Runner hit by deflected batted ball

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by BriefcaseJohnny

(In the instance I witnessed, the umpire initially ruled the runner advancing to second out for being hit by a batted ball, then on appeal by the batting team reversed himself and ruled a dead ball and had the batter resume his at bat.

OMG, the dreaded "do-over"! Say it isn't so!

Originally Posted by BriefcaseJohnny

The team in the field argued that the initial call was correct because the runner had been hit by a ball not touched by an infielder *other than the pitcher*.)

The "other than the pitcher" clause deals with a batted ball that passes a fielder and then hits the base umpire. If it passes the pitcher and then hits the umpire before it passes an infielder, it's umpire interference. "Other than the pitcher" has nothing to do with a ball hitting a base runner, and it definitely doesn't apply to deflected balls, even if it hits the umpire.

Now, there are some organizations (not sure if there are any in baseball, but softball comes to mind) that will rule interference on the runner when that runner hinders a fielder fielding a ball deflected off the pitcher. But that's not what happened here.