[JRutledge]

Let me ask you this. Are we not going to award bases for the obstruction, no matter how bad? But does that still give the runner the right to completely avoid the base no matter what the obstruction prevented?

Let us say the 2nd baseman was blocking the base and simply prevented the runner from touching 2nd base. Now, the runner goes to 3rd and gets picked off in a close bang bang play. Now if the runner just completely avoided the base and started going to third, would we not give them third if they touched first base or not? My point is, how much leeway are we going to give the runner despite the obstruction?

And better yet, is there a casebook ruling on this type of play in any code?