Monday, March 04, 2013
ESPN: Ichiro Suzuki OK after traffic accident
(espn.go.com)
posted on March 04, 2013 at 01:17 PM by Pasta-diving Jeter (jmac66) to ichiro, yankees
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11 comment(s)
New York Yankees outfielder Ichiro Suzuki was unhurt in a traffic accident that occurred Saturday afternoon after he left George Steinbrenner Field following a preseason game between the Yankees and the Detroit Tigers.
he coulda got hurt, if he wanted to..
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1 2 3 >According to the official rules on MLB's website the back line of the catcher's box is 8 feet from the back point of home plate. Watching the replay Ichiro! gets to about that point as he passes the plate which says to me that he was out of the baseline.
And Ichiro should have been called out!!!!!
And FWIW, I have enjoyed having Ichiro! in a pennant chase/now the playoffs. Good for him.
You'd be out in my league for failure to slide.
I think the "baseline" goes away at home plate. I think it's legal for a player to mistakenly wander off into the grass only to return and tag the plate.
And therein lies the problem. Wieters had no business pursuing Suzuki (just as Slaught had no business pursuing Maddux in the video in #2). The baserunner has nowhere to go. Just camp at home plate and wait for the baserunner to come back.
That's certainly happened enough times to be cited as a precedent. As for Ichiro's first maneuver, unless you put a buzzer-activating chalk line exactly three feet outside the baselines that can only be set off by the baserunner, that's always going to be a bang-bang judgment call.
Wieters was down on the ground and had to surge back to home plate either way. "Camping out" at home plate would be an extremely difficult thing for Wieters to do in a timely manner. Slaught did screw up though by not camping out at home plate.
Watching the video, I came away with the impression that Slaught initially assumed that Maddux was giving up on the play and would take the tag easily. Maddux dodges it, at which point Slaught realizes that things are still on.
A screw up but not entirely unsurprising given the circumstances.
This won't work, for the purposes of this rule the base path is established as the line from the the runners position to the next base at the time a tag is attempted. I don't think he violated the rule, and the fact that his momentum carried him well past the base doesn't appear to be a violation either, especially given that he went directly (enough, given the attempt to avoid the tag the second time) back for the plate once he was able to stop.
Has there ever been a play where the runner led the catcher on a merry chase around the plate while another baserunner took extra bases uncontested?
They should do that during the 7th inning stretch. Who wouldn't watch that?
The far edge of the batter's box is 4.5 feet from the edge of the plate, and back of the batter's box is 3 feet behind the center of the plate--making the back corner of the batter's box about 5.4 feet from the plate. So Ichiro was close to 6 feet away from the plate/baseline when he goes around the back corner of the batter's box to avoid the tag.
Agreed. A better throw allows Weiters to catch it closer to Ichiro's running path (instead of lunging toward the mound, on the fair side of the line, just to get the ball). Also, a better throw allows Weiters to catch it standing up, which not only aids the initial tag, it would have enabled him to "camp out" protecting home plate if necessary.
Although given the time they had, Weiters could have positioned himself further up the line too to meet Ichiro.
It's good to know that everyone thinks Ichiro Maybe/Definitely was out/safe.
(And I'm no expert on catcher positioning, but I suspect Weiters was playing where he was supposed to, so it's hard to blame him for not being where Andino's throw came in.)
Didn't Weiters omnisciently know the outcome of the game already?
That Jordan play is great, but I've seen it so many times that I've begun to notice that there was not really a defender close and the switch was unnecessary.
Which is why I think he was clearly out. If you establish a baseline when tag attempt occurs, his momentum clearly pushes him past the three feet of established baseline.
If the Orioles did not raise a stink about it, it couldn't have been an egregious violation, if any.
Billy was terrible in his demo. He didn't even follow all of the rule he just explained. He thought since Ichiro was within 3 feet of the initial tag he was safe, but then he totally ignored the whole point about drawing the baseline from where the tag is applied to the base which he just explained to viewers.
I haven't been following this thread intently, but yes it's the base path not base line, if it was required to be within 3 feet of the baseline then you wouldn't be able to circle around the bases per your momentum.
No, because the rule only applies to avoiding the tag. There's no real limit to how far removed from the path the runner can go if no tag is being attempted.
But this really wasn't close. Rather than total footage, umpires aren't going to make any kind of out-of-the-baseline call on a single step to elude the tag. There's a reason Smoltz and Ripken didn't say anything in that clip.* I doubt they considered the possibility that Ichiro was out of the baseline.
* Crossing my fingers and hoping that they didn't bring this up later.
I think people are taking 'three feet' a little too literally. I think the intent is to allow the runner to run just outside the reach of the player with the ball, that is, approximately 3 feet for a person of normal height. Since Wieters is taller than normal, Ichiro gets more leeway. As I see it, Ichiro ran just past Wieter's outstretched arm, so was within the spirit of the rules.
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