Force Play
In baseball, a force is a situation when a baserunner is compelled (or forced) to vacate his time-of-pitch base—and thus try to advance to the next base—because the batter became a runner. A runner at first base is always forced to attempt to advance to second base when the batter becomes a runner. Runners at second or third base are forced only when all bases preceding their time-of-pitch base are occupied by other baserunners and the batter becomes a runner.
A forced runner's force base is the next base beyond his time-of-pitch base. Any attempt by fielders to put a forced runner out is called a force play. A forced runner is out (called a force out) when a fielder with the ball touches the runner's force base before the runner reaches that base. A forced runner also may be tagged out in the usual fashion as well; such a tag is still considered a force play if the tag is made before the runner reaches his force base. Any play on the batter-runner before he reaches first base is the same as a force play, though the rules do not include this in the definition of a force play.
A force on a runner is "removed" when the batter or a following runner is put out. This most often happens on fly outs—on such, the batter-runner is out, and the other runner(s) must return to their time-of-pitch base, known as tagging up.
Force outs may also be called on neighborhood plays, though this tradition goes against the rules.
Read more about Force Play: Scoring On Force Outs
Famous quotes containing the words force and/or play:
“He saw, he wish’d, and to the prize aspir’d.
Resolv’d to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)