MLB bans home-plate collisions with one exception

[Recursion]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10512206/mlb-bans-home-collisions-1-exception

(sorry, the video on that page autoplays...)

Rather than ban home plate collisions outright, Major League Baseball and its players adopted a rule limiting them this season.

In what both sides said was a one-year experiment, the rule allows collisions if the catcher has the ball and is blocking the runner's direct path to home plate, and if the catcher goes into the basepath to field a throw to the plate.

The new rule, 7.13, states "a runner attempting to score may not deviate from his direct pathway to the plate in order to initiate contact with the catcher (or other player covering home plate)." A runner violating the rule shall be declared out, even if the fielder drops the ball.

Along with the rule, the sides agreed to a pair of comments that umpires use to interpret the rule. The first comment says, "the failure by the runner to make an effort to touch the plate, the runner's lowering of the shoulder, or the runner's pushing through with his hands, elbows or arms, would support a determination that the runner deviated from the pathway in order to initiate contact with the catcher in violation." The comment says players who slide appropriately are not in violation of the rule.

[DrewFlorida]

1. I don't like this rule! If a catcher is blocking the plate, the runner should be allowed to lower...

his shoulder to in order to protect himself from the impact, this has been a part of the game forever. I do however agree, that a runner should not be able to change his path to the plate in order to make contact with the catcher.