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Originally Posted by Steve M
For the most part, obstruction is a "crime" with no real penalty - just remove the effect of the obstruction. The defense seems to come out ahead or at least even when they obstruct.
On the other hand, I saw soooooooooooooo many folks who just would not call obstruction when there was an advance base awarded.
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Now, compare it to interference. Does that rule not just give the defense what they most likely would have attained at interference not occurred?
Do not both rules presume the offended team would properly execute the play at hand and, in effect, bring the game to where it should have been had the violation not occurred?
However, like OBS, you see umpires writing and rewriting rules with some pretty good imagination and personal preferences to create an interference call at times when none exists. Is that because it gives the umpire the authority to call an out?
If OBS is going to become a rule which the offender is punished beyond the violation, should not the same be done to INT? Should INT always include an extra out, just as some would believe OBS should include an extra base?
Talk about an umpire interjecting themselves into a game. I can see an umpire calling INT on an around-the-horn DP, noting that the INT was caused to prevent the DP and, oh by the way, here is your punitive out. Grab you gloves, you're done hitting this inning.
This is why I don't buy into giving the umpire so much power, it would make it too easy to be abused. I will go with the "keep the game on even keel" train of thinking and I believe everyone will be better off for it.
Of course, JMO