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Old Fri Apr 15, 2005, 10:20am
Dakota Dakota is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Twin Cities MN
Posts: 8,154
Read the bleepin rule, wouldya?

Speaking ASA (all due respect to international rules... quote your rule if you like, but I don't have your rule book)...

ASA 8-5-B
Quote:
RUNNERS ARE ENTITLED TO ADVANCE WITHOUT LIABILITY TO BE PUT OUT. When a fielder not in possession of the ball or not in the act of fielding a batted ball, impedes the progress of a runner or batter-runner who is legally running bases
It is NOT (and never has been) illegal for a fielder to block the base. It is not (and never has been) required that the runner take the portion of the base the fielder is "giving" or "showing" or any such thing. If the runner wants to slide to the left, that is the runner's chosen path. If the runner wants to slide in the middle, that is the runner's chosen path. If the runner wants to run through, that is the runner's chosen path. If the runner wants to run wide and catch the outside corner, that is the runner's chosen path. If the runner wants to cut to the inside corner, that is the runner's chosen path.

If the fielder does not have the ball and impedes any such, or any other, choice the runner makes wrt the chosen path, the fielder has committed obstruction.

Obstruction requires the fielder to impede the runner. It does not matter how the fielder does this or where the fielder is when the fielder does this, or how much or how little of the base is blocked. It is always obstruction.

You can rule based on all of your tradition about "giving" part of the base if you like, but it is nowhere in the rules.
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Tom
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