Running Lane Interference

[Mike Walsh]

In Papa C's article today he describes a play under Fed rules with runners on 2nd and 3rd, 1 out, and the batter bunts. The pitcher's throw home retires R3, and F2's throw to first hits the batter outside the running lane. His choices for ruling on the play were a) dead ball, inning over; b) dead ball, R2 returns to 2nd; c) ignore batter interference due to intervening play; or d) live ball, play stands, B1 on 1st and R2 to 3rd with 2 outs.

His analysis of the play comes down to the fact that the umpire has to know that an intervening play is not relevant to this play (because we are not using OBR), and that the batter-runner interfered by running outside of the lane. He said the correct answer was "D".

Am I missing something? Why isn't the batter out, and the ball dead, with runners returning?

(edited to insert that Papa C said "D" was correct - thanks ManinBlue)

[Edited by Mike Walsh on Dec 5th, 2005 at 07:07 PM]