Reestablish Rule Explained / Interpreted

[sixofdiamonds]

The Reestablish Rule is a safety rule that was put in place a few years ago. It is designed to give base runners standing of 1B and 3B a fighting chance when looking down the barrel of a hard hitting pull hitter. We’ve all been there—standing on 1B or 3B, fearful we wouldn’t be able to react fast enough on a pulled line drive coming our way. Hence the Reestablish Rule. With umpire permission, the runner can move off the bag in foul territory away from potential danger. Once the ball is hit, the runner must go back and touch the bag before he/she can advance.

I recently witnessed a play where the runner, after asking umpire permission to reestablish, was well off the 3rd base bag in foul territory. A hard grounder was hit to the 3rd basement, he turned toward his left and threw to 1B for the out. I wondered what would have been called had the fielder reached into foul territory and tagged the runner that was reestablishing. I also thought what might be called if a line drive was hit in the same manner and the fielder stepped on 3B with the runner off the base as a result of reestablish permission. I know what I would call, but this has never happened so umpires needed to get on the same page for if and when it does happen. After discussing the ‘what ifs’ with Chief Ump Curt Hensman, we decided that any runner using the Reestablish Rule would not be liable to be put out until said runner reestablishes contact with the base. The very last thing I want to see is a runner using the rule for safety then getting penalized by being tagged out while off the base in foul territory.

I think we can all agree that a runner using the Reestablish Rule would be at a slight disadvantage. As an example, a very hard hit ground ball with a runner off the bag puts that runner at a disadvantage in that they have to first negotiate the distance back to the bag before they can move toward the next bag. I see no reason to place the runner in jeopardy in this instance. Doing so would force runners to think twice about using the rule and that's not what we want.

Unless I can hear compelling arguments to the contrary, any runner using the Reestablish Rule shall not be liable to be put out until that runner reestablishes contact with the bag.

Les