[greymule]

I always had a hard time with verbal OBS, since OBR doesn't even recognize the concept. But Fed would definitely consider the example to be verbal OBS. On the other hand, though I stopped officiating Fed years ago, I do seem to remember case plays in which certain utterances are not to be considered OBS, because "the runner should know his coach's voice" or some such wording. (Or maybe that's from some other code or the BRD or something.)

I don't remember shortstops actually yelling, "Back!" but I certainly remember their faking a motion toward 2B and saying something like, "Hey!" in an attempt to drive the runner back toward 2B. I wonder whether Fed would consider that OBS.

In Fed, would it be some sort of OBS if after a play at 3B, F5, in an attempt to get the runner to start for home, said, "Oops!" and pretended to chase after the ball as if it had gotten away?