Worthy of ejection???

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Help me out with your thoughts on this scenario.

1)Runner attempts to steal second, ball beats her there by many steps, runner jump slides and goes hard in to the bag feet first.

2)Short stop has ball in glove and atleast one foot in front of the bag so she falls down and drops glove and ball at impact.

3)There is one umpire and he maintains his position behind the plate during the play. He then runs out to second with much encouragement and ejects the base runner.

How I saw it: The runner went in hard but she did slide and the collision happened on the first base side of second base, not on it and not behind it. SS was banged up on the play but showing her toughness she got up and finished out the game strong, and the umpire well.....

When I played baseball, we actually would work on sliding to break up double plays and other contact slides. Does this part of the game exist in fastpitch and IYO does the above situation garner an ejection from the game?

 

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Only thing I will comment on . My dd plays under high school rules on one of her teams. I have trained her not to put her foot in front of the bag, but to stadle it playing short stop. Why ? Wait to this player has a set of steel spikes sliding into her with her foot in front of the bag. This coach has not done a good job and this short stop is going to get hurt. . If runner is just sliding, then this umpire called it wrong.

 

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As mentioned the runner was stealing second and not breaking up a double play. The idea of sliding on a steal is avoid a tag which is what we all did in baseball. The question is, do we all teach the different slides? The hard slide in your scenario could have called for an ejection because it is only used at home plate and for a double play scenario. The short stop location could of been caused by the throw of the catcher. Earlier in the year in MLB (cant remember the teams) a runner went in slid late and foot up, he was ejected and it became a bench clearing braw.

 

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I would have had to see the play, but if the slider was on the Hawks team, I would be very surprised if it was malicious. In playing the Hawks and knowing the people of that organization, our experience is they are a clean playing team.

 

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You said "Jump Slide" if she was air borne when she hit SS she is ejected.

 

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In reference to the jump slide....this player always jumps, throws hands out and leans back. This was her first ejection for it in 6-7 years so what do you tell her? No one left the game due to injury (like I believe happened in the major league game) and the collision happened on the first base side of the bag. I am biased on the issue, no doubt so that is why I ask your opinion all though you may not have witnessed the play in person. I heard many comments this weekend about players not sliding to avoid collisions and there were no calls by the umpire. In this case a player slide feet first and is ejected. Once an umpire makes a call in his judgement there is nothing anyone can do but try to prevent it from happening again.

Thanks for everyone's feed back thus far.

 

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It is a judgment call, not being there to see it, it's hard to comment on. I do doubt that it was malicious, one of those situations that "appeared" to be worse than what it was. Home plate ump seen it happen all at once and based his opinion on that, where's the instant replay when you need it?

 

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My dd jump slides every time, 2 years ago at 10U nationals she jump slid while trying to stretch a single into a double. The 2nd baseman did stay in the game, but was injured and dropped the ball. With 2 umpires they called my dd out, but did not eject her (should have) and still to this day she doesn't understand why she was out since the second baseman dropped the ball. She wasn't being malicious, but it sure did look like it. It's definetly a judgement call and as girls get older I'm sure ejection becomes more relevant as an end result call, even though we as parents know it wasn't malicious. I some times wish girls could slide head first more often, not that they can't, they just dont. I will be implementing different slides for next year to hopefully avoid situations such as this! I'm sure as they get older, the worse it appears and the harsher the umpires will be.

 

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Instant replay would be great "for peace of mind" wouldn't it? "In my judgement" is just another way of saying turn around and walk away to a coach because it is done from there.

I appreciate the feed back and can always trust the OFC community to shed light on issues like this.

We will also be looking at some different slides to prevent this from happening in the future.

Thanks again to all

 

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If the girl slid late in an attempt to fool the short stop and plowed her over she should have been tossed. The fact that she slid does not give her carte blanche to take out the defender. I doubt the umpire could tell exactly where the defenders feet were from behind the plate. This is not an attack on you or your team and may not even be correct per the high school rules jmho.

 

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First off, forget about comparing anything you see in a Major League Baseball game with an amateur softball game. The rules are different, the expectations are different and there are different standards of conduct.

Even in softball, you can have different definitions of a legal slide or malicious contact. For instance, High School rules have a clear definition of what constitutes a legal or illegal slide. ASA does not, and leaves the severity of the contact up to the judgment of the umpire.

In a nutshell, the judgment that the umpire has to make is if the runner's slide was a legitimate attempt to aquire the base or a purposeful attempt to contact, disrupt or injure the fielder.

Was this a good call in your game? It's almost impossible to tell. Getting into another persons head to know for sure what he saw, how he judged it and what rule he was applying is pretty darn tough!

 

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I think the position of the SS would have everything to do with how the play should be called. If she was holding the ball and just barely on the 1st base side of the bag, while positioned incorrectly, the slide at that point would present a danger to both the fielder and the runner who could easily break an ankle going into the slide that late. However if the SS was 2 or 3 feet on the 1st base side of the bag, which I see happen often both with and without the ball, then she is the one causing the dangerous situation and isn't really leaving the runner many options.

I've seen several teams that either seem to encourage the shortstops to try and block the bag in this manner or at the very least don't attempt to correct the practice. It's very natural for the runner to slow down to avoid a collision or if they try to slide outside they have no angle or are to far away to reach the base. In my opinion, that type of play is potentially much more dangerous then a hard slide but seldom is called obstruction even when the contact occurs before the ball arrives.

 

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SB Family is correct. Fielder should have been straddling the bag. If she doesn't, she should expect to be in a contact situation that could cause injury. A hard slide is part of the game. If you know how to play the game, you have no problem making that tag. Good middle infield coaches are rarely sought out by travel coaches, who think playing shortstop and second base are pretty simple. They end up with middle infielders who play a pretty simple game--- and get hurt.

 

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Yeah many many years ago when I played Babe Ruth League, if we didn't atleast make contact to try to knock the ball loose from SS. We didn't have to worry about the umpire ejecting us out of game, our coach would've taken us out the game and given us tongue lashing about how the game is played. In your situation the slide that might have worked would be to slide to the left or right of the bag, head first or feet first , away from momemtum of SS, then poke hand out for the bag. This is good slide , avoids collision or injury, surprises alot of SS since most think runner will go straight for bag.

 

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As also in baseball you are seeing more hook slides both at second and at the plate.
Works just as well in fastpitch.

 

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Thanks for all the feed back on this one! we will spend more time in doors working on different slides over the winter. All though I do not believe the player was wrong in this instance and I would not think it was wrong if my DD had been the SS.

We can not afford to have this happen again so is there any tips on some alternative sliding drills to prevent this?

thanks again!
DJ

 

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As also in baseball you are seeing more hook slides both at second and at the plate. Works just as well in fastpitch.

We were invited to go over to Miami to watch their game with Wright State a couple of weeks ago and meet their team / staff.

We noticed many of their girls using the hook slide into second and at the plate.

Wanna see one? http://www.ohiohawks.com/photos/miami/pages/0595%20-%202008%20Sep%20-%20Redhawks-vs-WrigthState.html I showed these to Coach K afterwards. The catcher made an outstanding play.

On a side note, we are working with the Miami coaching staff to conduct a hitting and defense clinic in December here in Middletown (indoors obviously) ... look for more info on that shortly. I'll make sure they teach the hook slide!

 

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You said "Jump Slide" if she was air borne when she hit SS she is ejected.

I'm making the assumption here that the original scenario being discussed occurred this past weekend at a SW Ohio tournament. If that is, in fact, the case I would like to add my 2 cents worth to the discussion.

I'm a parent (from a completely different team) who was killing time until our team's next game and happened to be watching the game where this took place. From my unobstructed vantage point on the bleachers along the first baseline I can say that the runner was, without a doubt, airborne with both feet pointing in the direction of the SS and hit her full force with both feet. The other parents and players (from my daughter's team) that I was sitting with could not believe what we saw and felt the umpire was COMPLETELY justified in ejecting that player from the game. In fact, our players who were watching the game commented that "kung-fooing" opposing players isn't cool. I would hate to think that a slide like that was being taught and/or encouraged.

 

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Obviously this was not intentional i imagine. How do we expect to teach our girls to play hard and play the right way then punish them when they do it. Why not throw out score books and let everyone bat, and not have tryouts .... Whoa, This is TRAVEL BALL, the next step for these girls, preparing them for the real word.

Do it right, hustle, play hard, execute or go home.

 

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From my unobstructed vantage point on the bleachers along the first baseline I can say that the runner was, without a doubt, airborne with both feet pointing in the direction of the SS and hit her full force with both feet. The other parents and players (from my daughter's team) that I was sitting with could not believe what we saw and felt the umpire was COMPLETELY justified in ejecting that player from the game. In fact, our players who were watching the game commented that "kung-fooing" opposing players isn't cool. I would hate to think that a slide like that was being taught and/or encouraged.

Thanks for your feed back Softball Mom. It looks like you and I had the exact same view of it but have two different opinions. The collision happened in the baseline and not on or beind the bag. The player went in hard but the "kung-foo" is a little over the top. From your vantage point on the opposing teams bleachers you may have been a little emotionally involved just like myself. She will work hard to add additional slides to the "kung foo" slide she has been using the last 6 years with out incident. Thanks again for your view and I look forward to any future replies.