Catcher covering third base

[Rich Ives]

Originally Posted by UmpJM (nee CoachJM)

Rich,

For the record, I have had the misfortune of being a Cubs fan since 1963 - but I honestly don't believe it's affecting my judgement of this play.

To be clear, I am not suggesting the original collision was obstruction, not the initial "tangle" between the F2 and R2. The F2 was clearly in "the act of fielding" the throw when the collision occurred.

However, if you observe the video carefully, you will see the following:

1. The F2 initially lands on the back of R2's legs at about the knees when he initially fell on the sliding R2.

2. The Cubs 3B Coach is initially directing the runner to advance to home as the ball gets away and the closest defensive player is F7 who is a good distance away.

3. As the runner tries to push himself up with his arms, the F2 adjusts his position so that he is lying on the R2's torso, instead of just his legs, and makes no effort to stop hindering the runner.

4. When the runner gets to the "top" of his "push up", he then reacts with pain and goes back down.

5. The 3B Coach then instructs him to touch 3B (which the runner had not yet done).

I happened to be watching the game live when this play occurred, and they had a couple of additional shots from different angles that made all this more obvious than the clip posted on the mlb.com website does.

Based on all the interpretations I have seen, and the plain text of the rule, since the F2 made no effort to get off the runner and the runner did, in fact, try to get up - but couldn't with the F2 lying on top of him, this is undoubtedly Obstruction - and a pretty flagrant violation.

I would agree that it would be a bit of a stretch to award the R2 home on the play - so ultimately, the result was probably correct.

In regard to the issue about the announcers saying "interfered" instead of "obstructed" - I'm with Rich. Anyone who thins the announcers have the first clue about the actual rules (with the possible exception of Steve Stone & 1 or 2 others) is delusional. If an umpire says "interfere" instead of "obstruct", then there's an issue. Otherwise, so what.

The thing we can't tell from just looking is whether the catcher's "repositioning" as you call it was really an attempt to get up but something hurt and he couldn't. So, uppon watching the video, we have expressed different viewpoints and neither of us knows which is really correct - or whether there's some third thing.