GET OUT OF MY WAY! Umpire Coaching Podcast #2
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James: Thank you. All right, everybody. Hey, welcome to umpire coaching. This is a podcast where we talk with coaches and umpires about the various aspects of youth baseball and softball for both umpires and coaches. My name is James. I've been umpiring and coaching since just about the turn of the century, and with me is Roger. Hey Roger.
Roger: Hello, James!
James: Roger. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Roger: So I've been umpiring for probably about five years now. I've been a parent watching his sons play baseball for about eight years. I've been playing the game since I was a kid. So I just enjoy the rules and the different aspects that come from them.
James: And also with me is Darrin. Hey Darrin. What can you tell us about yourself?
Darrin: Hey, James! It's good to be back. I have been an umpire since 1999. as high as lower division college ball, NAIA Community College on the softball side, and on the Little League side, both baseball and softball, from ages five all the way up to age 18.
James: Awesome. It looks like Erik just chimed in. How are you doing there, Erik?
Erik: I'm good. How about you guys?
James: Can you tell us about yourself real quick?
Erik: Yeah, I've been a high school baseball coach. played high school baseball all the way through. After college, I coached some high school ball for a number of years and then I started coaching my kids about six years ago, when they started playing Little League. So I umpired with a lot of you guys.
James: All right, well, so this topic is going to be fun. I've been thinking about titles for it, and one of them I'm thinking about is... Get out of my way! We're going to talk about base paths, and what we'll start with is the rule. And we'll go ahead and have Roger read the MLB Rule. and then we'll have Darrin read the Little League rule. then we'll have a little bit of discussion, and we've got some questions to follow and a couple scenarios to discuss, and we'll get you guys on your way. So, Roger, if you want to just read the MLB rule, if you would...
Roger: So the MLB rule is 509 B 1. It says, "He runs more than three feet away from his base path to avoid being tagged unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner's base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely."
James: Perfect. And Darrin, if you could read us the Little League rule?
Darrin: Yes, I will. The Little League Baseball rule is 7.08 A1 and it starts, "running more than three feet away from his or her base path to avoid being tagged unless such action is to avoid interference with the fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner’s base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base, which he or she is attempting to reach."
James: perfect. This is the question, then, of course, for Erik.
Erik: Those don't sound very different.
James: Let's talk about the difference a little bit. You might know a little more than we do, Darrin, about that. Could you provide a little insight on the difference between those two rules?
Darrin: Yes, the Major League rule, in my opinion, says they're attempting to reach the base safely. Safety is the key word. So my interpretation of the Little League rule would be that in an attempt to acquire the base, they are at least in the vicinity of trying to reach that base safely, whereas in Little League, your slight attempt to reach that base might not necessarily be as sharp and direct towards the bag as in Major League Baseball.
James: So that's a really important distinction that we're making here. We've been combing over the book, looking for the word "base path". Is there a base path?
Roger: I think it's a baseline, James. We're looking for a baseline.
James: Baseline or base path, either one. Does the wording matter between base path and baseline from an umpire's perspective?
Darrin: I would say yes, it does. simply because we picture the baseline as being what would be your foul and fair lines starting at the tip of the plate and extending to the fence differentiating between fair and foul territory, whereas a base path for us would be that path that is formed when an attempt is being made by a runner who is trying to advance between bases, either in a forward direction or back to the base they came from.
James: I'm going to kind of jump into some scenarios here because we get a lot of little league coaches that don't really understand this rule. That's kind of one of the reasons why Erik's joining us today. What's interesting about it? I don't know how many times I've been on the field as an umpire and had a coach yell at me because there's a defender like the third baseman standing in a line between third base and second base and we have a runner at second. I’ve had a coach say, "He can't stand there. He can't stand there. He's standing in my runner's base path!" Have you guys had things like that before, and what are your thoughts on them? Erik, jump in.
Erik: I was waiting to hear what the umpire's opinion was on that one. I always run into that one, and this is a safe place to talk about it. In my opinion, the fields are never a good place to create that question. I've always understood it to mean that there is no baseline or base path when there is not a tag being made, an attempt to make a tag, or a tag to be made. so a player can essentially stand anywhere now. could stand in obstruction territory. Could there be obstruction or interference? That's absolutely possible down the road. If you have a runner standing in the path of a player, a defensive player stands in the path of a runner trying to advance a base. But at the start of a play, it doesn't matter where they stand. They can stand anywhere. not in Major League Baseball anymore but anywhere else in order to defend their position.
James: That's the answer I give them, and they look at me like I've lost my mind.
Erik: The hard part is when a runner goes and runs around that guy who's going to field the ball, which we're supposed to do, by the way, right? What happens when that runner runs right into the guy fielding the ball? Does that fielder have a right to the ball, or does the runner have a right to the base?
James: The fielder has the right to the ball.
Roger: Yeah, we actually had a situation. I was watching a high school game last year, and two of the players that James coached were actually involved in this play, Once Upon a Time. The third baseman was getting down to field a sharply hit ground ball. The runner who was at R2 was running toward third. By accident, he had his head down and absolutely did not see the third baseman, and he blew him up more or less. The kid was a special kid. They called the runner out for obstructing or interfering. so even though the fielding player was in the baseline.
James: So the obstruction and the interference are going to be discussed in another podcast. We actually have some other people that will help us review that, but it is related to what we're talking about with the base path and the baseline. That's what happens when we allow coaches to get excited and upset, and we try to calm them down and say, "Look," but the reality is that the defender has a right to go get to a baseball, and it is the runner's job to avoid the fielder or that defender trying to receive a ball. and the same on a throw. He can't interfere with the throw, and Darrin, do you want to chime in on that? I see a kind of lookup on that. We have bang bangs and we have train wrecks, right? We'll get to the runner's lane because that's important for this topic. I'm curious about your thoughts...
Darrin: At every level of play, whether it's boys or girls playing the game, the fielder always has a hundred percent right away to the ball. That's indisputable. So if in your judgment the fielder only had 99 or 98 percent, we're going to have interference. As you said earlier, that's going to be another podcast. So in any situation on a ground ball line drive or anything like that, the runner always has to yield the right of way to some extent, and there are different ways that can be done. Again, that'll probably be talked about later. getting back to your scenario with fielders starting in the base path prior to a play. The one time that I really see it abused the most is at first base. I see the first baseman creep up and stand in the way of the runner, and they're impeding the runner from getting a good jump, and if I see that runner deviate or slow down in any way and the ball is not being hit to the first baseman, and this could be while the pitch is deemed to be being delivered, I'm obligated to call obstruction on that first baseman. So that's just a heads-up thing I look for when I see the first baseman blocking the base path. If it's a shortstop or a second baseman, there's plenty of time for them to go forward or go backward and yield right of way to the runner if there's no play being made.
Erik: But at those really young levels, when there is a kid, say that third base scenario. We're not talking about Dylan Damos just drilling somebody at third. That guy. He can't just stand there in the base path, right, because that's exactly what you're talking about? if they're obstructing. If the runner's making... If there's no ball hit to the third baseman and the guy at second is running to third and the kid's just standing there, just oblivious, and the runner can go around him, but if he runs into him, is that an obstruction? If he's kind of watching where the ball is going and then, boom, there's a third baseman standing in front of him and he runs right into him, is that obstruction? Does he have the right to that base
Darrin: Well, hopefully we won't have a collision. But if we do, yeah, you are 100 percent right. We can treat it as type B because there's no play at that moment, and then later on, with type B, the runner has a chance to score, and in our judgment, they could have scored, so we can send them home. We're not going to automatically award them home if they stop at their... you're 100 percent right. We can treat it as type B because there's no play being made at that moment, and then later on, with type B, we have the ability to decide that the runner would have had a chance to score, and if, in our judgment, they could have scored, we can send them home. We're not going to automatically award them home if they stop at their runner, but if they have to deviate, if they have to stop, if they run into that third baseman who doesn't get out of the way, now, as umpires, we get to judge whether they could have gotten the next base or not and then award accordingly. There's a different type of obstruction that's a one-base award automatically, and that's type A. Again, you guys are going to talk about A and B at a later date, so I don't want to go too deep into that...
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Roger: I have a question for Darrin on that. with the type B, so if you have a runner and there's an R2, you're running to three, and the third baseman or shortstop is in your way, I always told my kid not to collide with them but just to like tap them on the shoulder or obviously go out of your way. but make some kind of gentle contact with them to show, like, "Hey, they're in my way," to the umpires. that way there was some kind of contact so that there would be an obstruction call potentially, or is that just like a telegraph?
Darrin: I would not encourage players to force contact in any manner, whether it's gentle or not, because all they have to do for me is alter their path or stop. I mean, those are one of two things that can occur. With my right hand, I'm going to point right at the third baseman and say, "That's obstruction." Hopefully the third base coach will pick up on that; he'll know what I'm doing and the difference between A and B. But it's a very great area when you start encouraging players to make contact with other players. Some umpires may take offense to it. Others like me would go; you don't have to teach them to tap. I've already decided whether there's contact or not.
Erik: That's a good thing to really always teach. to always teach our field umps, too. to watch rather than making sure that they know whether type A or type B or that Fielder has the right to the ball. but if there's no ball on the field or something obstructs the runner, then the runner has, you know, obstruction because all too often there are so many things going on. There's a play going on on that ball, and when we're third base coaches and that kid runs into the third baseman, who may or may not have, you know, been playing out of position because usually a good third baseman is going to get out of the way of the runner, it's your third baseman that you're just trying to work in to get experience playing in the infield, and oftentimes that's when that happens. We see that a lot, and then maybe we don't have you, Darrin, as our umpire. We have somebody else who didn't see it. Another good example of why we always need a good field dump out there...
James: I can tell you that Roger and I and Darrin have flown solo way too many times, and the reality is that we're just not going to see everything that there is. I mean, we're looking for the big stuff, and the high-hanging fruit is probably something we're going to miss. This is something that I don't know if Minors and Majors coaches are coaching because I never see it drawn on our home games down at the field. Could you talk a little bit, Darrin, about the runner's lane and whether we know it applies whether it's drawn or not? Can we talk a little bit about why it's there and why it's important?
Darrin: The purpose of the runner's lane is for situations like an uncaught third strike. Coaches were to recognize that terminology as a dropped third strike. It’s a situation where a bunt is laid down or a full swing ball doesn't travel very far in front of the plate. half the distance to the base, so if we're talking about a 90-foot diamond at the 45-foot line, we have a lane that is drawn in foul territory. We expect the runner to start out in fair territory after they swing the bat, especially a right-handed batter. So now their job at the halfway point is to get to the foul side of the foul line, and in doing so, we're going to protect them from a throw coming from the catcher, the pitcher, or any fielder making a play on the ball that is attempting to throw it to the first baseman. If the runner is in that runner's lane, we're going to protect them from that throw. If they're straddling that runner's lane, they're not entirely in it, and we have a quality throw to first base, we could now have interference with that runner because they're not doing what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to get on the foul side, and we're doing that to keep them out of harm's way. We're not doing that to penalize.
James: So Roger and I were talking about this earlier, and one of the things that interests me is, "Do they always have to be in that lane? A lot of times, kids are taught not to run in a straight line, but to round it and actually be traveling way into foul territory, and then curve into first, and on a big hit, you'll see them doing that. That may not be the case, but if you've got somebody who's actually on the right side of the foul line or to the right of the runners' lane, what do you do with that? I mean, is it that they're certainly not in the protected place, but they're certainly not in foul territory, but what do you have with that? I mean, is it that they're certainly not in foul territory? I mean, they're certainly not in foul territory, but they're...
Darrin: Well, you've still got the potential for interference, okay? And they're basically required to be in that shoot or in that lane to be protected from a throw coming from behind. Now if you're teaching them to run wide because a ball is hit in the outfield, you're doing exactly what you should be doing as a coach. One thing I'd like to point out is that in order for a batter-runner to reach first base, their last step or two will have to come back into fair territory. So I would caution any umpire against calling interference if that last step to two steps is back in fair territory and they're touching first base because there's nowhere else for that runner to go without having to slow down or pause. but to come back into Fair territory, does that make any sense?
James: And I know that at our field, Erik, nobody draws the runner's lane on the small diamond, and were you aware of the runner's lane? Do you know what I mean? You've done high school, you know third strike, you got a bunt, and you got a guy running on the inside,
Erik: You've got a guy running on the inside, and your first baseman or you as the catcher should be yelling inside, inside, and throwing that right through the middle of the back of the runner. Now that's high school ball. That's definitely not what we're teaching our kids down here, because exactly what Darrin just said is true, you know. He has to be on the outside. If he's on the inside, you line up your throw right where he is if he's out of place. It's not chalked very often down at the Little League field, and I think that's really good for us to teach the kids that they do have to get out of bounds. that they do have to be on the foul side of that line, and if they're halfway down when there's a play at first, they don't have the right to run up the inside of that base. I mean, I like the way that girl softball does this, which is that they have two first bases. I don't know if that'll ever come down to Little League or not, but that's a really explicit, very easy place for kids to know where they need to run through and then where the first baseman is also, so that's it. Anyway, thanks for helping us cover that. That was an important thing.
James: And now kind of the meat of the conversation. We kind of got through the appetizer here. the ever-popular pickle or rundown. We find those, and we also find obstruction and interference situations. What I want to talk about is, first of all, how do we umpire that? if you're in a two-man crew and you get a rundown or a pickle between first and second. Where would you teach the people to go, and then also, you know, to follow up with that? I want to hear from Erik about how you guys teach the rundown on the small field. We'll start with Darrin and get his thoughts on what to do as an umpire. You're in a two-man crew or a three-man crew, which is a little easier, but in a two-man crew, how are we going to position ourselves so we don't interfere? If we get in the way, it gets even more confusing and frustrating. How do we get to where we can see all the things that we need to be looking for?
Darrin: Small diamonds are easy. On the big diamond, you're just going to have to work, but on a small diamond, our base umpire is always positioned out at the start of the play, unlike on a big field where they can start inside. So on the small field, our base umpire is going to start with that rundown by themselves, and as the play progresses back and forth, hopefully by the second or third throw as it's going away from the first baseman, the plate umpire is actually going to come in behind and he's going to yell, I got this half. So now, instead of the base umpire having all 60 feet, the plate umpire is going to have half of that play from the inside. The base umpire is going to take the other half of the play from the outside, and it's still going to matter who has the best angle for the tag. There could still be a tag on the backside of a player 10 feet from me that I cannot see. and I'm going to give up that call to the opposing umpire, or vice versa. The base umpire might be 10 feet away, and I might see the tag. We're going to take our time. If it's mine, I'm going to tap my chest and say, "Partner, I got this one." We have a tag, he's out or she's out. So that's the way we're going to handle it on a small field. The same thing could apply to third base, but you’ve got to be very careful if you're the plate umpire and you slide up there too quickly. If something blows up and that runner rounds third, you are still responsible for that call at the plate. So it's the same thing if it's going back and forth a little bit. I’m going to work my way up about two-thirds of the way up the line if I'm the plate umpire. As the play goes back towards second base, I'm going to let my partner know I've got this half. Then we're just going to let it work itself out. We've got both sides of it covered, and hopefully one of us will have a good angle on a swipe tag.
James: So we don't have umpires that are following or chasing the runner back and forth? Are we head-on-a-swivel, standing there, or do you have somebody following this kid as he's running up and down the bases on that?
Darrin: If we're still by ourselves, we might take three or four steps going back and forth. Once we cut that play in half, it might be one to two strong steps per direction. Yeah, it's not a lot of footwork. If you're running back and forth with that runner, you're going to end up straight-lining yourself and blowing all your angles up. You really want to stay behind or slightly ahead. You don't want to be even with that runner. So just a couple hard steps until you can get some help. If you don't get that help, you have to work hard to get that angle when the swipe is made.
James: I coached for a number of years, as have Roger and Darrin; I think you coached also. Are you guys teaching rundowns down there? I've seen you do it, and I'm curious to know what methods you're using to teach the kids about the rundown, especially on the small diamond. What are you guys doing down there?
Erik: Oh man, as far as the base path goes, we tell them they've got three feet from where they are and that they can go one way or the other, and that is their path. So if they round the bases and they're way out behind the first baseman and second baseman, and now they've got to get back to one of the two bases, we teach them not to. Don't run to the middle of the two bases and then go to one of the bases. We do teach where they stop, or we're going to try to make an attempt at tagging them. They have a direct line from that point to either base, and then once they start heading towards that base, that's what they're heading toward, and now once they turn and head the other direction again, they have a straight line from that point to that base. that they can jump one way or another to try to avert a tag, but if they're too far out of that, it's very easy for them to get called out, so it depends on where they start. They have a straight line for each one, and I don't know if you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but yeah, from what I remember, that's the way that we would teach them.
James: On defense, how would you guys do that?
Erik: I mean, we push them back to the base. Like if you're a defender, you know you obviously want them to go back to the base and not be able to advance. We have a couple different ways that we teach pickles, but defensively, if you can get them to go out of that base path to try to get out of the tag, just keep chasing them out of the base path, and they're out whether you get them or not.
James: So you're pinching them back to the bag, and that is how I taught it, especially to minors. I absolutely did not want my minor league kids to do a pickle because we always ended up getting scored on that way because somebody would drop a ball or overthrow from getting excited. On the majors field, we always try to do a two- or three-throw pickle and move that runner back to the bag. On the big diamond, Roger's got a little more experience up there than I do, but on the big diamond, it's a little different because you’ve got older kids with some better motor skills. It can catch and throw and control their adrenaline, but on the small diamond, even the majors, even my 12-year-old All-Stars team, our job was to chase the runner back to the bag.
Roger: We started playing catch when we were about 11 years old—10 and 11 years old. We started off the first practice by saying that we were going to run the pickle drill. It was a game of catch. You had two people; you had two lines of players, with half the players on one line and half the players on the other line. The first player throws the ball to the other line and then runs, taking about six feet to reach the other end of the line, and then the player who was on the other line throws it back and does the same thing in reverse, and then you just keep on playing catch. We tried to get them to start playing it very slowly at first, and then we increased the tempo so that at some point it was a catch and run. Hopefully, right after a practice or two, once that got down, we inserted the baserunner, and then we kept it. We start that at 10 or 11 or 12 years old, and by the time they are 13 or 14 years old, they can do that really well. It was a warm-up drill for us at that point. but something that we ran for 5-10 minutes most every practice. It got the kids running, and definitely whoever was in the middle was tired after about two or three rounds, and we were inserting push-ups when there was a bad throw. The whole team would do push-ups or whatever when one player missed it. It can be a drill that's run that enforces the baseline; it enforces everything but just playing catch, which is baseball.
James: Three feet is different with the body size of a 15-year-old, six-foot, fifteen-year-old boy than it is with a 10-year-old. With a 10 year old kid or 10 year old girl, three feet is a very different number, and so as umpires, how do we know that it was three feet that they deviated from their base path? In order to ring them up, what are you looking at on that, Darrin?
Darrin: What we're looking for is basically a step and a reach. A step in reach is going to be in the proximity of three feet with anybody. It's probably going to be more than that with a taller kid or an older kid, but a step and a reach and like a full extension. If the base runner can still get around that glove, we probably have a problem. I want to get back to the way you guys are teaching the rundown. I love what you guys are doing. You guys are nailing it. What I look for as an umpire, the more people that get involved, the more fun it is for me because now you're making me work hard. Not only do I have a brand new base path every time that ball is thrown and players are attempting to step on it, reach it, and tag that runner, I've also got to watch for obstruction. I've seen rundowns with six to eight kids. oh yeah. one throw. peel off. one throw, peel off. It's really exciting because it's like I'm going to get him for obstruction. No, I'm not gonna get him. I'm gonna. Nope, I'm not going to get him, either. I'm nope; I'm not going to get him, and it happens over and over again when the kids are well taught. Then, finally, something happens. Either the players successfully run back to the last base, or I get an obstruction. It's really nice to hear the way you guys are teaching the kids. I get really excited when a hot box or a rundown occurs.
James: It always cracks me up, especially with the little guys. As you know, they've been taught to pickle well, but somebody comes in and their shoe’s untied, and they end up tripping and falling as a defender, and then the runner trips over them.
Darrin: I know that's the hard part. After such good work and having to bail him out with an obstruction, well, remember to tell those kids that right after you release that ball, you have to peel off and get out of the way.
James: Erik, do you have anything to share on that?
Erik: Maybe from the coaching side, we like to step and reach sometimes. if that kid is not actually in the base path and they step and reach and the guy jumps out of the way. We see that. We see that they're rung up at an angle, you know? And of course, Darrin's talking about when he has a perfect angle, right? And he knows exactly where the guy is, but the hard part is getting there. I'm kidding. I'm, of course, being facetious. But the really hard part with that one is when a kid's not on the base path. and the runner jumps out of the way and then keeps running, and he gets called out because he was left in the three-foot lane or whatever. So it's just so hard because of those angles. If you don't have that good angle, it's hard to see, right? So you're a third base coach, and you have an angle, or you do see a kid that goes outside the lines. I hate when that happens because it's one that's just so difficult, which is probably why you decided to do this as a podcast because it's one that we see all the time. It happens multiple times a season for every team. Somebody thinks they have a better angle. Somebody thinks that and they don't know the rule, or you know a green umpire who would really know what to call. yeah. That happens all the time.
Roger: I have a question that I want to ask you. This is more for Darrin. We had a situation with one of our players one year that started off in a pickle between first and second. and then it was Major's ball. The ball got overthrown. got thrown out in the outfield. The runner gets between second and third. They throw the ball to third. He gets into a pickle between second and third again. When baseball happens, they throw it up against the fence. The runner gets caught in a pickle between home and third, and finally he gets out because he just got gassed. The poor kid must have been in that pickle for about 45 seconds to a minute. but as an umpire. I'm curious about how that rotation should work. and you talked about how the play umpire would come up and maybe you would do halves, or how are we pivoting that around? so that we get that coverage when the play keeps advancing, yet we still have fielders and chaos going everywhere.
Darrin: Well, the fun thing is if that's only one baserunner, it's not too hard to handle, but if you have trailing runners behind him, I'm going to leave my base umpire behind. Once I come up to third, we split that in half. If there are trailing runners, I will lose the base umpire, and I'm going to have to take the full end of that. either going into third or coming home all by myself. In an ideal situation, there would only be one baserunner and two umpires, but there are times when we have multiple base runners. For me, if I had a kid out between first and second, I would rotate up from the plate as soon as that play broke from second to third, and I would probably cut across the diamond. I wouldn't go back to the point of the plate, but I'd cut across the diamond, probably near the pitcher's mound, and work my way into foul territory. I wouldn't stay inside on that one, and then once it blows up at third, boy, that's a tough one because I'm going to be in his way. Either way, I go, but maybe it would have been smarter to stay inside and not cross the foul ball line and try to take the hot box from the inside. or if I take it from the outside, I've got to be cognizant of the fact that I can't get in front of that runner and be the one who interferes and has to give him home because of my incompetence. So that's a great question, Roger.
James: I don't care if there are 10 umpires out there. There is not a possibility that we are going to see 100 percent of the action. We're just not. I mean, we're going to use our training. We're going to position ourselves. We're going to do the best we can. That's all you can do in the game of baseball. It's just the best you can..
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Erik: Thank you. Can I ask you another question about that pickle?
Darrin: Yeah.
Erik: Let's put them in that pickle between first and second. Batter rounds first. He's kind of way out there behind the second baseman. He turns and runs back to first. But now that he turns, say, we know where that base path is from his spot to first base, but when he turns his head and heads towards second, he creates a new base path between him and first base. correct?
Darrin: You are correct. Then if he turns around again, yeah, he's creating...
Erik: I mean, and you know the situation I'm talking about. a kid that's going back and forth back and forth, but now he's like eight feet out of the base path, and some umpires are like, "No, he's out, he's out. because, whoa, he's way out of the base path", and yet he had created, by right. I mean, maybe he stayed outside of those three feet, but he got a little bit further away. He was staying outside, I mean in those three feet, but he got a little, you know what I mean. Like, that's another one. Just at what point...
James: That leads to our next scenario, which is "the Skunk in the outfield". This is a great time to answer that question. and then use the play that Roger and I want to discuss, "Skunk in the Outfield," so we'll go ahead and address that, and then we'll segue into it. Erik, there is actually a play here that is part of this. So go ahead.
Darrin: As you said, Erik. Every time he turns his head and shifts direction or changes direction, he's creating a whole new base path. Now if you get umpires that haven't done it for a while, they might be thinking that the baseline is a straight line between first and second base, and if they start to stray outside of a three-foot arc on either side of that, they're going to nail him for being out of the base path. That is an incorrect assumption. Every time that player is working themselves farther and farther away from that straight line, and even sometimes out onto the grass if there isn't a step and reach being made at this point in time. I've got to look. I've got to see where the runner is. I've got to know where that new base path is. And now that the fielder has the ball, as long as he attempts to go in that straight line, I don't care if he's six feet wide of the fielder; that's the base path he's entitled to. until Fielder comes in and tries to close the gap with a step and a reach. A classic example of that is at the start of a play. a fielder is playing up on the grass. The base runner is running in a direct line to the base. Now, just because the fielder is 12 feet forward, he doesn't get to stand up, reach out three feet, and the runner running in a straight path to the next space isn't going to be called out of the base path because he's running a straight line to the next base. It's the fielder's fault for being 12 feet away and now trying to make a step and reach on him, if that makes sense.
Erik: Yep, I think the critical thing here, though, is when the tag occurs. This goes back to the Little League and Major League Baseball rules in that there has to be an attempt at a tag, right? I think this goes to that "skunk in the outfield thing," and now I'm going to go there in a second. The baseline is established at that point, but, keeping in mind, if they're trying to avoid a tag, that's when we get into those issues where they get really outside of the three feet, they can run a zigzag, they could run Serpentine all the way down to the base if they wanted to, as long as there's not an attempted tag, right?
Darrin: Absolutely, you hit the nail right on the head. So until there's an attempted tag, that's when we establish the step and reach, and at that point, you know, we can try to guess which way their base path is going, and usually it's pretty obvious. It's those situations where they're going to get tagged anyway, and then they try to jump around the glove. Those are the easy ones. where you get off the base path.
James: Roger. Go ahead and reference the "skunk of the outfield." People know what we're talking about; some baseballers know it, too, but you could explain it, maybe the article you read and how it works, and then we start conversing.
Roger: So the article is, and there have been a couple different ones, but the one that we're referencing is one that was published in 2019 on ESPN's website. It was about a high school game that happened a few years before. The setup for the article is that, essentially, a baseball play on average runs about six to eight seconds, and this one baseball play ran for about
90 seconds. which is very much an outlier to the standard baseball play. What it is is that you have runners at first and third. The offense is trying to generate essentially a free path for the runner at third to come home by distracting the defense. The way they do that is that the runner at first will run into shallow right field, and they can do this because there is not an attempted tag. There is no essential baseline to be stated. They run out to shallow right field; they draw the attention of the pitcher. The pitcher then generally steps off the mound, and they go to pursue the runner from first. The offense is hoping that he forgets about the runner at third. In general, the third runner will finish.The way they defend this is that the pitcher will throw it to the shortstop. The shortstop then kind of plays an intermediary. As soon as the umpire determines that a tag is being attempted, the runner goes first. The runner has to either go directly toward second base or directly toward first base; they can't retreat necessarily away from the fielder more than three feet if they're going outside of those two particular lines. That is the general play of "skunk in the outfield."
James: I don't recommend teaching this on the small diamond. There are so many opportunities to steal with passed balls. maybe in an All-Stars game. To me, that one almost feels like the hidden ball trick. It's just that there are so many opportunities to move the kids. Maybe when they're 14, they'll be in high school, and that could be something. What are your thoughts on that, Erik?
Erik: I hadn't heard of it before you told me about it earlier today, and so I was just watching it as Roger was talking about it, and I wanted to ask Darrin about this attempted tag thing. So the guy just keeps running backwards. He's so far away from the guy with the ball. He's kind of going back and forth a little bit. But he just keeps working his way out into the right field, out onto the grass. They're really not making an attempt to tag him. so if the attempt to tag isn't there. So if you're the guy with the ball and he's going away from you, you just take a step towards him and attempt to tag him? And he's so far out there in La La Land. If he starts to run further, is that an attempt to tag? Does that establish itself because I'm watching this go? This has to be easy to defend because it doesn't seem like there was an attempt to tag. Therefore, there was never a published line between him and the base. So he was able to just kind of keep walking away. So, to kind of further what he's trying to say, So at what point, for an umpire, Darrin, do we determine that a tag is being attempted? like, how close do we need to be, or how close does the fielder need to be to the runner to determine that a tag is being attempted?
Darrin: In a situation that we were just discussing for me, if a fielder’s got the ball, the runner now has got to make a straight line to either base, either back to first, back to second, or back to third, if that fielder is now attempting to make a tag if that runner steps away from the base. I don't mean in the opposite direction, but I mean towards the grass in either direction. I'm going to probably start to get my dander up that he's got to at least attempt to get back into this infield. especially if the defender is running at him, takes a step, and swipes at him if he isn't going towards either base in a direct line, I can get him now for being out of the base path. Sometimes the next person to get the ball will be nowhere near the runner. I can't just call him out because he's 10 feet away and now the fielder is chasing him. The fielder's got to chase him and get to a point where he forces that runner to not run directly at either bag, and if a swipe is made, that's going to give me the step in the reach to warrant calling him out. Does that make sense?
Roger: yeah. So now that's what the offense wants him to do too. Which is the irony of it all, right? The offense wants the fielder to get so far out there that he's making an attempt to tag. That way, R3 is touching home while he's doing that, but does that make sense?
Erik: Yeah, exactly. I feel like "skunk in the hay" is like the hidden ball trick. for somebody who's never seen it before. right? like I'd never seen it before. I'm looking at this, and it just looks like something that nobody has ever thought about.
Roger: Yeah, if you can catch somebody sleeping and not watching YouTube, you might get away with it. you know. You get your shortstop to run at that guy. That's what you want. That's what the offense wants. The offense wants a short stop to run at the outfielder, and then as soon as they commit to the runner from first, that's when your runner from third is going to come in, and he's going to walk home. So say that guy's walking backwards and the pitcher's got the ball. How many steps does he have to take towards that guy before that guy can no longer retreat? I have the ball and am looking at him. I take a step, I reach, and he goes backwards. Are those two steps out of the three-foot baseline?
Roger: In these situations, you're probably about 140 feet from home plate. Sure, you're really far away from him, but if you're making this attempt at him, can he retreat further?
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Erik: But at that point, the runs were scored, and they didn't really care about the out, you know? I mean, that's what they wanted you to do. It seems like a gray area that's going to have to get cleaned up because if a pitcher is on the pitcher's mound and that guy's retreating now and you take a couple steps towards him and he keeps kind of retreating out, at least by the definition of this step and tag, or it seems like they shouldn't be allowed to continue to retreat, like you shouldn't have to chase them all the way out there. I get what you're saying, Roger. They want you to go far away, but it appears that they are unable to do so.Are you hearing what I'm saying, Darrin? It appears as if I'm making an attempt on you right now.I should be able to lock you in just like a deer in headlights. He has to commit. just like you said. and if he doesn't, I shouldn't have to worry about this guy at third because I shouldn't, like, stay where you are. if you want to, but if you go back any further, you're now out, right? wouldn't you?
James: So let's segue into the travesty of the game. We've got to make a distinction here.
Darrin: So on the Little League side, this is going to be totally different from high school, college, and pro ball. If we think a travesty is being made, we can rule under it, and I think it's 9.03C, the umpire's judgment. Anything not in the book, we have the right to basically invent the rule on the spot and enforce it. So in a situation like that, if it were a little league game, if the player keeps retreating, by rule, it's supposed to be okay. But what's the intent of the play? The intent of the play is to confuse the other team and generate a cheap run. In my opinion, not all umpires may judge this way, but in my opinion, they're making a travesty of the game.
Erik: I want you on my field. Darrin. I want you on my team. I completely agree. There are better ways to generate runs than that. On the big diamond, you have that player on first. When you have a first and third situation, it would take a few slow steps. But you don't send them out in the right field, yeah? and you can lead off there too. Like this would have to be done if it were on majors and minors on the small field, this would have to be done like on the throwbacks of the pitcher. but I can see somebody in our small, little division. I can see somebody trying to pull this now. Which I think would be a travesty of the game.
Roger: The point of illustrating this was actually really not about the play in itself, but that it took the rule of the base path and that the base path wasn't established until the tag was made. I thought it was a good illustration showing that the base path can really be anywhere, and that it doesn't really start until an attempted tag is made on a runner. So that creates different angles, or at least different thoughts, on that pitcher. I love that you're bringing it back to that, because I can't do it legitimately. If I'm on the pitcher's mound and attempt to make a tag on a guy who's 70 feet away from me, I guess I'm not actually making an attempt to tag him unless I throw the ball, right? and again. If you ask my wife, or if you ask a lot of people, if you polled the fans at your local Little League, or maybe even your local tournament baseball team, or even a high school, or whatever, you'd ask them, maybe even at a major league game, where the baseline is. They're going to draw a diamond between home and first, first to second, second to third, and third to home. and that line doesn't exist, and I thought that this play illustrated how that doesn't exist.
Darrin: When I train umpires, I always use the illustration. We've got a ball that's been hit to the outfield. It's going to be at least three bases. The batter, Runner, rounds first and sees Grandma out in right field, so he runs all the way out to the fence and gives Grandma a high five. Now he comes back into the infield. He gets to second base, and the ball still hasn't been picked up yet. He sees his other grandma at Center, so he runs out to Centerfield, gives grandma number two a high five, and comes back. Now, somewhere between second and third base, the ball is coming in. What are your rules for the play? and nine out of 10 umpires will raise their hands and say he was out of the baseline or base path. I would call him out. but the rule doesn't say that. Little Johnny or Little Betty can do that. I wouldn't coach it. I wouldn't encourage it, right? I have a rule to enforce for them.
James: I had a guy that was a division player; we coached against him. Roger probably knows what I'm talking about. I won't say his name, but he was really big, taking some of these Bush plays personally. It's like, "Why would you do this Bush play against me? Well, seriously, are we here to play baseball, or are we just screwing around? I guess there's an honoring of the sanctity of the game. At some point, you look at the age level of the children, and is that really playing ball when we're doing hidden ball tricks or when we're teaching a 10 or 11-year-old to run all the way out to the right field? I mean, are we really teaching the game when we're just looking at ways to get cheap runs or cheap outs? Yes, there are things we can do. Yes, in the minors and majors, they all lead off from third and shake their tushes at the pitcher, trying to upset him so they can score, and that's just natural stuff. It's hard enough teaching a kid to throw a baseball, catch a baseball, and then hit a baseball by their 12th year, it takes time. I mean, it takes time. I would rather be teaching a child those skills—running, hitting, catching, and throwing—than trying to find some way to confuse another 11- or 12-year-old kid. Are you guys with me on that? I mean, do you agree?
Roger: Well, I said at one point about having to unlearn, so you're not going to teach something that you're going to have to unlearn. You're not going to be able to get away with that on the majors level. Some of these things that you do at the minors level, or 13 or 14U, you don't want to have to unlearn the shenanigans of minor league baseball a year later, two years later, three years later, because it just doesn't work.
James: I consider these cheap plays a Bush League. Yes, I've tried it. I tried the hidden ball trick. I tried the cheap run to second, but in the minors and majors, especially in the regular season, and I'm not talking about all-stars because that's a different animal altogether. But during the regular season, each team may only have three or four kids that are actually players, and the rest of the kids are maybe first- or second-year kids. and we want them to come back. We want them to grow. We want them to be comfortable by the time they get to high school. If all they're doing is these cheap tricks and all this stuff, I just don't see it as a coach or, really, as a dad and a human being, as a father. Is this really what we need to be teaching children? What do you think of that, Erik?
Erik: Of course I agree with you, man. I think some of these guys' intentions are good, and sometimes we have to look at these other coaches who haven't played a lot of baseball but are trying to keep their kids engaged. They don't know how to teach kids how to throw. They don't know how to teach kids how to catch. They just keep saying, "Aim for the glove. Kids are bored with that because they're not actually giving them good instruction. So then they take them out here on the field, and they show them this other thing that the kids think is fun, you know. The kids like that because they're maybe learning something a little bit different because they don't have good instruction on catching and throwing. I look at that and I pity those kids who have those coaches. But I think that's why it's important for a league to have a coach's clinic and make sure that every coach gets instruction from seasoned coaches on how to coach.
James: I became a better coach 50-fold when I started umpiring. because you get to see how other people run their houses. You get to see stuff, you learn stuff, and you see, oh, that's why that rule is that way. and that's why they're doing this. I feel like that's when I really became a little league coach—when I started umpiring. It made me a better coach.
Darrin: I can say that I think sometimes when I would see guys, I knew they felt a little intimidated because they knew I knew the umpire side of things as well as the manager side. I think it gave me a leg up and got me back to what you talked about in terms of teaching the right way versus teaching the wrong way, if you look at our rule book. Our rule book is about 95% verbatim of what major league baseball is. We have safety stuff included, but we draw our little league rules out of the Major League Baseball rulebook. When that rulebook first came out, when the game was first starting, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it was probably less than 20 pages. If you look at that rule book today, I'm willing to guess it's probably 105 to 130 pages. The reason it has gotten so thick in a hundred years is because people out there think of this great thing they're going to go out and do. After a while, people say that's not fair; that's not fair; we need a rule against it. So then all of a sudden there's a rule that comes into place, and we have to enforce that rule to stop that guy from doing what he's doing.
James: When you let kids play in a sandlot situation where the adults aren't involved at all, you'd be surprised at how sportsmanlike these kids are. How important it is to them that everything is fair. You'll notice that in a child that's 8 to 10 or 12 years old, their sense of justice is so ingrained that it comes out when they're playing with their buddies or whatever. Hey, that's not fair. That's not fair. and that means a lot to an 8-, 10-, 12-, and 14-year-old kid. That's not fair. When adults become involved, it becomes, "Well, you know, I've got to win these games." I've been that coach who went up and shook the other coach's hand after we got beat, and I said to him, "Congratulations on beating a bunch of nine-year-olds. How do you feel about that?" You know he'll give me that dirty look and walk away. but it's true. Let the kids play ball. Teach them the basics, and when they get to high school, like Roger's kids, then they can do some of these tricks. Some of these tricks they do in high school, but you will never see him on the college diamond. You'll never see them in the MLB because they're beyond it. For some reason, in high school, they're teenagers and want to do the hidden ball trick. They want to trick somebody, and in my opinion, that's not really baseball.
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James: I want to thank all three of you for being with us today. This has been a great podcast. I've learned so much. Any parting words? I'll go around the room. Erik, is there anything you want to add or say?
Erik: No, except that the Little League rule book is 233 pages long, so there are a lot of bad dads out there.No, just kidding. So yes, you're right, they've had to create a lot of things around safety for kids, and I think some of those are necessary, but all too many of them are written down.
Darrin: Getting back to fairness and justice, when you just let the kids play the games, how do they settle a disagreement when both sides are dug in and they just can't come up with an answer? What they usually propose is, "Let's just do it over. And guess what? They do it over, and then they move on. They don't dwell on it. That's the beauty of letting the kids do it, and the second point I wanted to add was earlier when we were talking about the runner's lanes. I want to make it clear that in order to get out of a runner's lane violation, you still have to have a quality throw or a throw that would have completed the play. You can't just throw it out into right field and hope the umpire's going to give you an out for that.
Erik: Can I ask one question? You said that the kids will often just say "do over," and you know, in my years, maybe only once or twice, but I do feel like there's been a do-over or two. Is there a do-over provision in the rulebook, or is that...
Darrin: In the case of an infield fly, we can do a do-over. On an infield fly if it's misapplied, for example, if it's in effect and we forget to call it. We cannot necessarily start the play over, but we can fix what went wrong in the play. So in essence, get the play right for us having screwed up as umpires and not recognizing it, signaling it, and calling it or applying it accordingly. outside of that. Erik forced me to have to think a little bit to find some other reasons.
Erik: Okay, next podcast. I want to hear it on the next podcast. I don't know the answer to that, so that's why I asked you. You meant you brought it up.
Darrin: And it was genuinely a question, so yeah, you bet. I'll come up with something.
Roger: Oh, so the one thing I'd say is if anybody's looking for unique ways or unique baselines or routes to base paths, just Google like t-ball videos or what have you and you'll find 15-20 minutes of five-year-olds trying to run to first base by going to the pitcher's mound first and then going to Second, back to first, then home. So if you're looking for lighthearted base running, like unique bass running paths, YouTube's for you and t-ball.
James: So, uh, thank you guys again for your time this evening. We've kind of reached the end again. I'm so excited about the participation and the reception of this podcast. I've heard some really good things, and lots of people are excited about this next one. Very soon, we will be recording another one with a different set of umpires for the interference and the obstruction. but thanks again. It's just amazing to me to have the quality people who have stepped up and are willing to do this for free. not only for education, but there is some entertainment going on here for me anyway. I mean, I could sit around with you guys, and we could go at this for four hours. Thank you.
Erik: Uh. maybe not, but thank you definitely for hosting this.
James: We have partners. They're looking at us, thinking, "Are we having dinner or what?" But thanks a lot, you guys.
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James: The rules and opinions discussed here are the personal interpretations of seasoned umpires and coaches. The podcast is neither directly endorsed nor are we compensated by any youth sports body, including Little League Baseball. Actual applications of these rules and coaching ideas may vary depending on your location or your league's official rules, so please discuss those with your local umpire chiefs and league presidents. That's always a good idea. You might want to talk to the people who know about the rules before you start doing them yourself. That's why we're doing this. so anyway. Thank you so much again, Roger, for your help, and we'll see you next time.
Roger: See ya.
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