Batter catches ball
 

I was doing the bases of a JV game with a rookie umpire behind the plate. No outs, R1 attempts to steal second. Curve ball scares the batter who catches it in self defense. PU calls dead ball then looks at me like he's lost.

I put the runner back on first and then tell him to keep the batter at home. We got together and I asked him if the pitch was in the strike zone. He said no so we charged a ball to the batter.

What were my other options? Should we have called it a strike? Could we have ruled the batter out for interfering with a live ball?

Sure, a batter interfering with the catcher's fielding of a pitch is batter's interference. This is supported by the J/R manual.


Tim.

Its INT, esp since it stopped F2 from playing on R1's steal. Batter's out, R1 back to 1B.

Isn't the runner being played on out with less than two out on BI?

No, the batter is always out and the runner returns. With two out, just the batter is out, and the half inning is over. If the runner is out on the throw, then the inteference technically never happened, and only the runner is out.

NFHS 7-3-5 Penalty
Runner from third attempting to score, less than two outs. Runner is out, batter stays.

I knew I read it somewhere... just diff sitch...

A Contrarian View
 

Yes, I know that it is HS JV ball and kids should get out of the way, but:

If the pitch is way, way inside, like at or behind his body, and as he moves out of the box (i.e out of the way), I might consider HPB and send him to 1B. He is reacting to the situation in front of him, and hiting the ball in self-defensemight be okay.

But the pitch has to be way way inside, and he has no place to go to get out of the way, and the pitch has to have some gas on it.

So yeah, in 90%+ of the situations like this, it's INF. But I can concieve of a case where INF is not called. Should it have been INF here, probably, but I didn't see it to say. Sounds like it should be in this case.

Thanks for the help guys. I should have called the batter out. Best thing about JV coaches is that they didn't have clue either. I probably could have called them both out and never heard a word from the dugout.