Red Sox vs Devil Rays - 8/12/04

[Jim Porter]

Runners on 2nd and 3rd, no outs. Manny Ramirez is the batter and he hits a high chop between shortstop and third base. R2 and F5 make contact, but it doesn't really seem to affect the play as F5 still fields the ball cleanly and makes the out at first. R3 scored and R2 ended up on third.

But the third base umpire called interference on R2, immediately killing the play. He called out R2, put R3 back on third, and awarded Manny first.

I wonder how many of us would've delayed our interference call just a little bit to avoid the headache of making that call. I wonder how many of us would've justified our call by saying the contact was incidental since F5 made the play cleanly.