[greymule]

Never make an unexpected call on a routine play.

I'll certainly go along with that. I actually have always ignored the OBS when it didn't affect the play. In fact, the play I posted years ago had happened to me (F6 obstructed R2, which caused R2 to be out at 3B by 60 feet instead of 50). I called R2 out, and nobody said anything except that R2 was unhappy about getting momentarily tangled with F6. But even R2 didn't expect to be awarded 3B. (This was a semipro game, not school.)

It was therefore only theoretically that I posed the play on this board. I knew that a literal reading of the rule called for OBS, but I was still surprised that almost everyone said to enforce it. ("Teach the defense a lesson"; "enforce all the rules, not just the ones you like"; etc.) Of course, they might have been thinking of school ball, where it seems that OBS and interference, as well as many other things that almost never come up in MLB, are given great emphasis.