IS THIS A JUDGMENT CALL?

[greymule]

One of my OBR books said something about foliage. It must have been a while back, because the casebook or whatever gave the example of Wrigley Field's ivy-covered fences. The ruling was that if the foliage deflected the ball, there was no catch. However, if a player nestled into the ivy and put his glove up, and the ball just nipped a little foliage and went directly into his glove, that was a catch.

One of our area softball fields has branches overhanging from foul about 20 feet into fair high up down the right field line. Players commonly hit balls over the branches for home runs, and naturally many balls hit the branches. Some balls go over the branches and stay within the park, too. No ground rules seem to work there; no matter what we agree on, there's an argument, mainly because it's often hard to tell whether the ball hit anything. Maybe some township authority will figure out the solution and engage the services of a tree surgeon.