Incidental Contact

[jTheUmp]

Originally Posted by kjbco

It was a bang bang play where the ball F1 and the runner all met at the same time. It was "unintentional". There was no way the runner could avoid F1. It was a shallow pop up on the 1st baseline.

The runner could've avoided interfering by either running wide on either the fair or foul side of the line.

(I know what you're thinking: "that means he has to run out of the baseline, which makes him out"... the "out of the baseline" rule ONLY applies when a fielder is attempting to tag a runner. If a fielder isn't attempting a tag, the runner can run wherever he wants to as long as he's not committing interference by doing so.)