Nardi wrote:
The Hawk wrote:
What happened was not Anderson's fault. His back was to the outfield when he headed back to first to tag up and is under the control of the first base coach, Boston, who controls the runners Anderson and Abreu. That is his job.
The entire idea of taking an out of the park home-run away from a player on a situation like this is ridiculous. When a ball is called a home-run by an umpire, play is called dead on the field. An umpire even puts another ball into the game. Its a stupid rule that even gets more complicated by the introduction of re-play and manager challenges. Who cares what runners want to do on the field after a called home-run, anyway? It makes no sense at all.
Even though the ball is dead, there's still rules about touching them all, staying in the baseline, and of course, not pass a baserunner. There are perfectly good reasons for these rules.
I know there are rules. I say that the ones governing a home run into the seats are stupid. A ball hit into the stands involves no action on the part of the team on the field. IT cannot make a play on anyone so the passing of a runner means nothing except stupid tradition.
What do you think are the perfectly good reasons for requiring a runner not to pass another runner on a home run into the seats? I cannot think of any. The ball is DEAD. No play can occur if a ball is DEAD. I don't care if the baserunners do a conga line on their way to home plate. It is absolutely stupid.
Another stupid rule is the rule that was called on Abreu running outside of the allowed path to first base. I have always maintained that if a runner runs on a direct line to first base that he should never be called out for runner interference. He did not. All one has to do is to looks at how the first base bag is stationed. Ever look at the bag? 99.9% of the bag is inside the first base line, right? While the runner's so-called "path" to first base, takes him running in FOUL TERRITORY. It makes no logical sense at all. In other words technically the hitter running to first base has to basically lunge in order to hit the bag in fair territory. Why does the catcher control the line, anyway? If he has to make a throw to first, let him step INSIDE fair territory to make that throw. That baseline should not be entirely his.
I say that the hitter's path to the base should be a line that covers at least half of the bag as legal. He should have a right to at least half of that base bag and it would be consistent with other current rules regarding what part of a base a runner is "entitled to" in his attempt to score or to safely land on a stationary base.