7.09e comment has some stuff about that type of play in the OP

It certainly does, for OBR. Pretty clearly states that it is not interference, absent an intentional act to interfere.

Fed is less clear.

I pretty much agree with Bob Jenkins, though I would state it differently. What is left unclear is how close does a forced runner need to be to his "forced to" base for the FPSR provisions to be in effect.

I have no idea what FED really "wants" in regard to the question.

I think I go with "close enough that he should be starting his slide". But I'm not sure that's right.

JM

Bob, the Hopkins interp was 2007.

BRD 2009 goes on to say "that the 2007 Interp seems to indicate that a runner who is more than halfway had better hit the dirt."

Such as the original play states:

"Ground ball to F6 who flips the ball to F4 for a force out at 2B, R1 is a little over 1/2 way to 2B when the thrown ball to F3 strikes R1 in the helmet."

Not sure either what Fed really wants but, just thought I would follow up on my original response.

jicecone,

I've seen that, and I believe that Carl's interp is "activisit" - by which I mean he extends the published interp beyond it's intended bounds.

It is clear that a runner who is less than halfway is not subject to the FPSR, but it is not clear that crossing halfway makes the runner subject to the FPSR.

But, as I said, I don't really know how FED wants it called. I'm pretty comfortable calling it the way I do, and I don't catch much flack about it.

JM

JM, how many times have you seen it?

Don't know about John but me, never that I can recall. If I did I wouldn't have called interference.

First of all, I have only seen this once in a OBR game so, it was not realvant to this discussion. Also, I am not saying that I would call it as suggested unless really obvious that the runner was trying to interfer.

As far as what Carl writes, I believe he has offered interps of other notables and basis his statement on several of these that talk about "halfway, less than halfway, more than halfway."

As already suggested, this happens so rarely it's probably time for me to shutup and move on. I guess the engineer in me is what wants to know as much history as possible, when coming to a decision on the field. Just sharing this.

"If R1 is less than halfway, then the play is legal" is NOT the same logically as "If the runner is more than halfway, then the play is illegal."

The FPSR is to protect the fielder. If the runner isn't "close" (a loose term, I admit) to the fielder / bag, then the FPSR shouldn't apply.

I agree with CoachJM in his comment about Carl (there are other examples in BRD) and in how to enforce it, should I ever see it.

To me, "close" is not as ambiguous in this case as one might think. Basically, if you're close enough to slide and actually make it to the bag, you must slide. You can't force runners to slide, say, 10 feet out - because they can't slide to the bag from there.

I too agree with UmpJM, but I don't like any part of the FED ruling, even under JM's interp.

The FPSR clearly states that runners do not have to slide. And in general it's not interference to be hit by a throw (when that's all that happens). So why is it INT if the runner chooses not to slide and gets hit by a throw, just because he is closer to a base than X feet? Doesn't add up. :mad:

bob,

I was going to post along the lines of what said you said yesterday, but didn't have time to do so.

The same thing was raised in one of our meeting two years ago. The person doing the explaining goes to Indianapolis ever year, does the state test and is our long time assignor/secretary.

So here goes. If a runner is less than 1/2 way to the base when hit by a thrown ball and does nothing intentional, there is no interference. If a runner is more than 1/2 way to the base and is hit with a thrown ball regardless even if he does nothing intentional, interference should be called because the runner has had time to decide what they should do to get out of the way of the throw.

It sounds like this explanation is along the lines with the interp of Rumble and Hopkins.