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Originally Posted by Paul L
I'm mainly a baseball ump, and do some high school softball for my association, but hardly any ASA, so I make little effort to keep up on ASA rule changes, except through this forum. The corresponding Fed rule is 8-6-10(d), which reads "A runner is out when . . . the runner interferes . . . intentionally with a . . . thrown ball." (my emphasis)
This thread sent me to the ASA rule differences chart (at asasoftball.com/umpires) which confirms Canary's and IrishMafia's shocking news that the word "intentionally" has been dropped from ASA rule 8-7-J-3. That chart says "A runner may not interfere with a thrown ball causing interference. It no longer has to be intentional."
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Old news. This took place in November of 2006 within view of Pike's Peak.
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So it seems that the letter of the rule supports Canary's original postion. But the consensus of the worthies of this forum seems to be that everyone knows that if the runner is just doing what you would expect, then inadvertent interference is not an out. Is there a casebook play or an authoritative ruling to this effect, or is this just civil disobedience? What was ASA's purpose in dropping the word "intentional" from the rule? How's an ump like me reading the rule supposed to know about the universal contra-literal interpretation of the rule?
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I don't believe Canary had a position, just a question.
I don't understand you comments. The rule is written just fine. The only reason I fought against the change was to avoid overreaction-type of conversations like this one.
The purpose of the change was because the definition of interference does not include intent AND because interference is a judgment call, so the umpire should judge whether the player's actions caused the interference, not judge whether it was or was not intentional.
And we all know that because, like anyone who works ASA ball should do, we attended the appropriate clinics and schools.