[wadeintothem]

Originally Posted by UMPIRELARRY

I was umpiring a Fast Pitch game a few weeks ago and encountered a 16U team whose players always ran to 1B on a 3rd strike, regardless of whether or not the ball was dropped, and regardless of the situation (i.e. even when 1B was occupied)?

I agree with the above, preventable a lot of times by telling them they are out.

Obviously this is done to confuse the defense into throwing the ball around, but at some point does this amount to interference?

DOH! There they go again, they fooled us with that for the 14th time this game.

For example, there is a runner and 1B and less than two outs, the batter strikes out then runs all the way to the bag. At this point there are now two offensive players at the bag along with the first baseman who may be in the process of trying to make a play on the runner who was lawfully at 1B.

What is she doing to the runner? Tickling her to get her to step off the bag?

Go one step further. What if the batter above ran to 1B and then rounded the bag. Is this a form of interference? The batter is out and is not supposed to be in fair territory, let alone become involved in an on-field play. ANY THOUGHTS?

I can see as you keep expanding the hypothetical until we reach a point where INT has occured, that at some point there may be some INT.. but first there would have to be INT.

Simply running to 1B is not in and of itself INT as the defense is responsible to know its situation and react appropriately.

Now if the Retired Batter runs to the pitching circle, does a happy dance, then starts doing cartwheels while the defense is trying to make a playing on stealing 1R.. then you could have some interference if there was INT.