[greymule]

When you watch the old MLB films, you can see that at one time practically nothing was prohibited—case after case of obvious intentional interference, with little or no effort to disguise it. Apparently the runner from 1B not only had the right to interfere on an attempted DP, but was expected to do so by everyone on the field. Runners (1) went ten feet out of the baseline to crash the fielder at 2B, (2) in obvious attempts to interfere, went into 2B standing up after being put out, (3) crashed the catcher at home if he was anywhere near the plate, ball or not, and (4) feigned "protective" moves when they used their hands and arms to grab and tangle and otherwise interfere.

The umpires seemed simply to watch it all happen but let it go, and fielders never seemed to look to the umps for some kind of call. You wonder what runners would have had to do to get an INT call, much less get ejected.