Malicious contact

This was a first for me. Let me first say that this is not an attempt to 'bash blue'. I understand it is a total judgement call just want to know if anyone has heard this called before and if they agree with the call based on the circumstances.

A little background...
We were supposed to play an away game. 30 minutes before school got out, we were informed that the other school broke their home plate while dragging the field (their home plate sticks about an inch above ground). We agreed to move to the game to our field which is new this year and the city gave us crushed gravel instead of dirt or clay (was the cheapest thing they could find). When we play on our field, our girls wear pants. We were planning on playing on clay so our girls were wearing shorts.

The play...
We had a runner on third. The batter hit a weak roller to third. Our runner took of as soon as the ball was hit. Third fielded the ball and threw it to home. Their catcher was not that good and dropped the ball before our runner got there. Our girl did not slide (didn't want to tear up her legs) and ran into the catcher. As soon as it happened, I knew she was out because the rule is you have to slide if there is a play at any base other than 1st. We were fine with that but expectedly the umpire called her for 'malicious contact' and threw her out of the game.

Additional circumstances...
1) We were up 10 - 3. We had put ALL of our subs in, stopped stealing, were swinging at anything and everything, holding our hitters to singles, basically being good sports and the umpires knew it.

2) Our runner did not try to knock the catcher down. As a matter of fact, neither girl fell down.

Thoughts? Should our girl have been thrown out of the game given these circumstances?

 

Always slide to avoid this issue! This should be a natural action for a high school softball player, no matter what you are wearing. If the team you were playing was that weak it probally sent a message to them to side on play at home. No one was hurt, you won the game. Chalk it up as a lesson learned for the other team.

 

We do teach our girls (this is a middle school team) to always slide unless the base coaches tell them not to but I can't blame her for not taking the chance of tearing up her legs in a blow out.

 

It's purely a judgement call. Whether or not blue was right or wrong doesn't matter. It might be a good idea for the parents to get together and replace the gravel back before this season started... absolutely before next season starts!!!

As for sliding. Its not ever required at any base including home. But base runners need to practice it and learn to make good decisions. Bad sliding habits can result in injury just as easily as not sliding into a collision.

 

If she was ejected for malicious contact, she will be suspended for the next 3games. I hope the umpire ruled "in the dugout" instead of an ejection.

 

Not ejected

Luckily, she was not ejected. The umpire said she was only disqualified for the rest of that game. Now that I think about it, the two contradict each other. To call it malicious contact must mean that he thought she was doing it on purpose and/or intended to hurt the catcher but all he did was disqualify her from the rest of the game. Strange... We are very glad she did not get ejected. We only have one game left and she is an 8th grader and one of our leaders. Would have hated to see her middle school days end like that.

I do understand it is a judgement call and am not disbuting the call. He made the call and we did not argue. We were not happy about it (she was devistated) but we moved on and actually had to play the rest of the game with 8 players since we had used all of our subs. And I will use this as an example to the girls in the future on why you should always slide. You never know what blue is going to call so don't take the chance.

Anyway, what I was looking for was has anyone heard of or seen this called before? I have seen some serious contact at home before and this was not called. Also given the circumstances, if you were the ump would you have made the same call?

 

Seen it both ways...

saw a girl lower her shoulder and leave her feet head first in a play off game two years ago...was called out because our catcher held on to the ball after the tag...the umpire actually asked to see the ball before he called the runner out!!?? Clearly the girl was trying to run our catcher over and dislodge the ball...8th inning, would have been the possible winning run...umpire said it was incidental contact.

We had another call the next year where a girl on the opposing team was coming home and was clearly out, she slowed down and tripped two steps from the plate and stumbled into our catcher...no sign of malice. The ump threw her out of the game and made a huge deal of her not sliding when she clearly tripped while slowing down??? The girl was clearly devistated by his call and kept apologizing to our catcher for merely bumping into her.

We've had this discussion on here earlier this season and will continue to have them as long as the level of umpiring continues to spiral down. Hearing your situation, it sounds like a middle school umpire with too much authority on his hands...or in his head...whichever the case may be.

We used to wear shorts with both sets of uniforms...not any more...make them wear the long pants and if it is close they better slide. It's like watching the third strike...never leave the outcome of an at bat, a play or a game in the judgement of an umpire.

 

i think the umpire was wrong. true, the player should have slid but it's not against the rules not to. i personnaly, rarely slide and usually go for taking the catcher out. it's obvious the runner wasn't trying to hurt the catcher. i say it's a bad call.