OT - baseball question
 

Since a lot of you also work baseball, I thought I'd ask this here instead of going over to that board. This happened yesterday in a HS game. I read about it in this morning's paper.

Two out, runners on 2nd and 3rd. Batter hits a line drive at the 3rd baseman, who was playing deep. The ball hits his glove and rebounds toward the plate. He runs up to get the ball and collides with the runner going from 2nd to 3rd, who is in the baseline. What's the call?

The umpire ruled interference on the fielder and directed the runner who was on 3rd to score and the runner who was on 2nd to move to 3rd. The opposing coach came out to complain and was tossed.

Final score: 1-0!

Was this the correct call or is this one of those "ya had to be there" situations?

I just posted a lengthy essay on obstruction on the baseball forum: the thread title is "Day 2," if you're interested.

The issue on this play is how far F5 misplayed the batted ball. If it's a step or 2, then he should still be protected. Contact with the runner in that case would be interference: dead ball, runner out, BR awarded 1B, and other runners return unless forced to advance.

If he had to move up significantly to field the misplayed ball, then F5 is guilty of obstruction (not interference). It sounds as if this was the ruling.

The correct award is to wait until the end of playing action unless the obstructed runner is put out. At that point award the obstructed runner bases to nullify the act of obstruction, but at least one base beyond the last legally touched base.

Since the play started with R2, R3, it was R2 who was obstructed by F5. At the end of playing action, R2 would be awarded 3B. If F5 picked up the ball and made a play on R2, then you'd kill it immediately and award bases. As I'm envisioning the play, R3 did not need to be awarded home; but if he hadn't scored by the time the play was killed, he would have been forced to advance by the award to R2. And in that case BR would be awarded 1B.

Assuming that the umpire ruled correctly that the fielder was not protected (because the misplayed ball was too far from him), it sounds as if this is all correct.

Lord Byron has nailed it. It sounds like the umpires got the call right, too.

According to the story, the umpire said, "The fielder gets a stop and a dive, and after that, he can't be in the baseline".

Here's the link to the story:

Between second and third, opinions collide - OregonLive.com

I agree with the "stop and a dive," though "step and a reach" is more common parlance. The part in red is wrong: he may not impede the runner after misplaying the ball, whether the fielder is in the "baseline" or anywhere else.