Baseball Miscellany

Rose’s accomplishments are HOF-worthy; his betting on baseball and lying about it disqualify him and should. He is much worse than Shoeless Joe whose egregious behavior was knowing about the fix and not reporting it. Jackson did not tank to fix games as some of the Black Sox did.

In my opinion, Jackson is much more worthy of induction than Rose.

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What the coach meant was Mr. Rose doesn’t sign autographs for free.

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Controversy in Minnesota. Story with relevant tweets below.

But the real story here is Sanchez actually caught a ball.

Thats how you can tell this whole thing is fake. The video is doctored and everyone involved are just acting it out

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My dad has a ball his uncle got him of brooklyn dodgers from uncle that team signed. A number of hall of famers are on it like peewee reese. From the 40’s. His uncle made the team, but decided to work for a business that paid much better, But he got the ball for my dad as a little kid. Dad passed last year. Probably need to review what year the ball is from. Awhile before jackie was there.

Baldelli is right. Bad reversal call. Sanchez had to be there to catch the ball. It does not matter that he dropped his knee in there to block the plate. He had to get down to apply the tag.

Per the rules now, you have to give the runner a lane to get to home. Unsurprisingly, Sanchez was set up in the base path the whole time, even before the throw got there. Looks like, per the rule, it’s a good reversal to me.

I dunno. I am not a rules mavin and only have maybe 30 church league softball games at catcher under my belt but the rule seems pretty clear:

The catcher is not permitted to block the runner’s path to the plate unless he is in possession of the ball, though blocking the path of the runner in a legitimate attempt to receive a throw is not considered a violation.

Sanchez, for all his faults, seems to have done his part. Here’s his positioning as the throw was released:

He remains inside of the bag, leaving a lane for the runner:

Then moves one step left into the lane to receive the throw:

Then literally drops straight down to apply the tag. The entire time, he has as much of his body to the right of the ball and plate as possible. Anything other than his positioning leads to a contorted play with a much higher likelihood of the ball going to the backstop. An occurrence with which Sanchez is intimately acquainted…

This seems like a pretty clear cut case of the application of the second half of the rule. If the runner was ruled out due to interference, then I can’t see a reversal. But, a reversal of a safe call seems especially unwarranted.

Just based on how I’ve seen the rule enforced, if there’s any question at all about the path to the plate, they call it interference. The only nit I’d pick is that Sanchez did sort of step in to the full base path without really needing to as the throw came in, then stepped back toward the front of the plate.

I’m not disagreeing with anything you’re saying @das, but just based on how I’ve seen that rule applied in the past, I’m not at all surprised they overturned it. The whole point of the rule is to eliminate collisions, and guess what that play led to!

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The Texas HS rule was unambiguous when I last coached: if there is a collision, the runner is out. I think the MLB rule may be moving close to that.

ETA: in Texas HS, the rule was runner is both out and ejected after a collision.

One of the Youtube channels I like to review is called “Close Call Sports”. They breakdown umpiring and ejections, and here is theirs on this particular play:

Ejection 123 - Rocco Baldelli Ejected in Extras After Overturned Replay Gives TOR Run on Plate Block - YouTube

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Their explanation falls right where I land as well. I’m not sure that it was actually a plate block, but that’s the way things have gone recently.

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Thanks for posting that.

Great site HH.

Here’s a much clearer version of the same issue.

The narrator explains very clearly what a path is, something the A’s booth had wrong.

That was great!

One common theme through pretty much any unusual play…the booth is wrong. Announcers, especially former players, typically know the rules less than the groundskeeper

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Red Sox season goes from bad to worse: Moises Alou Chris Sale out for season.

Damn.

That minor league clubhouse has exacted its revenge.

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It’s times like these that I start to think karma might actually be a thing.

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Man.

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