[greymule]

So many of our difficulties as umpires arise from the fact that players don't know how to play the game. When players lack the fundamentals, they produce all kinds of plays that don't fit neatly into the rules we have studied.

Obstruction and interference are often difficult calls. But whereas we might have just a handful of those calls over a decade, we now see them regularly. I saw more in one JV high school softball game than I did in my entire baseball career.

We see a ground ball to F6 with a runner on 2B. And then we see both the runner and the fielder do something illogical and unexpected. So at the resulting tangle we wonder, "What in the world did I just witness?"

We see runners tripping over the front of the plate and falling over catchers who are standing on the plate with the ball at the backstop. (Hey, Blue, she's got to slide!!)

The running lane rule was written by people who expected F3 to be fielding the position in some kind of logical manner, and the runner to be sprinting toward the outside of the bag. The book play is easy to call, but how often do we really see it?

We see F3 standing with both feet on the middle of the double base and the BR inside the line and then slowing down to stick a foot on the base and not overrun it. Oh, yes, F4 gets over there and enters the mess, too.