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I was officiating a game under FED rules. These kids were young (13-14)so that may help you understand why this situation even happened:
Runner on second, 0 outs. Batter hits a high fly ball to left field. R2 tags. As B1 is rounding first, F7 misses the fly ball and the ball skips to the fence. As B1 rounds 1B, he is obstructed by F3. R2 breaks for 3B and B1 is now on his way to 2B. The runners are now about 25ft apart. I decided that under the circumstances, I would protect B1 to 3B. R2 rounds 3B and B1, catching up with him rounds 3B also. Now both runners are between 3B and home. R2 decides that he can't beat the throw to the plate and stops. B1 passes him, I call the batter out; but due to crowd noise, he doesn't hear me and touches 3B and runs toward second. The throw from the cutoff man goes to 2B to try to retire the runner. R2 now runs home and is safe. Coach tries to argue that B1 should be safe at 3B due to obstruction. I explain that he is protected only until he touches the base I (as the umpire) protect him to. The defensive coach argues that B1 trying to return to 2B is interference since he was already called out. What is the correct ruling in this situation? Is it up to the defense to realize B1 is out for passing R2 even though they didn't hear me call him out? Is this some type of offensive interference? If this is interference, does the run score since B1 was protected to 3B "forcing" R2 to go to home?
I allowed the run to score and simply explained to the defensive coach that I yelled that the batter was out as soon as he passed R2.
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