3.2 Safety/Sportsmanship tips

When running around 2B and 3B (or 1B if you know that you won't be stopping there), especially on a damp field when you're not wearing cleats, it's safer to round the base by hitting the inside corner of it with your left foot (actually, it's also a bit faster too, since it forces you to take a more symmetrical path, minimizing your total path distance more reliably). If your pivot foot slips out from under you, you'll still fall down -- but because your left leg is the inside one as you run counterclockwise, you'll have considerably less likelihood of spraining anything in the groin area.

Base-running safety also depends to a large extent on fielder positioning/play, but that's for §4.

In just-for-fun recreational play like ours, runners are typically allowed to leave their bases when the batter hits the ball. With the bases so close together, leaving with the pitch makes force plays all but impossible.

Sliding into any base other than 1B certainly lets you get in more quickly (since you don't have to slow up so much/soon to avoid over-running the base), but it also greatly increases the chance of injury when the fielders are not used to the runner coming in at their feet at the same time the ball is coming in from some different direction. If it's going to be that close, you probably should be out anyway for bad judgment in trying to make it. Sliding is commonly not allowed in many recreational leagues.