Force out

[Guest Clinton]

In the yankee-blue jay game today, a batter hit a ball that hit the pitcher. Ball bounced to the first baseman The first baseman got the ball And was going to tag the batter runner when said runner started backing up toward home. The umpire didn’t call the batter runner out until he was tagged. Shouldn’t the batter runner have been out once he started backing up toward home?

[Gfoley4]

That's a softball rule, I believe. 

PBUC manual page 84

[noumpere]

The rule Gfoley4 cited is (substantially) the same in all baseball rules codes.

[Rich Ives]

6 hours ago, Guest Clinton said:

In the yankee-blue jay game today, a batter hit a ball that hit the pitcher. Ball bounced to the first baseman The first baseman got the ball And was going to tag the batter runner when said runner started backing up toward home. The umpire didn’t call the batter runner out until he was tagged. Shouldn’t the batter runner have been out once he started backing up toward home?

Legal in baseball. An out in softball. Thus confusion.

[CJK]

On 4/1/2018 at 9:15 AM, Rich Ives said:

Legal in baseball. An out in softball. Thus confusion.

And leads to many softball players claiming/believing that a forced runner can never retreat to avoid a tag, which is not true.