Verbal Obstruction ?

[UmpJM]

Bainer,

I see you are from Canada.

Here in the United States, there is an organization known as the National Federation of State High School Asssociations (aka NFHS, aka FED). They publish rulebooks, casbooks and officals' manuals for many sports that U.S. High Schools sponsor teams in.

Most (though not all) of the 50 states in the U.S. use these rulebooks as the governing rulesets for H.S. sports.

The FED baseball rules differ from OBR rules in many respects. For example, FED does indeed, explicitly have the notion of "verbal obstruction" in its rulebook, while the concept is completely absent from OBR rules. Another rule absent from OBR that is present in FED (and NCAA) id the Force Play Slide Rule (FPSR), which I see you commented on in another thread.

For someone who learned on OBR rules, some of the FED rules seem to make no sense and even to violate some of the basic principles which underly the OBR rules. Adding to the confusion is that the FED usually makes significant changes to the rules (and supporting casebooks) on an annual basis.

If you'd like to learn more, or order some FED rules literature, you can check it out at the link below:

http://www.nfhs.org/ScriptContent/Index.cfm

JM