Iowa Force Play Slide Rule, Manager Ejection & Missing TV Camera

When umpires called Iowa runner Kyle Huckstorf for a force play slide rule violation in extra innings vs Illinois, a call confirmed via video review, #Hawkeyes manager Rick Heller was ejected, an automatic penalty for arguing a replay decision. Let's review NCAA/college's rulebook as we roll back the tape and find a curious decision by television broadcast led to a lot more confusion than it should have.

NCAA Rule 8-4, the Force Play Slide Rule (FPSR), states among other things, "On any force play, the runner, in the vicinity of the base, must slide on the ground before the base and in a direct line between the two bases. It is permissible for the slider’s momentum to carry them through the base in the baseline extended." A diagram accompanies this provision, indicating prohibit area in grey shading that a runner may not slide into—namely to the left or right of the base at its leading edge or further back.

Whereas Official Baseball Rule 6.01(j) (Sliding into Bases on Double Play Attempts) lists four criteria, the third of which requires a runner to remain on the base after completion of the slide, NCAA's rule allows runners to overslide. This is just one key distinction.

Another is that while OBR requires the violative non-bona fide slide to impede the defensive team for interference to be called (e.g., if a double play is unrealistic anyway, there is no interference call to make), NCAA's FPSR applies a much stricter standard: "Whether the defense could have completed the double play has no bearing on the applicability of this rule." This is also a key difference.

All in all, for OBR/professional/MLB/MiLB games, the camera position known as high third provides a very useful angle for determining whether criterion three of OBR 6.01(j) (able and attempts to remain on base) is satisfied, since high third allows a view of whether or not the runner has slid off the back edge of second base.

But in NCAA/college, high first is much more useful because it shows a clear look of the baseline between first and second base, which is vital for determining whether or not the baserunner violated FPSR.

The television broadcast, for whatever reason, showed only the high third angle but not high first, leading the public and the teams—including Iowa—in the dark about the call which replay was able to not only uphold, but confirm, perhaps because the umpires had access to high first...unless the network for whatever reason decided not to staff that vital camera position.

Video as follows:
Alternate Link: Replay-confirmed FPSR call gets Heller ejected as Iowa loses to Illinois