Batter Interference?

[Mountaincoach]

Originally Posted by MT 73

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.

Originally Posted by MT 73

Horsecrap.
A ball can be fair by 6 feet but if the umpire calls it foul then it is foul.
And if I say the ball was on the foul part of the box then good luck protesting that.

So basically you are the umpire I encountered on Saturday. You know the rule, but you've decided to call that a foul for the rest of your career? That's basically what you're saying.