Quote:
Originally Posted by 3afan
"national" is less reliable than many of the opinions already stated ...
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But national has the ultimate say. Regardless of our opinion, none of us are the rules writers or national rules interpreters. We can have all the opinions we want based on how we read the rule, but if national issues an alternate ruling that is what we have to go with.
Along the lines of the former NCAA softball rules interpreter who issued the ruling on a bunt up the first base line. The catcher fields the ball and the umpire is pointing fair and hits the catchers arm knocking the ball out. The former interpreter issued a ruling this was a "do over". Cancel all action, return any runners to base and bring the batter back to bat with the previous count. It was a horrible ruling with absolutely no basis in the rules and was roundly criticized by virtually all officials that could read a rule book. But, it was the official ruling put forth by NCAA at the time and that is what everyone had to live with. One of the first things the new interpreter did when they came in was to eliminate that ruling.
Regardless of if we agree with national or not, it is obvious from the thread I mentioned which is now well over 300 responses no one is in agreement on and it is going to take something from national to settle what the actual ruling is. It would seem everyone here is in agreement the obstruction protection is still in effect between the 2 bases where the obstruction occurred until one of the specific exceptions occurs. However, on the other NFHS officials forum I mentioned it is the exact opposite with probably 95% of the respondents saying the obstruction is over as soon as the runner returned to the base they would have been safe at and none of the exceptions apply.