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Had something kind of similar happen the other night. 18U using ASA rules. R1 on 2nd, left handed batter. F5 is well off the line and fields a ground ball. Reaching for a tag she had put the ball in her throwing hand, but reaching with her glove hand, slowing up/obviously impedes the runner, and then reaching back with the ball to tag R1 in the back.
Had F5 not hooked R1 with the glove (non-ball) hand, she would have safely reached 3rd. I (BU) called the runner out on the tag. OC came out to ask about obstruction. As I've said before I am an ex-(licensed) umpire who did NFHS/NCAA with my last test about 5 years ago, but get called upon when necessary.
THe PU is an ASA umpire so I brought him into the conversation. I had a hard time calling obstuction on the player with the ball, but he told me to call it OBS, so I did.
This was in the top of the 1st. It took 45 minutes to get 3 outs(including a step-off for the 2nd out, but coach wouldn't give us the 3rd).Final score 31-0. I told PU we could have used that out back in the 1st.
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