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I was following this until ChampaignBlue's last post, and I think I missed something. In the example, "infielder is standing in a basepath with no immediate play and runner crashes into her, we'll be calling a dead ball and the runner out for the crash/INT", why would a runner be out for an apparent obstruction by the defense? A fielder with no play just standing in the way in a base path is obstructing the runner and interferring with the runner's right to the base path to advance. The runner hasn't interferred with the non-existant play that the infielder isn't making. I agree, running over infielders can cause injury (this isn't football, though most of the girls around here play it that way, and expect it to be called as such), but if I'm correctly visualizing this, calling interference and the runner out will immediately result in all defensive players not involved in a play standing to block the next base, counting on more crashes and runners called out without the defense ever coming close to making a play.
I agree that to avoid injury, in a perfect world, the runner should avoid the infielder and count on obstruction being called in case everyone doesn't reach the best base they would have without having gone around the infielder. But I have seen more problems resulting from "creative defense" by not giving runners their right of way than problems with overagressive base running.
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Panda Bear
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