Quote:
Originally Posted by rwest
It can not be applied to my scenario because the act of stepping out of the box is not what caused the interference. They stepped out of the box to avoid being hit. Now they are out of the box. Don't we have to have intent at this point?
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Depends. IF you have intent, you have interference - I think we all agree on that, and can move to situations where we don't have intent.
Say the batter stepped out to avoid being hit, and they are now out of the box. If, through no additional action or blatant inaction, they are in the way, I don't believe we have interference. However, at some point (your judgement), they have recovered from the avoiding of the pitch and start to bear some responsibility. Once they are aware of what is going on and able to act, they must be out of the play. Not getting out of the way once it is reasonable to expect them to be out of the way puts them at risk.
I will agree that the verbiage is not perfect, and if you slice and dice what I just said, SOMEthing will not perfectly fit within the actual rulebook words as written. But I do believe, from previous threads such as this and comments from clinicians, Mike, Steve, etc, that this is the "jist" of the rules.