There could have been a play on the ball up. Until it can be determined that the ball is definitely out of play, F3 might have been able to make a play. When the contact occurred the ball might have still been over the playing surface.

I would be prepared to call interference in this situation if the ball landed 10 feet inside the fence and I judge F3 had a chance to make the play, but if I call time immediately on contact and call the runner out for interference and the ball continues to drift and falls 10 feet outside the fence, I'd look a little foolish.

You still kill it immediately. Any potential catch does not occur. If the ball does drift out of play, you don't call the runner out.

Interference. R2 is out, BR gets 1B, R1 advances as forced.

In OBR, too bad. That's the rule.

Then it's interference on the batter-runner.

I'm going to concede defeat on this one and appreciate you guys for pushing me to think about this and check into it some more.

I talked with a couple of guys that I've worked with and they also helped set me on the right path along with you guys. They did acknowledge that they've also heard the same idea that contact with the fielder is only interference if it actually causes the fielder to not be able to make they play, but explained to me why contact is sufficient to call interference.

They did agree that my example feels like a hole in the rule, but reminded me that the quality of play at our level (HS/MS age and below) decreases the likelihood of the defender being contacted and still being able to complete the double play. Conversely, at higher levels there is a greater expectation that runners be able to avoid contact with the fielder and thus the likelihood of determining there was intent goes up as well.

All that said, I still feel like the OBR language could be cleaned up. Ironically, one of the points made that helped change my view on this created an interesting discussion about the situation I used in which F3 is interfered with by the runner at 1B on a fly ball that ultimately drifts out of play. One of my colleagues pointed me to the language in 6.01(a10) that says "it is interference by a batter or runner when: he fails to avoid a field who is attempting to field a batted ball...". I'm not arguing that we should start calling outs for interference if the ball ends up out of play, but a literal interpretation of the rule as written suggests that as long as F3 was attempting to make a play, the contact by the runner qualifies as interference. I realize this isn't the intent of the rule but it was an interesting discussion.

Regardless of all of that, thank you guys for preventing me from making a potential mistake. I've been fortunate enough that all of my interference calls have been clear-cut, routine situations that aren't of the nature I described.

Right. The rule book (in any code) doesn't always say what it means or mean what it says.

Evans identified 234 or some such number of errors and mis-statements in OBR.

What if....
 

Let's say that just like in the OP the pop up is toward the 1st base line and fair, but it is F2 that the BR gets tangled with and it is just a short distance from home plate. BR is essentially just taking off and so is F2. F2 still has time to make the play, it would seem, but the ball pops out of his mitt. F2 could have come out towards the mound (in the way we clear the catcher for a ground out w/ bases empty), but his first move is towards 1st base, just as the BR's first move is towards first base. Do any of you see it differently in this example?

Unless the Batter-runner does something blatantly obvious to interfere with the fielder, all you have is two players doing what they are supposed to.

I think this is an interesting one because of the difference between intentional and unintentional spelled out in 6.01a7 and 6.01a10.

Tongue in cheek response...

If it's the home team on offense, you have unintentional interference on R2, the rule grabs R2 on the interference and awards BR first and R1 advances to second due to the award to the BR.

If it's the visiting team on offense, it's intentional, and the rule gets R2 on interference, R1 for a second out (because R2 was clearly trying to break up the double play), and the BR gets first base (only because the rule won't let me grab all three).

I don't like the flexibility of intentional/unintentional rules for the reasons listed in my sarcastic answer...it would be difficult for a team to contest such a ruling after the fact if it drew an argument.

In my sole opinion, the penalty should be maximized at all times so the runners always can be assumed to have done everything they could to avoid the contact in the first place.