Base Awards?

[Alan G]

Pete Booth writes: "So if I read the quotes from Evans properly Using OBR - "boils down" to Umpire Judgement not
necesarily BR out for interference. Evans uses the term may be adjudged to be interference which the way I interpret means - Umpire Judgement." He then goes on to say you should consider the INTENT (his emphasis) of the interference.

Two questions:
1) If the umpire MAY adjuge an unintentional act by the batter as interference, and if this isn't the time to apply such a judgment, when should it be applied?
2) The interpretations we've been looking at assume that there was no intent to interfere. But your statement implies that unless there WAS intent, you would judge there was no interference. Is that what you meant?

[PeteBooth]

Two questions:
1) If the umpire MAY adjuge an unintentional act by the batter as interference, and if this isn't the time to apply such a judgment, when should it be applied?
2) The interpretations we've been looking at assume that there was no intent to interfere. But your statement implies that unless there WAS intent, you would judge there was no interference. Is that what you meant? [/B][/QUOTE]

What I meant was that OBR doesn't explain this play the way NCAA / FED does. Even Evans interpretation still leaves this play vague by his own terminology.

I'll try and answer using logic (OK Mr. Spock) The batter swung and missed, F2 blocked the ball and B1 is now high tailing towards first. A runner MUST avoid a fielder attempting to make a play - Well at this point no-one is in front of him - so he isn't hindering anybody.

The actual play is behind the runner, therefore, if the ball sudddenly ricochets off of someone or something, unless the runner purposely deflects the coarse of the ball - I say No interference.

On a thrown ball, intent comes into play vs. a batted ball in which it makes no difference. Intent is very difficult to judge.

Pete Booth

[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by PeteBooth


In OBR (Jim Evans interpretation) the batter is out for interference, dead ball, and (in this case) inning over.

From Warren Willson's response above quoting Evans: "These are accidental acts which may be adjudged to be interference (umpire's judgment). Any intentional act on the other hand shall always be penalized."

So if I read the quotes from Evans properly Using OBR - "boils down" to Umpire Judgement not necesarily BR out for interference. Evans uses the term may be adjudged to be interference which the way I interpret means - Umpire Judgement.

As Papac C responded FED / NCAA have actual rulings on this type of play - OBR leaves it up to the judgement of the umpire.

As I responded originally, in OBR the actual INTENT of the interference infraction would lead one to the proper ruling.
Also, since this is not a batted ball situation, intent does come into play.

Pete Booth

Pete,

I agree that this is an umpire's judgement call. My response to Thom was predicated in his statement that you had to award bases under OBR. Clearly you don't, IF you adjudge that interference has occurred under OBR 7.09(a).

Be very VERY careful on the issue of "intent" with this rule. Evans' point is that "intent" may NOT be required for such accidental interference to result in the batter being called OUT. He is saying that the current professional interpretation is that even accidental (read unintentional) interference with the catcher's play might STILL be ruled interference by the batter under OBR 7.09(a).

In this particular case it might be hard to rule otherwise! If the alternative is to award 2 bases to the offense for their act (intentional or not) in kicking the ball out of play, what would YOU do? Award the batter 2 bases for kicking the ball out of play? "I don't think so Tim" would be my response. They shouldn't even get 1 base, if your judgement says the batter would easily have been thrown out. If that's the case, calling the batter out using OBR 7.09(a) maintains the balance in the game. That batter was going to be out anyway, and the runners are returned because it was the offense who sent the ball into dead territory.

I know there are those who will argue that if the catcher had handled the ball, this wouldn't have happened. Well so what? Blocking a bad pitch is still a good and reasonable play by a competent catcher, and who said the batter had to swing at that pitch in the dirt anyway? I'd say those two "errors" pretty well balance each other out, wouldn't you?

Cheers,

Warren Willson

[PeteBooth]

Why not use the authoritative opinion expressed elsewhere on other interference plays, such as base coachers? It's deemed that when a base coach kicks a ball it is always ruled as "intentional" regardless of actual intent. [/B][/QUOTE]

Hayes thanks - you know one thing suddenly occured to me in reading all these threads that I didn't think of before - How does one un-intentionally "kick" a ball. When someone kicks - they are actually performing an act.

In the play described F2 blocking ball with body and then the ball ricochetting out in front of runner. I can vision the runner stepping on the ball accidently or the ball hitting B1's foot , but actually kicking the ball would require some sort of act on the part of B1.

I'm sure there is probably 1 way or another that the ball could be accidentally kicked, but again in general kicking something requires an action.

Pete Booth