Vacate any space - can't disappear
 

Is there wiggle room?

Pop ups around first base, foul territory.

Yes, 1b coach must vacate any space needed by F3 (or other player) to make a play. Failure is an out due to interference.

Clearly a doofus coach just watching or playing statue and F3 collides is going to get called.

But I am curious about the popup where the collision happens almost immediate.. and it is CLEARLY OBVIOUS that coach was working hard to vacate, perhaps it happens too fast.. or perhaps F3 takes an odd route to the ball.

Is there wiggle room? Any difference in opinion based on Code?

(Disclaimer: I think there is.. but over on MY ASSOC list people are thumping their chests with a OUT OUT OUT, no exceptions. Too bad. I may be the lone voice of dissent. Perhaps I should crawl back in my hole....

Thump thump thump.

For OBR at least - see 3.15 NOTE for an example play

PLAY: Batter hits ball to shortstop, who fields ball but throws wild past first baseman. The offensive coach at first base, to avoid being hit by the ball, falls to the ground and the first baseman on his way to retrieve the wild thrown ball, runs into the coach; the batter-runner finally ends up on third base. The question is asked whether the umpire should call interference on the part of the coach. This would be up to the judgment of the umpire and if the umpire felt that the coach did all he could to avoid interfering with the play, no interference need be called. If it appeared to the umpire that the coach was obviously just making it appear he was trying not to interfere, the umpire should rule interference.

Coaches, umlike plyers, are allowed on the field they are not mandatory on the field. OUT.

No wiggle. The box is far enough away for him to vacate in any case, assuming he was in the box in the first place.

According to J/R, the coach has to "blatantly and avoidably" hinder the fielder in order to be called for interference. " If he tries to avoid, but contacts a fielder, it is not interference." Sounds like lots of wiggle room to me!

Is that for a batted ball or for a thrown ball?

For a batted ball, I'd give no quarter -- the coach must avoid.

For a thrown ball, I'd agree that there's some leeway.

For a game played under OBR base coaches are required.

I see the other responses referencing J/R, etc., but I agree with Bob. On a batted ball I think is going to be caught, it\'s interference. It\'s not a tragic result - the ball would\'ve been caught anyway. If there\'s a feeling from the offensive team of "good thing that coach couldn\'t get out of the way or that batter would\'ve been out," we\'re going to get the out.

Would you seriously not play a game w/o a team having a 1b coach?

Bob,

J/R doesn\'t differentiate between the two, but at school Mssrs. Jaksa and Roder both focused more on the batted ball, explaining that interference shouldn\'t be called unless contact was blatant and avoidable. This is something with which I agree.

After being seriously "dinged" in a verbal post-game evaluation by a PBUC evaluator...the answer is a resounding "YES", if I was working an MiLB game.

Base coaches are MANDATORY in MiLB and MLB.

Maybe not, but on a foul fly, he sure as hell better be doing a good impression of it.

I think that what you\'ve said is consistent with what Bob said: he simply emphasized that the burden is definitely on the coach to get out of the way of a batted ball.

For example, I can imagine a base coach not watching the ball, covering his head with his hands, and backing up directly into the space where F3 needs to be to catch a pop foul.

In this case, I\'m calling interference because, although the coach was trying to avoid, he failed, and the ball was catchable. IOW, the contact was avoidable, even though the coach didn\'t avoid it.

Do you disagree?

Yes. I am not going to wait until they get a base runner and then delay the game when they want to get a coach out there.