[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by robbie

teebob:
I assume by your post this is NOT an immediate dead ball in the codes you call?
I only do NSA and in NSA it is a dead ball.

"The ball isdead and not in play:
p) When a play is being made on an obstructed runner, or if the batter-runner is obstructed before he/she reaches 1st base."

Originally Posted by BretMan

Maybe it's the camera angle. I've worked plenty of games with this guy and never noticed anything too out of whack with his plate stance. He teaches plate mechanics at our local clinic and espouses the usual ASA "heel-toe/good GPA" philosophies. Plus, he works D-I college ball and was assigned to the Big Ten tournament this year. So his plate work must be...satisfactory.

This summer I finally had the chance to work games with the plate umpire, as well as U2 from this game, on separate occasions. Of course, I quizzed each about this play (keeping in mind that neither one of them made the obstruction call or made the base award).

Both agreed with the call. Each gave slightly different reasons as to why they did. I actually didn't fully agree with their reasoning, but wasn't trying to start a debate so kept that to myself.

One of them seemed to be taking what I've heard referred to in baseball as "post obstruction evidence" into account, instead of determining a base award at the moment the obstruction happened. He also wanted to give the runner the benefit of the doubt as to whether or not she would have scored- and may have tilted the balance too far in the runner's favor.

The other umpire made some weird excuse about "the runner wasn't trying to go back to third base, so we couldn't award her third". I just dropped it. We had four games to work together that day and I didn't want to start the day by pissing off my partner!

Originally Posted by teebob21

Yeah, wide angle/fisheye lenses drastically distort distance. I thought the same thing about the plate stance (looked pretty square on the video), but decided not to comment.



Luckily it doesn't happen often, but I'm very torn on this topic. When we call OBS, we're supposed to decide what will happen assuming the event we just called OBS on didn't happen. That's a tough decision AT THAT MOMENT, even for a confirmed psychic. That said, I award bases the way the rule says....where do I think the runner would have gotten absent the OBS. I won't lie, the results of the primary play/throw (NOT the plays & throws that follow) definitely help me arrive at that decision. Example from this high school season: BR hits a ground ball to RF. Before reaching 1B, BR is obstructed by F3. (I judged this as "the primary play". Absent the obstruction, BR would have reached 1B.) F9 airmails the throw to the infield, and BR advances to 2B before retreating to 1B. An infielder retrieves the ball from the errant throw, and tosses it to F3, where our BR is put out between 1B and 2B. I rule an OUT.

Originally Posted by BretMan

Yes, that is an NSA oddity. They mirror the baseball rule of "type A " or "type B" obstruction.

NCAA Baseball and OBR have Type "A" and Type "B" Obstuctionn while NFHS Baseball just has Obstruction.

MTD, Sr.