[greymule]

I didn't think that, even in Fed, a batter picking up a ball as you describe would be interference. Did they tell you the batter should be called out?

Certainly in OBR there has to be a play for interference to occur. In your scenarios, the batter would indeed be out if the runner had been stealing.

If I were the ump, I would still caution the batter that he had done something very risky. I would also call time as soon as the batter touched the ball.

If the batter swings and ends up out of the box, he is risking an interference call. If you allowed batters to let the swing carry them into the catcher, guess what every batter would do whenever somebody was stealing.