Play at the plate

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by rcaverly

I hate to wake up a dead horse, but I asked for an interp from my state (Ohio) through our local interpreter. They recently ruled that the two infractions (D obstructs the O; then the O MCs the D) are to be treated in the order in which they occurred in that they occurred to different runners.

So, the BR gets 1B on the obstruction by F2. R3, who was advancing on the obstruction, would have scored, except his MC prior to scoring makes him out and EJ’d by rule, one on and one out.

I do hope the NFHS clarifies soon the sentence, “Malicious contact supersedes obstruction.” I suggest it should read something to the effect of, “When an obstructed runner causes malicious contact, only the penalties for that obstruction are superseded by the penalties for the malicious contact. When one runner is obstructed and another runner causes malicious contact, the separate penalties are enforced in the order in which they occurred.”

A sensible interp from our home state.

Another possible clarification: “Malicious contact by a runner, including the batter-runner, supersedes obstruction of that runner.”

Don't really need much more than that, since we already have in place the principle of enforcing the penalties for multiple infractions in the order in which they occurred. The only obstacle to applying this principle to the case at hand was the (IMO erroneous) application of the "superseding" principle instead. Narrow the superseding principle and the problem goes away.