Blocking the plate

In baseball, blocking the plate is a technique performed by a catcher to prevent a runner from scoring. The act of blocking the plate accounted for most of the physical contact in Major League Baseball prior to the 2014 season, when it was outlawed except when the catcher already has possession of the ball.

By the rules of baseball, a runner has the right to an unobstructed path to a base. However, this right is not granted if the fielder guarding the base possesses the ball or is in the process of catching the ball. The fielders guarding the first base through the third base are unlikely to risk physical harm and will generally place themselves out of the path of the runner. The catcher guarding home plate, however, wears the padding and a face mask and often placed his body as an obstacle between the runner and home plate, even prior to receiving the ball. Since the runner did not have to worry about remaining on home plate, only tagging it, he typically ran at full speed in an effort to reach the plate. The speed of the runner combined with the fact that the catcher still had to tag him (unless the bases were loaded and a force play at home was still available) often resulted in collisions.

Since the 1970 Major League Baseball All-Star Game (when Ray Fosse was injured in a collision at the plate by Pete Rose), there have been rules established, mainly in amateur levels of baseball, against home plate collisions between runners and catchers to make the obstruction (defense) and interference (offense) rules consistent at the plate with the three bases. The rules, long enforced at lower levels, were implemented at the professional level in 2014.^[1]