"Willfull Indifference?"

[JEAPU2000]

Rich, it was my understanding that blatant and avoidable are different than intent. When discussing authorized person interference, when you judge intent on the authorized person, it means did the ball just hit them, or did they bend down and pick it up. If the bat girl thought it was foul and she picks up the ball, it's still intentional.

For other teammate, I thought blatant and avoidable is different from intent in the sense that they are required to avoid and didn't. So, in your example, if he was attempting to get out of the way and was hit, then his actions weren't blatant and avoidable because the catcher's throw would have been errant or whatever. But he didn't, and he was required to by rule. Now, I was confident of that answer when I posted earlier, and now I can see why that might not be 100% correct. I was thinking that J/R's #1 and #2 were differentiated because there was a distinction on intent...otherwise, it would be redundant. But your point about #1 being applied to the space and not the path of the thrown ball is well taken.

However, I honestly hope that you understand that I was NOT trying to argue for willful indifference. I was basing my answer off of a specific rules interpretation, which I may have incorrectly done. However, this is NOT W/I in either case, nor would I ever advocate using that as a standard in determining interference. That was the bigger point of my initial post.