Home is where the catcher is

***This post originally was to appear on the blog at around 10:00 pm CST, but due to some technical difficulties on our server (i.e. too many girls with too many laptops) it has been delayed until the wee hours of the morning. Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope that in the future we can keep this sort of thing to a minimum (girls love wine more than the internet). Now onto the post.

Rule 7.06 of Major League Baseball's Official Rule Book states:

The catcher, without the ball in his possession, has no right to block the pathway of the runner attempting to score. The base line belongs to the runner and the catcher should be there only when he is fielding a ball or when he already has the ball in his hand.

I bring this up because I recently attended a Minnesota Twins game in which this very rule was ignored or at least misinterpreted. In the bottom of the fourth inning during Wednesday's game against the Chicago White Sox, Joe Mauer was batting and Carlos Gomez was on second base. There were two outs and Mauer had a 3-1 count. Of course Gomez, not realizing that Mauer had worked the count in his favor, broke for third. He was safe as the ball trickled away from Joe Crede. Gomez jumped to his feet and scampered home. He easily beat the throw, but was called out to the dismay of the 15,000 seniors, elementary school children and businessmen who decided to take the afternoon off (nooner!). Gomez was called out because the White Sox catcher, Toby Hall, blocked the plate and then caught the ball and tagged him out.

Almost everyone would see this play and commend the catcher for doing a perfect job of one of the basic fundamentals of baseball and they would be right. I just see it a different way. Why the hell is the catcher allowed to stand in the base path and set up in front of the plate. This puts the runner at a tremendous disadvantage because their choices are either to slide and be called out or attempt to run the catcher over, while risking injury and probably being out anyways. That's just not fair. How in the fuck is the 120 pound Gomez supposed to run over the 255 pound Toby Hall, plus equipment. I would argue that Hall should have been called for obstruction and Gomez should have been awarded home because his pathway was clearly blocked as he was attempting to score.

It can be argued that Hall is allowed to do this because he is in the act of fielding the throw from Joe Crede. However, he wasn't fielding the ball when he saw it roll towards the Twins' dugout. He was positioning himself in front of the plate so that Gomez could not score and while waiting for the ball to be retrieved. That is obstruction. A counter to this is that Hall was not in Gomez's pathway when Crede was picking up the ball, as Gomez had not reached that point of the baseline yet. I call this bull shit, because the pathway has to be considered the point from where the runner currently is, to the base he is trying to get to. That is his path!!!

I have seen this happen in many games, and just don't understand the reasoning behind this rule. Aren't the point of rules to create an even playing field for all participants? This clearly gives the advantage to the catcher while presenting the runner with an unenviable choice. Lets pray that Bud Selig reads this blog and he changes this stupid rule once and for all.


End Rant