Although catchers are no longer allowed to block home plate in baseball – for the avoidance of unnecessarily collisions – there is an important caveat to that prohibition. You’re not allowed to block the plate without the baseball. If you’ve got the ball, you can block the plate to your heart’s content.
For example, if you have the ball and the runner goes past the plate, and you get entangled in one of those dance parties where you’re trying to tag the runner and he’s trying to sneak past you to touch the plate, you have an option. A genius option.
This is brilliant:
Excellent plate blocking form pic.twitter.com/fn0TJPpE3I
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 30, 2022
I have definitely never seen that before, and it’s just genius. Once the runner was past the catcher, there was just no other option for him but to come back to the plate … and if he literally cannot touch the plate, then that’s that!