[Kaliix]

A good friend of mine was over yesterday and related to me a couple of umpiring stories to me that happened in the Reese game that his son had.

Apparently the umpire for this game called for an infield fly and third baseman dropped the ball in foul territory. The umpire told the coach that he saw that the ball was foul but that it was still an out. Coach gets tossed for arguing.

Then the team runs a pick off play that goes something like this. R2 and the coach calls for the special pick off play. F6 fakes like his going to the bag for a pick off throw and then cirles around the runner until he is about 3 or 4 feet in front of the runner and then intentionally trips over his own feet and falls down. At the time of the fall, the pitcher wheels and throws to F4 covering the bag. Runner gets picked off because he was watching F6 fall and got confused. Team thinks they have an out until the umpire calls F6 out for interference? Apparently the umpire admits to the coaches that F6 wasn't near the runner and never touched or impeded R2 but calls it interference anyways. Then the team protests the interference call and the protest is upheld.

Obviously, for an infield fly to be called, it must be a fair ball. Obviously, the second play was obstruction if anything, not interference.

My question is can a fielder be called for obstruction on the above described play? Also, is an obstruction call like that one a protestable call? Whether obstruction occured or not is a judgement call, atleast that's what I believe to be true. Is there any way to protest it due to the umpires interpretation of the obstruction rule if there was no contact or impeding of progress?