Quote:
Originally posted by Carl Childress
But, just in case someone is napping:
NCAA and OBR: The batter's bat on the backswing contacts the catcher's glove:
1. before he has complete control of the pitch: weak interference, dead ball, strike on the batter, runners remain, batter is not out unless it's strike three.
2. after he has complete control of the pitch: interference, dead ball, batter is out, runners remain.
There is no provision for "weak" interference on a batter's backswing in FED: The batter must control his backswing. (FED 7.3.5 Situation C)
Jim's point is known in debate as reductio ad absurdem. He says, in effect, If you don't call interference after the catcher has fielded the pitch, then when the ball goes dead as a result of the batter's backswing, one must award bases, as a matter of rule. After all, the language of the books clearly stipulates it is not interference if it occurs before he catches the ball
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It is pretty hard to nap with this thread. People are charged with calling into question gender preference, heredity and who knows what else. But the sheer number of posts caused me to go back and read through each of them even the ones that were just slightly off the topic. I wonder how many umps who seem to be willing to let the interference go do so either because a conscious or sub-conscious belief that in some way the catcher is somewhat at fault for being too close to the batter rather than the batter being completely out of control in causing the bat to contact the catcher. In thus permitting the contact to go unpunished so to speak have they not in fact judged the catcher not to have had
complete control of the pitched ball? Obviously Jim Porters what if forces the umpire to rule interference just as if the R1 and R2 advancing would cause the umpire to either rule interference or simply call Time.
Finally, in order for me to better understand this potential play I ask what preventive umpiring if any would one recommend. I would think at the higher level of ball we would rarely instruct catchers not to get too close to the batter excepting the occasional shortstop brought in to catch. Jim Simms/NYC