[AtlUmpSteve]

Originally Posted by Manny A

Just to add, this happened to me in a D1 game a couple of years ago, and I was told by my partners that I blew the call. R1 at first, and the batter hits a single up the middle. R1 tries to go corner to corner, and F8's throw to F5 is just off-line toward the home plate side of third base. F5 dives for the ball as R1 slides headfirst into third. She sees the ball get past F5 toward the dugout, so she pops up and starts heading for home, whereupon she trips over F5 who is still on the ground in the base path. Out comes my arm.

R1 gets up, sees that F1 had backed up the throw, and heads back to third base. IMJ, R1 would have never made it home, so if she had tried and got tagged out easily, I would've told my PU partner that she should return to third. But then the third base coach (and team's head coach) tells his runner, "Go home; that was obstruction!" So she takes off for home at a slow jog. F1, still with the ball, runs over and tags R1, and I ruled her out.

Problem was, I had a senior moment, and I explained to the coach that the reason I called her out was because F1's play on her was a subsequent play (I plumb forgot that the subsequent play rule was specifically for another runner, not the obstructed runner). He rightfully argued that his runner was protected between third and home, and I said her protection went away when she allowed a subsequent play to be made on her.

Both my partners during our post-game stated that she still had her between-base protection. Neither of them said that the runner lost that protection when she made it safely back to third and then came off that base.

I'm trying to remember if I was one of your partners in that game, or if we just discussed this play later (I think it was the latter); but I agree with your partners. It isn't that she left the base after returning safely, there was no play on anyone else in the interim to apply that "subsequent play" exception.