Nearly an EJ

[TNCoach]

Had a play tonight where we had a player slide into 3B with a throw to the outfield.  He is a pretty big boy with decent wheels.  As the ball went to the outfield, he gathered himself and took off for home.  The ball beat him, but brought the catcher up the line.  The catcher made the catch as he had started a head first slide/dive for home.  The catcher moved right up in his line as he dove and it was a major hit.  The catcher went flying but held onto the ball.  The other coach came flying out of the dugout wanting an EJ, but the umpire didn't give it to him.  The umpire told him it wasn't anything more than the playing trying to slide into home with a trainwreck. 

 

I will be honest.  He was attempting to dive around as the catcher moved in.  He had no intentions of making the hit, but the hit was so hard, I firmly expected him to get tossed for MC.

[johnnyg08]

FED rules? 

[Mike Prince]

Sounds like a normal baseball play to me (without MC) from what you describe.

[mstaylor]

I merged the double post. 

[TNCoach]

Yes.  FED rules.  Looked bad is why.  When it happened, I knew he was going into a head first slide, but it was such a hard hit up the line, it looked bad.  I knew what he was doing but fully expected an EJ because I thought they might think he was just lowering for the hit. 

[Mike Prince]

If he slides, usually this won't be grounds for MC unless something else happens, the "hard hit" really has little bearing unless you can see an intent to injure or to crash the catcher.  Now if he goes airborne and does a Superman into F2 we may have something to discuss here.

[mstaylor]

I agree with Mike, a head first slide is almost never going to be MC. Now leading with his shoulder and claiming he was head first sliding,different story.