Obstruction or not?

[DG]

Originally Posted by DTQ_Blue

In a 14 Y/O travel game today, I was BU. A throw to first on an infield grounder pulled F3 off the bag and into the runners path about 5 feet down the line toward home. The ball was thrown too high for F3 to catch and after it sailed over his head to the 8 foot high fence, the batter-runner collided with F3 and BR falls to the ground gasping for air because the wind was knocked out of him.

I called obstruction at the time of the collision, then I immediately call time because I thought that BR may have been seriously hurt (which fortunately was not the case).

I can not tell from this description whether obstruction occured or not. If the ball had just gone past F3 when the collision occured then I say "train wreck". If the ball was past him long enough for him to move out of the way and did not, then obstruction. He can't be expected to vanish after attempting a play, and, the BR can see F3 while he is running better than F3 can see BR while trying to catch a ball, so BR has some responsibility in this also. I wouldn't call obstruction and then time.