The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball Blog

Friday’s Ruiz-Giles incident in the Padres-Phillies game brings up an issue I’ve been trying to figure out how to discuss for some time, and I’m going to give it a shot: what are the rules, and what is the actual practice, around breaking up a double play at second?

Here’s the MLB.com description, from the Padres story:

In the fourth inning, Philadelphia’s Carlos Ruiz tried to break up a potential double play by sliding hard into second baseman Marcus Giles. Ruiz took Giles out, and the two players had words, with both benches clearing. Second-base umpire Bill Welke ruled it a double play with interference on Ruiz.

Giles later left the game with a right hip pointer and was listed as day-to-day. After the game, Giles pointed to the sore red spot on his hip.

“It wasn’t a slide,” said a perturbed Giles. “That’s the only thing about it. It was just not a slide. The replay shows it. The only reason he went to the ground was after he made contact with me. It’s not a very good play. I’m all for playing the game hard. I think I play as hard as anybody. But you play hard, and you play clean.”

And from the Phillies story:

Steaming toward second, Ruiz changed his route and barreled into Giles. The two exchanged heated words and were separated by second-base umpire Bill Welke.

[...]

For his part, Ruiz agreed that the unintentional charge was an aggressive error in judgment, but he explained that he was just trying to break up a double play.

“That’s part of the game,” Ruiz said. “He thought I came in a little high. I saw the replay, and yeah. … He was still on the base, so … I [told him] I was trying to break up the double play.”

Watching the video, it’s… it’s one of the highest, latest “slides” you’ll ever see. It almost shouldn’t be described as a slide at all: when he makes contact with Giles, his head is at Giles’ chest.

As the throw comes off Giles’ hand, Ruiz is nearly sliding on his knees, his shoulder into Giles’ waist.

Giles then flips out and says some bad words in his outdoor voice. The umps quickly separate them, all the other players come out to say hello and socialize, the umpires confer, and they declare it’s a double play, with Ruiz interfering.

Let me start, then, with how the rules are interpreted, because this will be easier than the actual discussion of the rules.

In practice, a runner headed to second is allowed to slide into second and/or the person trying to make the transfer and throw to first as long as it’s remotely plausible that he’s going to touch the bag. Hard slides are fine, but there should be some way that you could reach out and touch the base with your arm, for instance, as you slide two feet outside an imaginary first-to-second line. Their intent can clearly be to take out the fielder and hinder the throw, but they need to have some claim of trying to get to second base.

That’s where Ruiz got into trouble: he’s clearly not trying to get to the base, but running right for Giles, and into him… and if he’d taken the same path and slid earlier, he almost certainly would have gotten away with it.

The rules, then, are quite different.
From 2.00 Definition of Terms

INTERFERENCE
(a) Offensive interference is an act by the team at bat which interferes with, obstructs, impedes, hinders or confuses any fielder attempting to make a play. If the umpire declares the batter, batter- runner, or a runner out for interference, all other runners shall return to the last base that was in the judgment of the umpire, legally touched at the time of the interference, unless otherwise provided by these rules.

I’ve heard it argued that on a 6-4-3 double play, only the shortstop is the fielder, so the second baseman is a legitimate target, but that’s not true: the same section goes so far as to define “A FIELDER is any defensive player.” Unless you want to argue that the second baseman isn’t trying to make “a play” based on the 7.08(b) wording that a runner’s out when:

(b) He intentionally interferes with a thrown ball; or hinders a fielder attempting to make a play on a batted ball;

Doesn’t cover “fielder making a throw”. I don’t think that’s valid.

(Obstruction’s sometimes brought into this, but it’s not applicable: obstruction, in the rules, is when a fielder who isn’t fielding the ball or trying to make a tag, gets in a runner’s way.)

There are two principles at work here:
- the fielder has the right to make a play on the ball
- the runner has the right to advance on the basepaths however they see fit

Of those, the fielder has precedence: if a second baseman’s tries to field a ground ball between first and second as a runner from first advances, the runner has to go around or stop (there’s a specific exemption of this in 7.08(a)(1): a runner is out when “He runs more than three feet away from his baseline to avoid being tagged unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. ”

Further, when there’s a force on at second, there’s another rule that applies in 7.09(d): It’s intereference if

(d) Any batter or runner who has just been put out hinders or impedes any following play being made on a runner. Such runner shall be declared out for the interference of his teammate;

Once the force play is made, you can’t go running around the field. They’re not going to call you out for something you couldn’t prevent, though, which is why if you slide into the second baseman, it’s cool – you’re already getting down out of the way of the throw, no foul.

Similarly, there are two more rules that specifically call the double play out:

(e) If, in the judgment of the umpire, a base runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead. The umpire shall call the runner out for interference and also call out the batter-runner because of the action of his teammate. In no event may bases be run or runs scored because of such action by a runner.

and, to a lesser extent, (f):

(f) If, in the judgment of the umpire, a batter-runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball, with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead; the umpire shall call the batter-runner out for interference and shall also call out the runner who had advanced closest to the home plate regardless where the double play might have been possible. In no event shall bases be run because of such interference.

Here’s the analogy I like to use: would it be okay for the runner to second to, instead of sliding, instead punch the second baseman in the face to prevent the throw?

I know it’s a little ludicrous, but the answer is clearly no, isn’t it? It’s an act that doesn’t have anything to do with getting to second and is specifically intended to prevent the double play.

Similarly, what if a second baseman took the throw and in making the catch, ran up towards first and towards the outfield, only to be taken out by a runner who’d stopped and run after him? Similarly crazy on consideration — it’s interference, obviously — but why is that different than a off-second slide?

Intent matters. The runner’s allowed to get around the bases however they want, and the slide into second is allowed as a legitimate way to get there. The hard play at second place is allowed because runners are granted an enormous benefit of the doubt by tradition, as I noted earlier, but there are limits to what the umps allow.

And to bring this back around, it seems that Ruiz’s takeout of Giles was obviously intended to break up the double play, so much so that Giles got the interference call.

Coming up: why not run through second base?

In Saturday’s Red Sox-Yankees game, Mike Lowell made that’s pretty clearly a much more egregious plan on the basepaths. From the recap on ESPN:

A night after Lowell took a pitch off his left wrist — one of five hit batsman in the game — he had three hits and four RBIs. He was also involved in a little basepath payback in the fourth when he slammed his right shoulder — and a little bit of his elbow — into Cano in an attempt to break up a double play.

Cano bounced the ball to first as he fell to the dirt, just getting Varitek at first.

“I never had a problem with him before,” Cano said. “Today he threw his elbow.”

But Torre said it was a clean play. Lowell, who spent his first four professional seasons in the Yankees organization, insisted he meant no harm.

“They taught me how to do it,” he said.

If you see the highlight, it’s a little remarkable that Cano made the play at all.

The interesting thing for me is that no matter how you want to interpret the rules, in terms of actual interference in a play on the field, Lowell’s action is far more direct and disruptive than what Alex did… but Lowell doesn’t face the same kind of scrutiny and discussion that Alex’s action did. Lowell’s play is even noted as being, essentially, hard but clean.

Why? Is it because Lowell doesn’t carry Alex’s reputation? Because breaking up a double play is acceptable? Or is it as simple as Cano somehow making the throw to get the out at first?

Several readers sent this in: A-Rod, while a baserunner, called for a pop-up, orrr maybe he didn’t.

ESPN’s game recap

Rodriguez hit an RBI single with two outs in the ninth that made it 7-5. Jorge Posada followed with a high infield pop and Rodriguez ran hard, cutting between Clark and shortstop John McDonald.

Replays showed Rodriguez shouting something, and Clark backed off at the last second. McDonald was only a few steps behind Clark, but couldn’t make the catch and ball dropped for an RBI single.

“I just said, ‘Hah!’ That’s it,” Rodriguez said. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

also, if he did call for it, that’d be cool, right, because

Rodriguez said three or four times each week, opponents shout at him while he pursues foul pops near their dugout.

Not that he’s saying he did. It’s interesting, we talked about a similar play in a college game just last week.

It’s a nice play if you can get away with it. I’ll update with more quotes as, inevitably, this gets more press. Here, with the Yankees ahead 7-5, his action turned an out into a single on the way to a four-run ninth inning and a final score of 10-5. It didn’t turn out to be the difference maker, but it was directly responsible for giving the Yankees a chance tos core three more runs. That’s a huge swing.

On of the common and unnoticed ways that rule breaking affects the game is how selective enforcement of the interference rules results in dangerous and frequent cheating. In double plays, where the runner to second is allowed a free shot at the fielder and the fielder isn’t required to touch second to get the force out, and at home, catchers are allowed to block the progress of the runner and runners are allowed to run full-tilt into the catcher, either to try and knock the ball loose or to even stop them from fielding the ball.

I saw a particularly violent example of this today, in the Seattle-New York game. The play starts at about 1:20:30 in the feed. Josh Phelps, coming in to score from second on a single by Jeter, runs home. Johjima sets up in front of the plate and a little to the first base side to receive the throw. Phelps has a wide open shot at the plate and, even if he couldn’t see that the ball was late coming in, could have run through or slid, forcing Johjima to come all the way around and make a sweeping tag, but pretty much he’s home free.

Phelps takes Jojima out. Here’s a still to show how far he went to make this hit.

Phelps has to go so far off the plate that after driving into Johjima, he goes back to touch home. Johjima, as a possibly revelant aside, is the only Mariner really hitting well so far this year. If the umps are going to let you take a shot and possibly get him out of the game, why not go for it?

From the Seattle Times blog:
Phelps said “When I saw him starting to crouch down, for me, it tells me he’s getting ready to receive the ball. I can’t just let himn tag me real quick.”

Johjima said he “was kind of surprised because I had left the plate open.”

Washburn then plunked Phelps in the sixth. Skipping the subject of whether headhunting’s ethical or not (it’s certainly against the rules to hit the batter on purpose), under baseball’s code, that’s entirely acceptable for a pitcher to throw a pitch at a batter on purpose. I don’t think I need to go into how dangerous it can be to get hit.

Actually, there were two: he throws inside, low, and misses Phelps, and then goes up and in to get him on the arm.

The ump warns both benches, which is a whole other dynamic in how these things escalate (short version: there’s a huge incentive for you to be the guy who does the plunking that results in the warning, because it prevents retaliation).

The total:
- Josh Phelps makes a strictly speaking illegal but allowed hit on Johjima, which even the Yes! Network announcers said was unnecessary. Considering that Johjima was looking away, this is even more dangerous than it seems.
- Jarrod Washburn makes a strictly speaking illegal but allowed pitch at Phelps, an intentional throw designed to hurt Phelps, if not injure him.
- with two outs in the 7th and no one on, Scott Proctor throws a pitch clocked at 96 behind Mariner shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, Proctor’s ejected.
- An angry exchange of words, dugouts empty. The throw’s bad enough, but people get hurt (and suspended) in brawls too.

The history of allowing catchers to block the plate and runners to try and bury them resulted in an opportunity for Phelps. Phelps took his chance. The Mariners then resort to their own allowed but tolerated opportunity to get revenge, and then Proctor takes revenge for the revenge. One dangerous play created by the selective enforcement of the rules would up creating three different dangerous incidents in the game.

These kind of openings exist as vestiges of baseball’s early days, when collisions and rough play were much more common, and hitting the opposing batter routine (this is in The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball‘s coverage of the McGraw Orioles and those times), and games like today’s provide an interesting snapshot of how far the game has come since those days, and how opportunities that remain are exploited.

A blurb on Sabernomics about the Cheater’s Guide reminded me of an incident that’s not in the book —

As a Braves fan, I first checked to make sure he devoted some time to the evil 1991 Minnesota Twins. This team won the World Series by cranking up the AC to give Kirby Puckett a tainted home run off of Charlie Leibrandt. Zumsteg covers this, but misses the most egregious incident of that series: Kent Hrbek pushing Ron Gant off the bag to get an out. The play was so obvious that Hrbek couldn’t even keep a straight face when later describing the play.

On the 1991 home run, it’s interesting to note how well that fits into the known Twins AC-related cheating: that they tried to run it late in the game, starting at the bottom of the eighth, if the Twins were tied or behind, to give the offense a boost: it would get the Twins two innings (bottom of the eighth, bottom of the ninth) of wind-blowing-out assistance, while the visiting team only got one (top of the ninth). Now, in this case, they wouldn’t have the pretext of people leaving to crank them up, because in a tied World Series game, fans would stick around.

But it makes sense: crank them up for the bottom of the 8th (where all three Twins outs were in the air), and then leave them going.

The Hrbek story (btw, check out his picture on Wikipedia, that’s got to be a joke) — in the third inning of Game 2, Ron Gant hit a single, rounded first, and then retreated. The Twins threw to first, where Hrbek forced Gant off the bag as he returned safely. Drew Coble called Gant out and argued that it was Gant’s momentum that carried him off the base, but… no.

I wish I could point to a video clip of this, but the only instance of it I could find was removed “due to a copyright claim by MLB Advanced Media”. Because short video clips showing memorable plays in baseball history must be crushed.

The out ended the inning. Had Gant been called safe, the Braves would have had men on first-and-third with two outs and David Justice at bat. And the final score of the game was 3-2 Twins. We can’t know if Justice would have struck out or scored a runner, but it was a huge play in the game and might have changed the outcome of the World Series.

That kind of hard-tag force-the-runner off play really goes back to the rough days of baseball, when the hip check was relatively common, and it’s another example of how rough play, even with much better umpiring, still affects the outcomes of games and, one can easily argue, Championships.

Here’s a great article “by Ty Cobb”, written in Baseball Magazine in 1916 from an interview, on “Daring Feats that Have Made the Tigers Dreaded, and How They Were Thought Out and Executed, as Revealed in an Interview”.

I used to figure out dozens of these plays. They are all based on the so-called science of probabilities. Very often they would fail, but that isn’t the point. A certain percentage of them are bound to fail. Those that succeed are the ones that count. And even those that fail have their uses. They show the opposition that they can never know what to expect. You simply cannot prepare for the unexpected. Such a situation leaves a feeling of unrest in the defense. They are momentarily helpless. It is plays such as these which do more to demoralize a defense than a home run with men on bases.

His tales of stretching a hit and coordinated baserunning are awesome.

Check it out.