Catchers obstruction?????
 

I researched everything I could find going through the old threads and could find nothing that helped me in this situation.

Fed baseball: Pitch to the batter with runner stealing from first. Catcher reaches out, never leaving the catchers box, and receives the pitch over the middle of home plate. Batter does not attempt to swing,I have a strike call, throw goes to second with a safe call given on the steal.

My question is this,do we need a swing or a attempt to hit the pitch for obstruction to be called on the catcher? Should some other call be made that I am not thinking of? Is this nothing?

I spent over a hour last night going through my rule and case book and could not find anything specific. I'm thinking that means I was right in not calling anything except the pitch,or that I'm a very bad researcher.:confused::D:confused:

By a strict interpretation of the case book (8.1.1F), you could have had CO. But, you were right in just calling the pitch.

Thanks Bob! I missed that last night waiting for my daughter to leave her play practice. I'm glad I didn't make that call as the game was 0-0 and the batter was taking the pitch the whole way.

I think if F2 stepped toward the mound to reach over the plate it should have been called. It would be hard to reach over the plate without moving toward it.

You got lucky. A late swing could break the catcher's arm. Don't let them reach into the swing zone.

I agree with Bob however be very carefull in the application of this.

Eg: R3 trying to steal on a squeaze to HP. Sometimes the catcher will cheat so bad that the batter doesn't get a chance to execute a swing or bunt. Most of the time it is obvious but if you get a sharp coach that has a better view then you of exactly where that catcher is receiving the pitch, you coud end up with a discussion.

Remember, if called obstruction that team could end up with runners at first and second instead of just second. Or runners at first and second instead of nobody on, as a result of the throw out at second. So it is a fine line. Be carful.

Rich, the catcher never left his crouch to receive the ball,he leaned forward and stretched his arm out and caught the ball with his glove over the middle of the plate. This catcher set up very close to the batter on every pitch, he has been taught to set up where he can reach out and touch the batter from his crouch. If the batter had made ANY attempt at the pitch I would have had the obstruction. I just couldn't remember if I should make the call without a attempt at the pitch. After reading the case play I'm still not sure if I should have made the call. 8-1-1-f says it is obstruction and I will agree with that just wondering with no attempt by the batter if this would be one of those grabbing the smelly end of the stick calls?

If you have a batter clearly taking, don't pick this nit. If your batter reacts AT ALL, I would call it.

As was earlier posted, I would not call this unless the batter made some attempt to swing. I don't think we can really call a "potential" obstruction call or at least defend the call if questioned. It would cure the catcher of crowding the plate though, but can we really tell him not to do that, if he has been coached to do so? CO is a risk they are taking.

Just to add, you wouldn't call obstruction on a fielder for being in the baseline waiting for a throw to come in when a runner isn't running toward him. You have to have a noticeable hindrance for obstruction to take place.

The difference with the batter and catcher versus a runner and fielder is that the batter is concentrating on the pitch and cannot even see the catcher. No awareness is required or desirable.

There is also NO obligation on the part of the batter to avoid the catcher prior to the pitch passing, but there is an obligation on the part of the catcher to not interfere/obstruct the batter's ability to hit the ball if he chooses to attempt to do so.

The catcher lucked out - he didn't take a swing on his hand/arm. The positioning I learned at coaching clinics was to be able to touch the batter while upright on the knees, then rock back into the crouch. A touch from the crouch gets you too close.

Manny, MD, & RPatrino: So if the catcher leaps in front of the plate and the batter doesn't swing because he's there it's not CI because there wasn't a swing?

Now that scenario I would call the obstruction no problem.

I don't think that was the situation posed in the OP. The catcher just reaching into the strike zone and over the plate to receive the ball is a lot different then if he stands up and moves his body over and through the plate area. I would have no problem calling CO in the later case and wouldn't in the former.

Why do you like to put words in people's mouths? No one said that.

MD said: "If you have a batter clearly taking, don't pick this nit."

RPatrino said: "I would not call this unless the batter made some attempt to swing."

So somewhere there's a demarcation point?

So what it boils down to is that I Just want people to think about how far into the strike zone or beyond the catcher has to move before you'll call it CI/CO.

A saying I've heard on both baseball and basketball is "don't be a plumber." Sometimes you just need to umpire. That will tell you when to get it.

Problem is that there are a couple of folks on another board that insist it absolutely cannot be CI/CO unless the batter swings - no matter what the catcher does.

Having people here say they wouldn't call it without a swing doesn't help in the long run.

It's not black or white, Rich, as I'm sure you know. If the batter makes no attempt to offer at the pitch, and the umpire can judge that the catcher's position had nothing to do with why the batter didn't offer because the batter couldn't possibly see him (which sounds like what happened here), then there really is no CI/CO. But if the umpire judges that the reason the batter didn't offer was because the batter saw where the catcher was located (such as right on top or in front of home plate), then CI/CO could be ruled.

Even then, I've seen batters completely bail out of the box before the pitch arrives, such as on a steal of home. If the catcher moves up to catch the pitch, I couldn't justify a CI/CO call then, since it was clear the batter had no intent to contact the pitch.

What were talking about is not whether it is CI/CO, rather, are we going to call it or not. I am not disagreeing about some of the suggestions about when we should or should not call it however, one only has to come up against a coach that is smart enough to question why his batter isn't on first, one time, and you may think about this a little more closely.

JMO

Manny et. al. - one more time - the problem is that there are people that think there is never CI unless the batter swings. Once you say it's judgement then you legitimize their position because they can now say their judgement is that a non-swing means it couldn't be CI.


There was a play in MLB within the last year or two where on a pitchout a catcher jumped forward and out into the opposite batter's box, placing himself even with the batter, and got called for it.

These are two COMPLETELY different things.

If the batter is clearly taking the pitch, then the catcher didn't obstruct anything. If not, and there's ANY indication that the batter didn't swing because the catcher was there, it's obstruction. This is fairly easy to delineate - as the batter is not generally looking at the catcher, and only picks him up in his peripheral vision at the last possible instant. The batter's entire body changes when he's thinking about swinging, and anyone who's been around the game and paid any attention at all can see that.

So let's say F2 jumps out and "steals" the pitch at or in front of the plate to catch R3 coming in. The batter doesn't swing so as not to take F2's head off. None of you would call it because the batter didn't swing?

I don't think that's what's been said at all. Rich is saying that "some on another site" believe this.

In your specific example, I'd get it. In the OP, I probably wouldn't.

I would absolutely call that.

That's a big leap (pun intended) from the OP where F2 reaches out from his crouch.

In your example, F2 got closer to 2nd base, and thus gained an advantage. That's why he got busted.

If batter hits the catcher's mitt while swinging you have a call to make. If the batter does not swing because the catcher is in his way you have a call tp make. Neither happened in the post.

But Rich, it IS judgment that an umpire uses to decide if there was obstruction or not.

What you're pointing out is simply a misinterpretation of the term "judgment" as it applies here. An umpire who says, "It's my judgment that a non-swing means there wasn't CI/CO" doesn't understand the rule.

It would be like saying, "It's my judgment that a batter who squares and doesn't pull the bat back on a bunt attempt is offering at the pitch." We know that's not the sole criterion to determine if the batter truly attempts to bunt the ball (in baseball anyway; softball is another sad story). It's just a matter of educating those umpires when the batter does offer and when he doesn't.

That's similar here. When the catcher places his mitt on or in front of the plate to catch a pitch and the batter doesn't swing, that doesn't automatically negate that there wasn't CI/CO. We have to use common sense and judgment to decide if the batter didn't swing because he wasn't planning to in the first place, or because he saw that the catcher was preventing him from doing so. If the catcher is so far in front of the plate, that's an easy CI/CO call. In the OP, it's not automatic at all.