Obstruction Q - holding a runner on 3rd base
 

I am a basketball official and parent of a 3rd baseman who is 12. He plays in a Cal Ripken league where they play on 70' bases and can take leads.

(I don't know why 3rd basemen at this age worry so much about the runner when most of the time they don't take a big secondary lead...)

When the third baseman is holding the runner on 3rd base, I know that both feet need to be in fair territory. Are there any other restrictions on where his feet are?

Is he allowed to straddle the bag so that his right foot is on the third base line? Can his right foot be on the edge of the bag closest to the plate so that the runner would need to avoid his foot if diving back into 3rd base.

No sane umpire is going to call the third baseman for being in foul ground if he's straddling the bag naturally. If a coach points it out, umpires will enforce it begrudglingly.

As to obstruction - merely being between the runner and the base is not obstruction. That rule is a lot more involved, and I suggest you read it in entirety ... trying to explain it here without that background reading would not be productive ... it would lead to 92 what-ifs from various people wanting to prove how smart they are. :)

Thanks!
Jeff

Have your third baseman hold runners on the same way pro third baseman hold runners on.
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They don't.

Whenever I've coached, I have not had the third baseman hold the runner on. I didn't see much advantage to it. I've seen other teams throw a lot of balls away and third basemen not get back to their position soon enough to react properly.

However, my son's coach wants him to hold the runner on...

Can you have a discussion with him on why? Try to point him at the way the HS kids (and up) play. Coaches need to get taught too, that's why there are coaching clinics.

Related question - opposing team 3rd base coach talking to third basemen
 

I have a follow up question (which actually prompted the original question)

This play happened in a Rec league game. My son is playing 3rd base. The opposing team's 3rd base coach was an assistant coach on my son's basketball team which I coached. So, my son knows him as a coach.

My son was "holding the runner on" by straddling 3rd base with his right foot blocking about half of the bag. (He started doing this on a travel team.)

The 3rd base coach's son is at the plate and is a pull hitter. In his previous at bat, he hit a line drive over the 3rd baseman's head. His son is batting and the coach appears to be talking to my son and telling him how to play the position. It is a rec league so it wouldn't be too unusual for a coach of one team to say something to a player on another team. I think the coach had played baseball in college. I don't know what was said, but on the subsequent pitch, the batter hits a line drive well over my son's head. (It did not affect the play.)

Later in the game, one of my son's teammates was holding the runner on with a different batter. The defensive player was clearly holding him on incorrectly, but the coach didn't say a word.

In retrospect, it seems like the coach may have been trying to distract the fielder when his pull-hitting son was batting. If so, is he allowed to distract the fielder? (I know in basketball, it would be considered "disconcerting" for a coach to try to distract a free throw shooter of the other team.)

I think I might be able to convince him on a philosophical level, but I don't know if it would change anything.

Almost all of the 12U teams in this area hold the runner on 3rd base. Some even do it when the pitchers pitch from the wind up. So, he is more likely to do what the other 12U coaches do rather than what is done at the HS level.

If it helps, the rest of the country is not doing this, at any level, much less 12U. The disadvantage of having him in a non-ideal position to field a ground ball FAR outweighs the step or two you're gaining by having the runner take a shorter lead. If, philosophically, coach thinks having F5 out of position for a grounder and very possibly giving up a hit when he shouldn't have is outweighed by a step or two on a runner who will very likely not need that step or two... I suggest you find a better coach.

Or, the coach had some personal familiarity with your kid as an assistant on nhis basketball team and was willing to give him some advice, such as "my son is a pull hitter, so heads up". Surely your son knew the batter was the coaches son also. So lighten up on the suspicions.

It is very unusual for the coach of one team to provide coaching instruction to players of the opposing team. It is not unusual to talk to other players they know personally, tell them good play when they have made one, etc.

If the coach is smart, he will change his philosophy the first time a ground ball is hit past his F5 who was holding, and the ball was hit to where he would normally be without holding.