Obstruction/Interference/Nothing???Discuss

[dash_riprock]

Originally Posted by mbyron

5-1-1h: calling time to inspect the ball. Relevance?

Read the rest of 5-1-1h (C'mon mb, keep it honest)

5-1-3: call time to make awards for obstruction. Does not supersede the fact that all OBS in FED is "type B" -- delayed dead ball.

5-2-1f: time is called by the umpire to make base awards or inspect the ball. Relevance?

See above.

The proper method of handling OBS is delayed dead ball and wait till the end of playing action. See this case play (different situation, cited only for proper mechanic for OBS).



In the OP, playing action ended with the ball entering DBT. If you kill it first, you're doing it wrong (well, FED-wrong, which might not be baseball-wrong ).

In fact, not only do we NOT bail out the defense by awarding just 1 base here, the ENTIRE RATIONALE for the ball remaining live is to allow the defense to make an even worse mistake so that the offense gets a better award. In this case they did.

I think it is to allow the offense to achieve additional bases (other than through an award) that would cause the OBS to be ignored, and the ball to remain live, and maybe even result in outs for the defense.