A few quick thoughts about the rules:

                1)  We have (at least) two new rules this year, the blocking the plate rule and the replay rule.   The blocking the plate rule appears (4-20-14) to be working well, but the replay rule is having some adjustment problems, so of course we’re all talking about the replay.

                2)  Despite the Red Sox problems with the replay rule, I still think we have to work constantly, we have to work relentlessly, to improve the umpiring.    In my view, it is not fair to the umpires to allow everybody else to see the play better than the guy who has to make the call.    Everybody else gets to watch key plays in slow motion, ten angles, 100 replays.    If everybody else gets to see them that way, it’s not fair to the umpire to make him make a decision without that advantage.

                3)  The replay rule has gotten entangled, unpredictably, with the dropped-ball-on-the-transfer call; for some reason the controversial replays have tended to center on that.    In my view, there should be a simple policy about balls dropped in the middle of a double play:  If the ball hits the ground, the runner is safe.   Period.

                4)  Analogous to the blocking the plate rule, there is a set of rules that will work perfectly in avoiding injury to infielders and base runners on the double play. That set of rules is:

                a)  The second baseman must CLEARLY have the ball in his possession at the time his foot hits second in the middle of a double play.   If there is any question in the umpire’s mind about whether the ball is in his possession at the time of the tag, the runner is safe.

                b)  If the ball hits the ground near second base, the runner is always safe,

                c)  The runner coming from first base must slide feet first at second,

                d)  The runner coming from first base must slide directly at the bag; not "where he can reach the bag with his hand" or any of that nonsense.   He must slide with his feet pointed directly at the bag and his body on line behind his feet, and both feet on or near the ground,

                e)  The runner coming from first must not overslide the bag, not by one inch, and must not pop up after his slide but before the throw to first is underway.

                f)  If the runner from first violates rule c, d or e, there is an automatic double play, and any other runners return to their previous bases, even if they would otherwise be forced to advance. 

                In my view, the whole problem of the "neighborhood play" comes from allowing the runner from first to do something he should never have been allowed to do in the first place.   I am not saying it is morally wrong to try to break up a double play, or anything like that.   You do what the rules allow you to do.   I vividly remember a play in September of 1985 when Hal McRae went into second base standing up, taking the throw to first off his forehead, to break up a double play.   McRae was the best I ever saw at breaking up a double play; that was one of the things that made him a wonderful player.  He was tough, and he wanted to win.

                But there is no reason for the rules to allow a runner from first to physically molest the infielder, risking injury, to prevent the fielder from doing what the fielder is supposed to be doing.    The other miscellaneous problems with the call—the neighborhood rule, etc.—those all follow from the assumption that the runner from first has an inherent right to take out the shortstop.   That’s 19^th century thinking.    In the 19^th century, in the first half of the 20^th century, young men were taught to use their fists when their reputation was offended.    Men were supposed to be tough.   They were supposed to be able to push and shove, and to take care of themselves in a fight.  That’s the way my father thought—but it wasn’t right.   This rule, in my view, is a relic of an outmoded way of thinking about the problem.