Youth baseball question.

[00Dawg]

So, most leagues, including ours, have a rule that you have to slide at the plate if there's going to be a play.
What's the guidance to a runner when the catcher comes right up the 3rd base line to catch the throw?

We had a collision on the grass (so outside the home plate dirt) last night as the (fairly large) catcher tried to field the errant relay (so he wasn't intentionally blocking the base path to my eye), and they called the runner out for not sliding...which it wasn't physically possible to do yet (at least not and come anywhere near the plate).
Note that I'm not really fussing about the call itself, but I'm not sure what to tell our guys to do in that situation. Dodge the guy and hope they don't call you out for running out of the base line?

Leaving aside the youth "must slide" rule, this would appear to be a no-call situation where neither player committed an infraction and play would continue...if the catcher has the ball, he can tag the runner out, and if he missed it or dropped it, the runner can resume his advance to home plate.

 

[Bullldawg78]

Sounds like poor umpiring by not recognizing that there are plays like that which fall outside of the rule, I guess you could play devil's advocate and say he wouldn't have called him out of the base path if he was avoiding the contact since he couldn't slide to home?

 

[Cooterpoot]

If the throw takes the catcher into the runner, the ump blew it.