Texas - ASU game 3

[Durham]

Hope everyone's having a great father's day. Just finished working a fill-in game and now time to enjoy the lovely dinner my lil girls have spent the afternoon getting ready for me. Hope each of you is having a similar day.

[UMP25]

That sounds wonderful what your daughters did! Very nice. Happy Father's Day to all the dads here.

[Durham]

Tony, let me see if I can share with you my understanding of the rules that you are asking about. I'll start by saying that I am not talking about the play, because I wasn't there and I don't know what the rulings or judgments were.

I'll start with the definition of interference.

Interference
SECTION 50. The act of an offensive player, umpire or nongame person who
interferes with; physically or verbally hinders; confuses; or impedes any fielder
attempting to make a play.

Now you were asking about when the batter becomes the BR. It is my understanding that he becomes the BR when the umpire calls ball 4. Now as umpires I believe that it is our first priority to judge the pitch. So in most causes we will make ball or strike known right away. Now if it is a 3-2 count and the batter takes off for first before we make our judgment known, one of two things usually will happen, we will call it a strike and the batter could be in jepordary of having unintentional BI called against him. It is my understanding that if we rule ball 4, then the BR that is moving towards first would be called for interference if he committed an intentional act that we ruled interference. However, the BR moving toward first that might unintentional hinder a throw in my mind at least would be like a train wreck situation, where as long as he is doing what he is suppose to do, going to first, I do not believe that by rule he could be guilty of unintentional interference.

Interference is a judgment call and intentional acts are always judgment, but to have unintentional interference be possible, in my mind at least, a member of the offense my hinder a legitimate attempt to retire a runner. And I do not believe that common sense and fair play dictate that a runner moving forward to an awarded base can be guilty of unintentional interference or a legitimate play can be made on a runner moving up on an award.

Some here say the rule book is confusing or lacks clarity and I do not believe that that is the case, but I also believe that the NCAA will let us all know in Jan what they think about the statement I just made.

As far as the play in question, I can find rules and justification to support the ruling on the field, but as to what happened, none of us knows and I am ok with that. I think that the discussion that has come up based on this play is awesome in the growth of all of us and I hope that one day when we are talking about one of my plays we remember that.

And for the record, I kicked a play at first in my regional. Glad my crew was there to help me out and glad I was able to learn from the experience.

[Larry1953]

Durham, I could not agree with you more. I think the simplest and fairest solution is to define Type B interference just as there is Type B obstruction that would come into play whenever there are 3 balls on the batter and most especially with a 3-2 count. Let the play go on and when the dust clears, settle up all the check swing calls and matters of intention and put the runners where common sense and the current rules say they should be. That is precisely how Type B obstruction is handled and that hasn't seemed to cause any heartburn.

[MrUmpire]

Originally Posted by Larry1953

W I am not an ump...

It goes without saying.

[Larry1953]

Originally Posted by MrUmpire

It goes without saying.

So what is your solution, MRUMPIRE? More BS like the Texas-ASU fiasco?

[MrUmpire]

Originally Posted by Larry1953

So what is your solution, MRUMPIRE? More BS like the Texas-ASU fiasco?

Oh, my heavens, no. Your suggestion is absolutely, without question, the best ever. Why don't you take it to the NCAA MLB Rules Committees and get that changed right away. Be sure to let us know how it goes.

[Larry1953]

Originally Posted by MrUmpire

Oh, my heavens, no. Your suggestion is absolutely, without question, the best ever. Why don't you take it to the NCAA MLB Rules Committees and get that changed right away. Be sure to let us know how it goes.

MRUMPIRE, I wouldn't be so presumptuous. Much better to let Auggie and the infallible PUngo there and codify the "interference supersedes the walk rule with lettered subsections that includes its enforcement even if the PU forgets the count and negates the rule that a runner has to do something INTENTIONAL to have interference called on him. Oh, and don't forget another subsection that says the PU should be able to strut his stuff and infallie judgment to be able to make an interference call BEFORE he decides whether the pitch was a ball or strike. Something like THAT would surely solve the problem for all time.

[tcarilli]

@Durham

I have come to the conclusion that the commons sense and fair play ruling would be to ignore the "interference," but return R1 to second. In essence, treat this interference similar to back swing interference in the sense that we are not going to get an out, but we will not allow runners to advance.

[UMP25]

I had alluded to the same thing, Tony. As I mentioned earlier, Jaksa/Roder has some examples of what they term "interference without a play." In the situation at hand, this would mean no out recorded, but R1 is returned to second.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by UMP25

I had alluded to the same thing, Tony. As I mentioned earlier, Jaksa/Roder has some examples of what they term "interference without a play." In the situation at hand, this would mean no out recorded, but R1 is returned to second.

That would be similar to the AR where batter strikes out on D3K with first occpied, starts to run and inadvartantly contacts the ball. The batter is out, ball is dead, runners cannot advance (unless they were stealing on the pitch, iirc).

That seems like a good, fair, rule, but I think it's farther afield given the current rule wording. That is, I wouldn't be surprised to see this CHANGED for next year (or whenever the rules cycle is).

[UMP25]

The next cycle is 2013-2014; however, the NCAA can change a ruling like this whenever it wants. IMHO, I think the whole batter interference and related rules are very unclear, even confusing, the way they're presently written. OBR, at least, is a bit clearer.

[Durham]

Tony,

I would allow the action, because if you change it or add a rule to change it, then you will end up effecting far more than you intend to. Example, a guy gets picked off at first and then is hit in the back while running to first and the ball goes into the outfield allowing R1 to get to 3rd. Technically he interfered with a throw, but I think we can agree that we are not going to call interference unless it was an intentional act. I could come up with coutless other examples, but I think you see my point. Like I said earlier, I think the rules are rather clear, but I could be wrong. And that would not be the first time today.

[Larry1953]

Anybody else see the play in the SC/Virginia game? R1 is stealing, the batter swings and misses and ends up out of the batter's box. The catcher had to alter his throw and drop down sidearm to find a slot to make his throw. That made his throw slice away from the bag. I think that was clearly a BI infraction but it was not called. Orel told us that it was not because the catcher did not initiate contact.

[UMP25]

Yeah, and Robin Ventura the other day said a batter who squares to bunt has to pull his bat back in order to not have a strike called on him on the attempt.