View Single Post
  #8 (permalink)  
Old Thu May 20, 2004, 01:01pm
PeteBooth PeteBooth is offline
Official Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Newburgh NY
Posts: 1,822
Originally posted by greymule

Fed's rule seems so unfair that many umpires often ignore the letter of the law.

BR gets a single to left, rounds 1B, stops, and trots back toward 1B as a lazy throw comes in to 2B. With no play whatsoever on him, BR has to move around F3 to get back to 1B.

In Fed (which does not recognize A and B OBS), this is OBS and BR is awarded 2B. I don't know of any other code that does this. I suspect that more than 90% of the time, Fed umps ignore this technical OBS.


IMO, the FED rule makes perfect sense. The defense committed an infraction of the rules and should be penalized.

When the offense interferes with a player fielding a batted ball, do we wait until the play is over and see what happens and then "wave off the infraction" - NO we call interference right away and enforce. The fact is the offense interfered so they are going to be peanlized.

Now we get to obstruction. How do we know for certain what was in the runner's thought process. More often than not, when a runner is obstructed, they will retreat back to their original base because (A) They can't assume the umpire saw and will call obstruction and (B) they do not know where they are protected to.

Therefore, in FED, the rule is giving the benefit of doubt to the obstructed runner which IMO is the way we should rule. The point is, F3 has no business being in the path of the runner without making a play.

In OBR (which was a much heated debate on another Forum about a yr or 2 ago), it's possible to award NO base which IMO gets the defense off the hook for committing an infraction of the rules.

Pete Booth
__________________
Peter M. Booth
Reply With Quote