Catcher on home plate
 

Saw this last night in a 14U Dizzy Dean Tournament. The Catcher for one of the teams had a bad habit of coming up out of his crouch and walking forward on his throws down to second. I noticed this between innings as he was warming up pitchers. Wondered when it would become an issue during the game.

Middle of the game runner stealing second. Same catcher stands up when he sees runner take off and literally steps forward and catches the pitch before it gets to the plate. Throws runner out and needless to say HC is not happy. Tells his team in the dugout that the next time catcher does that then to hit him with the bat.

Batter didn't swing as the catcher was standing on home plate when he caught the ball.

Just wondering if anyone has ever seen this and what should happen from an umpire/ruling stand point?

Reaching out over the plate during the pitch is catcher's interference (OBR) or obstruction (FED). A swing is not required in this case.

If the batter and each runner do not all reach their advance base during the play, call time and enforce the penalty (batter to 1B, stealing runners advance, other runners advance only if forced).

Please tell me you were not the PU in this game.

Not sure about Dizzy Dean but in just about any other league that plays baseball, that is called catchers interference and he is lucky the batter does not swing.

Your job is to call it and send the batter to first. That should pretty much handle the situation.

Oh, negate the out as Mbyron has said any runner stealing advances safely to the base in question.

No I was not PU. I was just a fan in the crowd.

It's catcher's interference.

I actually made this call this year. Coach couldn't understand how the catcher was interfering when there was no swing. He just couldn't understand that the batter has to have the opportunity to swing. And did he really want the batter swinging and hitting his catcher?

Oy!

Rita