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"Woa there mcrowder! Don't go off the deep end here! If we have no one on, and the batter draws a walk and the BR simply picks up the ball and tosses it to the catcher we have NOTHING! No interference, no "lost ball in the uniform" no NOTHING! If you call interference, your MUST call an out! There is nothing the BR did (in this case) that warrants being called out.
Now, same situation but the BR pickes up the ball and pitches it into the dugout, THAT's interference!"
My question - why do you have interference on him throwing the ball into the dugout? You might have USC, but what play was he interfering with in that case that he was not interfering with in the initial case.
Someone's putting words in my mouth. I, too, have no interference at all. All I have is a dead ball.
MC - TIME!
Stop here - 90% of the time, nothing will happen here, and catcher will merely throw the ball to the pitcher.. but for the other 10%:
Coach - Why'd you call time?
MC - Offense had control of the ball.
Coach - That's interference!
MC - No, it's not, there is no play to be interfered with, and without a play you can't have interference. I called time simply because offense had control of the ball.
End of discussion.
I steadfastly maintain that NOTHING good can come of leaving the ball live. I still have not seen any compelling argument why you would WANT the ball to remain live. I also maintain that nothing BAD can come of calling it dead. The most negative thing anyone's coming up with so far is that you might have to explain your ruling to someone. Big deal.
Even in the tamest of situations, not TWP, if the BR handled the ball, handed it to the catcher, and then through some subsequent set of actions successfully made it to 2nd (regardless of what happened in between to cause him to be able to make it to 2nd), you can't get past the fact that BR may have affected the play by handling the ball, and it is POSSIBLE that his handling the ball in some way gave him some advantage. Since you can't call interference retroactively, you're now left with a BR gaining advantage from handling the ball, and no recourse to fix it.
I know Tee doesn't want to get involved ... but I'm curious - what did you do in the case you described? Dead Ball?
[Edited by mcrowder on Mar 9th, 2005 at 01:49 PM]
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