Canned Heat...
"What we have heyah is a failyer to communicate!" [Strother Martin - Cool Hand Luke]
Look, it is clear the debate on this issue is heating up. Perhaps I can restate things in a way that helps it to cool down a tad.
1. The PBUC/NAPBL 4.11 citation is on point but mostly repeats the language of the casebook comment following OBR 6.06(c), as Carl's post shows.
2. Both the OBR casebook comment AND the PBUC/NAPBL 4.11 reference deal with UNINTENTIONAL contact on the backswing BEFORE the pitch is securely held. We all AGREE that is NOT interference but simply a dead ball and runners return. It is in fact an EXCEPTION to the rule.
3. However, the logical corollary of the ruling in 2 above is that if the contact was INTENTIONAL and/or occurred AFTER the ball was securely held THEN you have INTERFERENCE and the batter is out for illegal action. It would NOT be necessary to state an EXCEPTION to the rule if the alternative case was NOT interference anyway, would it? Please think carefully about the logic of that.
4. As Jim Porter points out, interference here is not clearly and unequivocally stated but is instead only inferred from the language of the rule and the interpretation. However, authoritative support for that inference comes from Jaksa/Roder as quoted by Jim Porter.
5. The argument that the runners must be stealing for this contact to be interference is not supported by the rule and, as Jim Porter's reductio in absurdum play shows, stealing runners are NOT a requirement for interference to apply in this circumstance. It is not the catcher's play alone that is being interfered with; it is his fielding or throwing too. Catching a pitch IS fielding the pitched ball.
Now of course we are certainly entitled to disagree on this issue, especially when there isn't any truly definitive "official" interpretation upon which to rely. There are many cases in the rules where what is determined by tradition and common practice is not supported by the rules themselves. In this case, however, we have a rule that offers us its own explanation by the application of logic. If one set of circumstances produces 'A' then the alternative set of circumstances must logically produce the opposite of 'A' - namely 'Z'. We also have the authoritative opinion of Jaksa/Roder that using that logic provides an inference that is shared with these instructors from the Brinkman School.
It can be exasperating when every attempt to correct wrong thinking is viewed as condescension. Heck, even the Pope is entitled to be wrong but who could ever condescend to His Emminence? Carl Childress has earned, by his experience and level of expertise, the right to say "Rex, you are wrong" without being accused of condescension. Just because he says "Rex, you are wrong", or "Steve, you are wrong", doesn't necessarily mean he is equating those two with "the great unwashed" (sic). That is fallacious logic on several counts. Besides, some of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of modern times would qualify as "the great unwashed". Maybe those guys are simply followers of Ghandi? (grin)
Please, please read the relevant message and value it on the merits of its content, rather than rejecting it simply because you can't handle the perceived writing style of its author, or you are still smarting from some prior unpleasant encounter.
Cheers,
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