ick Bremigan, in his March 1978 article for Referee magazine dealing with Force Plays, noted that professional umpires faced with an appeal while a runner is scrambling back to a base would "... use here (i.e. 2nd and 3rd base) the same reasoning applied at home plate." In Bremigan’s words, professional umpires would not recognize any attempted appeal at that time. That Bremigan interpretation would seem to be the forerunner for the current Jaksa/Roder concept of Relaxed vs Unrelaxed action.

The only problem with drawing that conclusion is that in that very same article Bremigan also argued that the force was removed at 2nd or 3rd base when the runner passed the base without touching it. That ruling clearly obviated the necessity for any subsequent missed base appeal, even during Relaxed action — a view that is apparently not shared these days by Rick Roder, the WUA, or the PBUC.

Continued...