Quote:
Originally Posted by Tru_in_Blu
OK, I must have missed that. Where is it?
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It was on one of the facebook umpire forums, I believe it was the NFHS softball umpires site. Sorry, going to be long to explain it.
It started last October with a play someone posted that as I recall was a state playoff game. There was a runner at 2nd who got too far off base and a pick off throw went down to 2nd. The runner was obstructed going back into 2nd, touched 2nd and then attempted to advance to 3rd and was thrown out. The umpires ruled that when the runner touched 2nd it had cancelled the obstruction and the out stood at 3rd. The offensive coach took exception and there was a UIC on site who was consulted and agreed the obstruction was cancelled and the out stood. The discussion went on for hundreds of posts with the majority of respondents agreeing it was cancelled. At some point the few that did actually read the rule got the original poster to admit possibly they screwed up and that the UIC was also wrong as the exception to cancel obstruction had not been met, namely a subsequent play on a different runner.
After that had been hashed out I decided to post a play I had in a game several years before to see if everyone really understood the rule. The play was, no runners, ground ball to F6 should be easy out at 1st. F6 throws ball in dirt and F3 cant handle it and ball goes to fence. F9 is in position to back up the throw and batter/runner attempts to round 1st base and runs face first into F3. She then starts to head to 2nd, thinks better of it as F9 already has the ball and she returns to 1st base. The ball is thrown to F1 who is outside the circle. Suddenly the base coach tells the runner I had called obstruction and she gets 2nd base. The runner begins to trot to 2nd and F1 runs over and tags her out. Again, the exception to cancel the obstruction has not been met and the runner cannot be put out between the 2 bases.
After thinking it had all been hashed out in the first play posted, this one was even worse. Literally 98% of the people insisted the obstruction was cancelled, the play was over cancelling the obstruction or the exception did not apply because there were no other runners on base to make a play on. I think it went on for nearly a thousand posts as I recall.
I tried to get our rules interpreter to submit it to get a national ruling, instead he gave me his interpretation which was the obstruction was cancelled and the exception didn't apply, refused to send it to national and took exception when I told him I did not agree with his interpretation. Apparently one of the other posters, who by the way was adamant the obstruction was cancelled got her state UIC to submit it to national NFHS. Last week they finally responded that the obstruction was not cancelled and that the exception was the key to the ruling and there had to be a subsequent play on a different runner after the obstructed runner reached the base they would have. Only then is the obstruction cancelled.