The rule about blocking bases in MLB is so simple that you’d think we wouldn’t be forced to talk about it all the time. Does the defender have the ball or is he forced to move in a certain way in order to catch the ball in flight? Cool, he can block the base. If it’s neither of those two things? He cannot block the base. The end. Rule over. So freaking simple, and a good rule to protect players from needless injuries.
Unfortunately, in application, the league and umpires routinely seem to misunderstand, misinterpret, and misapply this very simple rule. So people hate the rule when, in reality, they should hate the way it’s deployed.
Yesterday’s 9th inning biff was a perfect example, given that it was the kind of play for which the rule was created. Nico Hoerner was stealing second base, Gunnar Henderson put his foot down right in the path to the base long before he had the ball (or before he was forced there to make the catch). You could put this one in the rule book as an example of obstruction.
"I've had this happen before where the shortstop puts his foot in front of there, and you don't know where it is as a player … and then if you slide late, the ground is so slick … you see Nico slides past the base."Ryan Sweeney gives his insight on Nico Hoerner's stolen… pic.twitter.com/ElHkVuuF1M
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) July 9, 2026That was not a safe positioning for Hoerner OR for Henderson. Imagine Hoerner sliding straight into Henderson’s foot and snapping a finger. Or imagine Hoerner going in cleat first and destroying Henderson’s ankle – apparently that’s what he should have done, but again, the rule exists to prevent that kind of risk from developing in the first place.
Because Henderson was blocking the base, Hoerner had to slide around Henderson’s foot, couldn’t hold the bag, and a little extra nudge from Henderson took him completely off. Tag applied, and Hoerner is very clearly out. It wasn’t close. But it wasn’t close BECAUSE Henderson illegally blocked the bag.
In hindsight, the most obvious issue here is that the rule was simply not called correctly. This was, as Craig Counsell said after the game, a crystal clear example of a defender blocking the base without the ball. The umpire simply missed it.
But that wasn’t all that Counsell said. He elaborated on why the replay review didn’t help the Cubs, and spotlighted a very obvious problem with these rules as they relate to replay (and, I now suspect, inadvertently explained that insane Pete Crow-Armstrong play, too).
“There’s a clear blocking the bag there, it’s very clear,” Counsell said, per the Tribune. “So, the reason why Nico came off the bag is because the player is blocking the bag and he has to adjust his slide. Then they go to review. They don’t even look at the blocking of the bag when that’s what caused the player to come off. It’s kind of illogical that you don’t look at blocking the bag when it’s what caused the player to come off the bag. So they can’t look at it. He did come off the bag and he was tagged, but he came off the bag because Henderson had his foot right in the sliding lane, which is illegal. And so New York’s staring at it, but because [the umpire] didn’t call it on the field, they don’t call it. That makes no sense.”
Do you follow that? Counsell is saying that, although the Cubs could challenge the tag (a losing challenge, because Hoerner was tagged clearly while off the base), they cannot challenge the obstruction. So the call on the field there was going to stand absolutely no matter what happened.
As I see it, however, there are also at least two distinct problem with the current application of the rule entirely separate from whether the umpire on the field makes the correct call or not (which, again, he clearly did not). And, while MLB cannot perfectly legislate to umpires “don’t ever make mistakes of judgment or eyesight,” it absolutely CAN fix the following two massive problems in a situation like yesterday’s:
1.) You can review blocking home plate, but you cannot review blocking a base. Woof. I’m sure MLB’s concern is an onslaught of review requests, and then having to parse on replay if the defender blocked 2% of the base path, and whether that was enough, etc. But it’s pretty galling that on one like that, which was crystal clear, cannot even be challenged at all.
2.) Not only that, but the fact of blocking *IS IRRELEVANT* when replay is reviewing whether a tag was applied. So even if interference is what caused a player to come off the base on a slide (or, say, on a walk/stolen base attempt), that CANNOT BE FACTORED INTO the review of the tag. Even if it’s crystal clear that the interference was a causal factor in the player being off the base when tagged, tough noogies. No review of it. If you’re off the base and tagged in that situation, you’re out. Period.
So, you can see, in yesterday’s situation, everything with the replay was “correct” by the rules. The Cubs never had a shot after the umpire on the field failed to call obstruction. That, again, is its own mistake. Bad. Cubs got screwed. But a second, longer-term mistake is the inability to consider blocking on a replay review. It appears the Cubs have now been screwed by that twice this season.
Which is to say nothing of that time Nico Hoerner was called for obstruction against the Pirates when he MOST CERTAINLY was not obstructing:
One of these was called obstruction, one of them was not. If you didn't already know which was which, you would definitely be wrong when you guessed. pic.twitter.com/DIWCovrJ8s
— Brett Taylor (@Brett_A_Taylor) July 10, 2026Hence then, the article about the rule about blocking the base is fine the application absolute garbage was published today ( ) and is available on Bleacher Nation ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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