Does a runner have to slide into home?

Runner on third, fly ball to left. He tags, comes home standing up, and the catcher takes the throw and tags him a foot from the plate. The dad behind the backstop yells, “He has to slide!”

He doesn’t, actually. But he should have, and those are two very different things.

No rulebook makes a runner slide — not the pro book, not high school, not Little League and not USSSA. A runner can come home standing up. If the catcher’s up the line without the ball, he can run right past him. And if there’s no play at all, you don’t need a slide.

What the rulebooks do require is that he avoid the catcher. Little League says it plainly: If the fielder has the ball and is waiting to tag, the runner has to slide or try to go around him. If he runs into him, he’s out.

High school treats it as malicious contact. If the runner initiates contact, above the waist, with a shoulder, a forearm or the arms up, he’s out and he’s ejected. USSSA calls a runner out for not sliding or trying to avoid the catcher, and the umpire can eject him for it. USSSA also says a runner who jumps over the catcher is out, whether he touches him or not.

The force at home. With the bases loaded on a ground ball, the catcher takes the throw on the plate. It’s a force, the same as it would be at second base. The runner can come in standing as long as he doesn’t interfere. In high school, the force play slide rule applies here too: Slide legally, slide away or get out of the play. In travel ball, he’s out only if he interferes, and the batter-runner is out only if it was on purpose. I go through all of it on the force play slide card.

The catcher’s half. He can’t block the plate without the ball. That’s obstruction, and the base goes to the runner. Whether it still counts when the throw takes him there depends on the rulebook. You’ll find that on the blocking the base card.

So why slide if no rule makes him? For one, it gets him under the tag. It also protects him with the umpire.

A slide is proof that he wasn’t looking for contact.

A player who comes in standing and bumps the catcher is asking the umpire to decide what he meant. A player who slides isn’t.

I’d have every runner slide at home on any tag play, feet first and low with his hands up. And as coaches, we can start teaching it early in the season.