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I hope I would have made the same call. I think it is proper.
I prefer to delay these calls a bit, though. I know this will get some flack, but here is my thinking. Interference is an immediate dead ball at the time of the incident. However, to me an "immediate dead ball" is different than a "dead ball called immdiately."
In our bang-bang calls at bases and calls on tags, we are taught to delay our call to replay the play in your head or insure the fielder really held onto the ball like you think you saw. In the case of interference, I delay the call to insure that what I think I saw really caused the interference. In this particular example, if the runner took two steps and the umpire immediately called dead ball and the fielder did not throw... then would the fielder have thrown if the umpire had not killed the play.
If in this example, the umpire delayed the call slightly and the fielder threw the BR out, then it could be perhaps that R1 attempted to interfere but actually didn't. (He can still be ejected for USC if so warrented.)
If the umpire delayed the call and the fielder did not throw, or perhaps threw wildly, then the interference could be awarded.
(By the way, I'm not saying the umpire did or did not delay the call in the initial scenario, I'm only using that example for illustrating my outcomes.)
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Dan
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