Rusty Staub Takes Out Catcher Jerry May At Home Plate – 1970

MONTREAL: Montreal Expos’ Rusty Staub (10) collides with Pittsburgh Pirates’ catcher Jerry May (12) after scoring Montreal’s second R.B.I. on a single by Coco Laboy, which also scored Don Hahn in the first inning here. August 4, 1970 photo: UPI Telephoto

Even though Rusty Staub scored, the Expos lost the game 4-2.

Baseball players have always played hard. It’s just that they played a little harder when winning was paramount at any cost and players were not on friendly terms like they are today. Players shift teams constantly and everyone is buddy-buddy, not “the enemy” as it once was.

So a player thought little of taking out the catcher to score a run at any point during the game, even the first inning.

After catcher Buster Posey’s serious injury in a collision with the Marlins Scot Cousins in 2011, MLB would implement rule 7.13 in 2014 to eliminate egregious collisions at home plate.

Rule 7.13 states the catcher has a right to make a play on the ball if the throw carries him into the runners path.

There is no violation “if the catcher blocks the pathway of the runner in order to field a throw, and the umpire determines that the catcher could not have fielded the ball without blocking the pathway of the runner and that contact with the runner was unavoidable.”

The runner can still run through the catcher, if the catcher is in the path of home plate as long as the runner does not deviate his direct path to home plate. But only if the catcher is in the base path or blocking home plate and does not have possession of the ball.

But you’ll rarely see a catcher trampled today. And surely not like Rusty Staub took out Jerry May.