Cardinals - Marlins game, batter interference.

[UMP25]

Originally posted by David Emerling
You seem to be suggesting interference is interference ... whether he's in or out of the batter's box. It's not nearly that simple.

Here's where I respectfully disagree, Dave. I believe that too many of us make these calls that difficult when in such situations they really are simpler than what we think.

Here, the umpire making the call (Eddings) and MLB both quickly and simply admitted the wrong ruling was made; yet on this board we've had guys go round and round as if they're actually trying to say the ruling shouldn't have been made because it wasn't batter's interference on a play at the plate.

When such a play develops, I ask myself in a rather "simplistic" way: "Did the batter screw up the catcher's ability to make a play at the plate?" Like you and many others here, I've been umpiring long enough to know the answer to this, and to know that such plays don't always require a complex analysis.

We as umpires tend to be so overly analytical that I believe we are our worst enemies, particularly on open forums like this. In other words, if umpires are asked for the time, we should just give it and not tell someone how to build a watch.