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Baseball rules corner: base runners should be alert when forceout is removed.
CARDINALS' FIRST BASEMAN Albert Pujols received a lesson about the forceout rule (2.00) in a game against the Astros on April 24. Here is what happened.
Houston had the bases loaded in the sixth inning with no outs when Craig Biggio hit a hard ground ball to Cards' third baseman Scott Rolen who stepped on third to erase the runner on second. Rolen then threw to first to double up Biggio. After Biggio was called out, Pujols tagged Willy Taveras, the runner on first, who was standing on the bag.
For some reason, Taveras never attempted to go to second. First base umpire Angel Hernandez got a bit confused and called Taveras out after Pujols applied the tag. It appeared that the Cardinals had executed a triple play. But Taveras stayed put, confident that he was not out.
The umpires conferred and decided that Taveras was not out because he was no longer forced to go to second once Biggio, the batter-runner, had been retired. If Pujols had tagged Taveras (on the base or not) before he touched first to put out Biggio, then the Cards would have pulled off the triple play. Chances are that Pujols thought Rolen caught Biggio's shot in the air and tagged third base to double up the runner who was on third base and then threw to first for the triple play. After the smoke cleared, the Cardinals had recorded two outs but the Astros scored a run.
The $64,000 question remains, why did Taveras stay at first base? Chances are he thought that Rolen caught Biggio's shot in the air and did not want to get doubled up or tripled up or perhaps "Wise Will" knew something about the force out rule. If he didn't, he sure does now.
It's important for runners and defensive players to know when a force is in effect and when it is removed. A force is in effect by virtue of the batter-runner reaching first base safely. If the batter-runner's presence on first base forces other runner/runners to advance, we have a force situation.
Whenever the batter-runner (Biggio) is retired at first base, the force is removed and subsequent runners (Taveras) must be tagged off their base to be put out.
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Source: HighBeam Research, Baseball rules corner: base runners should be alert when forceout is...