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I have been a slow pitch and fast pitch player. I have umpired both slow pitch and fast pitch sometimes up to the highest educational level. I have organized &/or coached both young teams and old man teams. I am a true believer that having been involved as a player and coach it makes me a better umpire. There have been articles written to the pro and con side of that thought. This rewritten (I know it's going into its second year of summer ball, upcoming FED season) obstruction rule though is going to create more headaches and arguments than it was every thought possible. I have now seen is as an umpire and most recently as a coach. If this rule is applied to its perfect sense I do not find it difficult to say that you could have obstruction on EACH AND EVERY tag play at ANY base. It makes me wonder if perhaps we should not take the "tag" play out of the defense (you know for that "safety" reason that covers up all sound reasoning for playing the game the way it was designed) and make outs only possible by "force", "K", or "fly-ball". Perhaps I am off base when I say or believe that the obstruction rule "update" was created to clean up its definition and application, not to penalize the defense for making a play that has been part of the game of softball or baseball long before anybody who will read this was even born. And in too many cases during the last year I've seen this rule applied incorrectly. If a player is blatantly blocking the path to a base in an attempt to stop a offensive player from obtaining that base indicate obstruction and make the proper call, but if the defense is making a play and in the process of catching the ball the base and simultaneously the base is blocked give the defense credit for doing their job and call the out. This rewritten rule was not done to give an advantage to the offense or the umpire and that is how I believe it is being enforced in far too many cases. Thank you for this opportunity to rant.
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