the year before and wore one of those huge metal knee braces. In the first inning one of our runners attempted a steal of second. The shortstop would position herself three feet away from second base on the first base side and take the throw and use her knee brace to block anyone sliding into second. (making the tag from one knee 3 feet from 2nd base abruptly stopping anyone who attempted to slide)
A second runner was tagged out on a steal in the same fashion, so it was obviously the technique being taught. My Dad questioned the safety of this as she was using the metal brace to form a collision and because she was so far up the line she was initiating the contact at the beginning of the slide rather than at the end like a catcher blocking the plate. The umpire didn't think it was an issue.
In the third our pitcher, who was a legit bad a__ and a real loose cannon, decided she was going to solve the problem and went in shoulder on shoulder and rolled her Pete Rose vs. Ray Fosse style.
She was tagged out and the umpire was going to eject her, but my Dad said that if the opposing coach was teaching her player to block the base path so players couldn't slide, and putting the SS in an unsafe position, she had to accept that a collision might be the result.
The umpire, who was a poor umpire, decided not to eject her. And not surprisingly, the SS quit blocking the base.
If you were the umpire would you have allowed the player to block second base in this manner?
I'm not sure it was illegal, but it was unsafe to slider and SS, and there really was no advantage defensively to do it. If there was it was minimal compared to risking a surgically repaired knee and potential injuries to the runners.
We were playing a rival who's coach was know for some pretty bush league tactics. The opposing shortstop had had a major knee surgery the year before and wore one of those huge metal knee braces. In the first inning one of our runners attempted a steal of second. The shortstop would position herself three feet away from second base on the first base side and take the throw and use her knee brace to block anyone sliding into second. (making the tag from one knee 3 feet from 2nd base abruptly stopping anyone who attempted to slide)
A second runner was tagged out on a steal in the same fashion, so it was obviously the technique being taught. My Dad questioned the safety of this as she was using the metal brace to form a collision and because she was so far up the line she was initiating the contact at the beginning of the slide rather than at the end like a catcher blocking the plate. The umpire didn't think it was an issue.
In the third our pitcher, who was a legit bad a__ and a real loose cannon, decided she was going to solve the problem and went in shoulder on shoulder and rolled her Pete Rose vs. Ray Fosse style.
She was tagged out and the umpire was going to eject her, but my Dad said that if the opposing coach was teaching her player to block the base path so players couldn't slide, and putting the SS in an unsafe position, she had to accept that a collision might be the result.
The umpire, who was a poor umpire, decided not to eject her. And not surprisingly, the SS quit blocking the base.
If you were the umpire would you have allowed the player to block second base in this manner?
I'm not sure it was illegal, but it was unsafe to slider and SS, and there really was no advantage defensively to do it. If there was it was minimal compared to risking a surgically repaired knee and potential injuries to the runners.
