Batter Interference?

[MT 73]

Originally Posted by jmkupka

Let's reduce the judgement factor (which I think is a cop-out to not have to enforce this rule)

Let's say the situation where, like above, the ball goes straight down, and dies in the soft powder, up inside the BB (fair territory). Batter and F2 stand there (they're young, think its foul). You look down, see it's plainly up in the fair corner of the BB. Coach yells "Run!", and she kicks it on the way out.

What's your call gonna be?

It depends.
It would have to be well up in the box for me to deem it a fair ball and if so I would call her out.
But in 15 years of umpiring that has never happened.
What I am referring to is a bang bang contact--batter hits ball, ball then hits batter--or batter runs into the ball - as she is starting to first but has not yet left the box.
In this situation--which has occurred to me dozens of times --I am not going to take a mental yardstick and decide if the ball was in the fair or foul side of the box.
I am killing the action and calling it foul.
This is how I was taught and some of my clinicians have been Major and Minor league umpires--one of whom was Justin Klemm.
And unless softball is radically different in this rule from baseball---which I doubt--then I will stick with their advice.