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A question about the "no passing the runner" rule


Frobby

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I agree on Longoria. It's his fault for watching the ball and not keeping an eye on the runner at 1B. I'm sticking with "It was an awful call". Even at a poor angle on the replays I saw, I'm confident that Longoria did not pass Zobrist with "being passed" meaning that in a straight line from 1B to 2B, Longoria was never closer to 2B than Zobrist.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying here. Let's call the line between 1B and 2B the "X axis" and the line perpendicular to that (such as the 1B line) the "Y axis." Now say Zobrist is 65 feet down the "X axis" towards 2b and he is at 0 on the Y axis because he's running in a direct line. He's 25 feet from 2B. But let's say Longoria is 66 feet down the "X axis" and 10 feet up the "Y axis." He's now 26 feet from 2B if he takes a direct line to the base from where he's at. Are you saying (1) in that scenario, Longoria should not be out because Zobrist has the shorter route to 2B, or (2) that you believe it's crystal clear that my hypothetical never occurred, becauseLongoria was never further down the "X axis" than Zobrist was? Or, are you saying both those things?

By the way, for you math geeks: in my hypothetical, if Longora is 66 feet up the X axis when Zobrist is 65 feet up the X axis, he has to be more than 7 feet up the Y axis to have a longer straight line path to 2B than Zobrist. And as I said, umpires don't carry protractors. Therefore, I think they're enititled to judge this purely based on where the runners are on the "X axis" without taking into account where they are on the "Y axis."

OK, I'll stop now.

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At no time was Longoria closer to second base than Zobrist. BUT, there looks like there was a time when Longoria MAY have been a bit ahead in the basepath. I don't think you can judge it strictly on the direct, straight 90 foot route. Longoria's path certainly caused "confusion". It seems like a number of Orioles were wondering what was going on and Wieters seems to be pointing out something to the home plate umpire. It is a strange play. Rare, but no worse than a bad call at the plate ending the game.

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At first glance it seems that Longoria did pass him but on the second view it looks like he didn't. Probably a blown call. However its Longoria's fault for even putting himself in that situation in the first place.

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MLB network broke it down tonight. They had a view from a "Ballpark Cam" at The Trop. The umps nailed it. It was absolutely the correct call.

Well I'm sure there is at least one person in this thread who will find serious flaws in their analysis.

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Well, RZNJ, you are definitely right that this board and the state of Florida would be on fire right now if that had happened to us, but I feel like you kind of provoked people into it. This makes me feel...morally ambiguous, and hungry.

Looks like a blown call to me. If it had not been made, I can't imagine anyone saying "OMG Longoria should have been out" because this situation never happens and it didn't look at all like Longoria passed Zobrist.

Mmm...pepperoncini!

I can easily imagine the late Earl kicking up a storm about it. He was particularly fond of picking on umps about "situations that never happen."

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The mlb feed during the game was the Tampa feed. Those broadcasters thought the call was made by the second base umpire and they were (I'll use the word) befuddled that the 2B ump was ever in a position to make the call.

I think the interesting thing on this thread is the ambiguity over the rule. I had always though the rule was whether the batter was farther from the first base line than the runner, but I imagine the rule could be whether the hitter is ever closer to 2B and a third possibility could be which runner is further from 1B (not the 1B line).

I did not think the replays shown during the broadcast were at good angles to judge the call - as the TB broadcasters were doing.

There were certainly sequences when the TB broadcasters were reviewing the play when I thought Longoria was further from the first baseline than the runner, but again .... difficult angle.

Perhaps the best angle would have been from the Os dugout on the 3B line.

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I think the interesting thing on this thread is the ambiguity over the rule. I had always though the rule was whether the batter was farther from the first base line than the runner, but I imagine the rule could be whether the hitter is ever closer to 2B and a third possibility could be which runner is further from 1B (not the 1B line).

I don't think the third possibility would make any sense. The language of Rule 7.08(h) states that a runner is out when he "passes a preceding runner before such runner is out." You can be further from 1B because you've drifted off course, without having passed the other runner in any real sense.

Truth is, I've watched baseball avidly for more than 45 years, and this is the first time this hypothetical was ever relevant. I can count the number of instances where there a runner passed another runner (or there was a controversy about it) pretty much on one hand. So, it's probably not worth worrying about too much, even though it certainly was relevant today.

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ON that play, it's the 1st base umpires job to watch the runners and second base, since the 2nd base umpire is going our to watch the outfielders and what happens to the ball. The 3rd base umpire is watching the runner on second, to make sure he touches 3rd base/tags up. I watched the replays I couldn't tell one way or another, so I'm not sure how you can tell whether it's a terrible call or not. THe umpire probably had a better veiw then any of the replays.

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I'm sure if all I saw was the angle they showed us on TV, I'd be mad if it happened to us too, but that's because I'm a reactionary fan.

The important points here are: A) we have almost the worst angle possible to view people moving diagonally from the CF camera, B) The call was being made before we even see them in the replay video there

I don't know how anyone can say its definitively a good or bad call based on the evidence we were given.

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I am not sure I understand what you are saying here. Let's call the line between 1B and 2B the "X axis" and the line perpendicular to that (such as the 1B line) the "Y axis." Now say Zobrist is 65 feet down the "X axis" towards 2b and he is at 0 on the Y axis because he's running in a direct line. He's 25 feet from 2B. But let's say Longoria is 66 feet down the "X axis" and 10 feet up the "Y axis." He's now 26 feet from 2B if he takes a direct line to the base from where he's at. Are you saying (1) in that scenario, Longoria should not be out because Zobrist has the shorter route to 2B, or (2) that you believe it's crystal clear that my hypothetical never occurred, becauseLongoria was never further down the "X axis" than Zobrist was? Or, are you saying both those things?

By the way, for you math geeks: in my hypothetical, if Longora is 66 feet up the X axis when Zobrist is 65 feet up the X axis, he has to be more than 7 feet up the Y axis to have a longer straight line path to 2B than Zobrist. And as I said, umpires don't carry protractors. Therefore, I think they're enititled to judge this purely based on where the runners are on the "X axis" without taking into account where they are on the "Y axis."

OK, I'll stop now.

I think there's an iPhone app they could use for that. :scratchchinhmm:

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Well I'm sure there is at least one person in this thread who will find serious flaws in their analysis.

It wasn't a huge segment or anything. But the angle they showed was sort of behind 2nd base, almost as if you were standing just on the outfield turf. It was a very easy call.

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http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130404&content_id=43913254&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

It was not the first time that Longoria has passed Zobrist on the bases. Longoria rounded second base thinking that Matt Joyce's fly would drop in and passed Zobrist, who was going back to second base to tag up, in the sixth inning of a June 27, 2011, game against the Reds. Umpire Angel Hernandez immediately called Longoria out for passing Zobrist.

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I think the interesting thing on this thread is the ambiguity over the rule. I had always though the rule was whether the batter was farther from the first base line than the runner, but I imagine the rule could be whether the hitter is ever closer to 2B and a third possibility could be which runner is further from 1B (not the 1B line).

There are a lot of ambiguities, contradictions, and opportunities for interpretations in the rules (see infield fly rule) on plays that happen once every 7000 games. In my favorite, the balk rule, there is ambiguous wording concerning things that I'm pretty sure haven't happened in 120 years.

Sometimes they clean stuff up after an incident, sometimes they decide to let the guys in 2029 worry about next time it happens.

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