Is the most controversial rule in baseball about to die?
Around this time last year, I wrote how the MLB Joint Competition Committee was exploring ways to simplify or eliminate the running lane to first base. Now, the committee has made a formal proposal that has entered the required 45-day review period. By Christmas, we may have seen the last of the running lane rule as we know it—but not the lane itself.
Confused? That’s the nature of the running lane, a century-long source of controversy and confusion among umpires, managers and players. It was a veteran umpire on the committee, Bill Miller, who suggested an end to keeping runners in that 45-foot lane on the foul side of the first base line. The proposal: Allow the runner the entire width of the dirt path between home and first base.
