PHOENIX – Collisions at first base are common at every level of baseball. From youth baseball, high school, college and even the professional level, players are exposed to scary situations in which significant contact occurs, resulting in potentially serious injury.
During the 2025 season, the NCAA implemented a rule that is aimed to reduce collisions and applied it in the College World Series. Now, the National Federation of State High School Associations is hoping the new rule will help alleviate injuries at the high school level.
Starting in 2027, a double first base will be enforced by the Arizona Interscholastic Association and the NFHS in high school baseball games.
The double first base is exactly that. Two first base bags make it twice as wide as a normal base, with one half white in fair territory and the other half a contrasting color in foul territory. This provides separate areas for the fielder and runner, which in theory minimizes collisions at the bag.
Coaches, players and NFHS officials hope the rule change will positively impact player safety, limiting the collisions that happen frequently.
“It happens close to once a game,” Brophy baseball coach Josh Garcia said. “All it takes is one small, errant throw to the left of the first baseman and those collisions can happen. When you’re playing first base, you’re not thinking about that runner, you’re following the baseball, so rarely do you know you’re getting pulled inside the baseline. You catch the ball and all of a sudden there’s a head-on collision.”
Caleb Young, a senior first baseman at Arcadia High School, knows this first-hand, and can attest to the benefits of the rule change.
“I think it adds a lot of safety for the first baseman,” Young said. “I’ve been hit in the ankle a couple times by runners and I think it makes it a lot easier to make a play when you don’t have to think about where your foot is. So it would probably just add a lot of mental safety, and you just don’t have to think as much when you’re going back to the base.”
The college level has seen positive results, a trend Arcadia baseball coach Jeffrey Fierro believes will trickle down to the high school level.
“I want to keep my kids safe,” Fierro said. “So from a coaches point of view, I think it’s a good move to keep kids safe for sure. You don’t want those big collisions.”
Although minimal quantitative data is available to show effectiveness at the collegiate level, coaches, experts and fans of the game such as Young saw a major difference in the 2025 College World Series.
“I’ve seen it in college,” Young said. “I mean I don’t know (exactly) how many injuries there are normally in college but I haven’t seen new injuries with the base added and I don’t think it really adds too many complications with the rules.”
The new double first base rule could potentially make its way to the major leagues as well one day, and make the game much safer.
Although the baseball world has yet to see any immediate hard quantitative data regarding the overall effectiveness of the rule change, there is reason for optimism that it will reduce injuries at the first base bag for young athletes, potentially resulting in the growth of the game starting at the youth level.
“I don’t think there are really any downsides to it,” Young said.
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