Why Baseball's Runner's Lane Makes No Sense - Review of Chicago/DC RLI Plays & History Lesson at 1B

You asked us to take a look at two more runner's lane interference no-calls in Chicago and Washington, leading to the question of why the runner's lane exists where it does to begin with. To answer that, we travel back to the 19th century and find a fatal flaw that increases risk of collision. Article: https://www.closecallsports.com/2023/...

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In addition, we listen to the Milwaukee television broadcast's remarks concerning the runner's lane play in Chicago, noting that it appeared the broadcaster had confused the out of the base path rule with the runner's lane rule.

Official Baseball Rule 5.09(a)(11), runner's lane interference, applies to THROWN BALLS to first base while OBR 5.09(b)(1), out of the base path, applies to TAG ATTEMPTS at any base or between the bases.

That explains the mixup, amplified even more by the fact that both rules make reference to a three-foot measurement: the runner's lane is three feet in width and runners who run more than three feet away from their base path to avoid a tag are guilty of being out of the base path (not a baseline, though a base path can correspond to a baseline, it doesn't have to).

Also, pitch clock sync with the TV scorebug graphics are looked at and we see that there is latency resulting in a slight delay of the clock displaying on the graphic.