Interference,llegal pitch, or nothing?
 

I was doing a middle school game (FED rules) last night between two teams that were not the greatest. R1 steals on the pitch and F3 yells out he is stealing. F2 hearing this stands up and lunges forward (yes the pitcher was throwing slow enough for this to occur haha) catches the ball and then throws to second. The batter never attempted to swing. When F2 caught the ball he was already standing up and his left foot was on top of home plate and his right foot about 6 inches behind home plate.

So here is my question, is this catcher's interference resulting in R1 to 2nd and batter to 1st, or is it an illegal pitch for the catcher being outside of his box resulting in R1 to 2nd, or is it nothing?

Thanks

Ask yourself this: With the catcher standing on the plate how could the batter hit the ball if he chose to do so?

BTW aren't you glad the batter didn't swing and KO the catcher?

Textbook CO.

Well now that there are a few answers I shall give what my call was (which by the way seems to be correct). I ruled that the catcher did not give the batter a chance to strike the pitch and signaled catcher's interferance then awarded the batter first and R1 second. The coach wanted to know how I could award that when the batter never attempted a swing to which my response was he had no opportunity to due to where the catcher was.

People! Please! It is not Interference by the Catcher! It is Obstruction by the Catcher!

We are not players, coaches, or fans!

MTD, Sr.

Only in high school.

And for once, FED has it right. Why other baseball organizations insist on calling this CI is mystifying. Defense obstructs offense; offense interferes defense.

Boys, let's not get anti-semantic.

Ba-da-boom!

Another way to look at it is runners are obstructed, everyone else is interfered with.

And still another way to look at it is, who cares?

Or just call them all interference and get away from this bickering.

Thank you.

Rich, there would only be a very limited amount of forum activity then. You want to take all the fun out of this, I know your type.:D:D