Quote:
Originally posted by DownTownTonyBrown
Some of you people, you need to listen to WestMichiganBlue (who seems to have shortened his member name to WestMichBlue). He got this right.
Some of you are arguing incorrectly or imagining a different situation. The catcher fields the ball (she is inside the diamond); throws to F3/F4; hits the Batter-Runner (who is also inside the diamond) 3 or 4 steps from 1st.
The correct ruling on this is an immediate dead ball. All advancement of runners stops - in this case there was no one on base but if there were other runners, they get the last base touched at the time of the interference. The batter-runner is called out for interference.
If the throw was good enought to hit the runner, it was good enough that F3 could catch or scoop it. Make the call.
Only if there was no one there to make the catch, then play on (and no one there to make the catch is the only case where I would judge that the runner did not interfere). Otherwise I am not going to make some subjective judgement upon how good the firstbaseman is at scooping poor throws... or that she couldn't have tagged the BR, or that she would have been pulled from the base and fell in a mud puddle, etc.
The runner should know where she is supposed to be (outside the diamond in the 3 foot lane) and the runner was in the wrong place. Call her out.
With no one on the Plate Ump should have made this call from the beginning.
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DTTB,
Have you actually read this thread? No one, not one post on this thread said it was not interference in the scenario offered. The question raised by myself and a few others simply noted that the runner being hit with a thrown ball while outside the 3' lane is not necessarily interference. The main qualifier to this call is a defender covering first base must have a play.
If the ball obviously slips out of the catcher's hand and happens to contact the BR and I can see that there wasn't a prayer of the defender receiving that ball for a potential out, that is going to be nothing. There needs to be some responsibility taken by the defense to make the play.
If I see a catcher with a clear shot to the player covering first, in my judgment, intentionally drill the BR, there will be no interference call, but an ejection may be in order.
If the throw draws the defender off the bag and into the path of the runner, in the lane or not, there may be an obstruction call if the runner gets there before the ball, but there will be no interference call.
No one is suggesting that you assume the player cannot make a great play on a bad throw, but at least make sure the throw is actually toward that player at 1B.