question 7

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Tru_in_Blu

"the base the runner would have reached" is purely umpire judgement. Different umpires might rule differently. Sometimes a partner helps, but the judgement should be made at the point of the OBS, not however the events play out.

The runner was already well on the way to the next base We don't know when the OBS occurred. It could have been 6 feet from second base as F6 was in a cutoff position for a throw from right field.

it looks like the runner was committed and had no chance to go back to the previous base safely even if force had not been an issue. Based on the above, we don't know that. The only time I've found reference to a baserunner being "committed" is in regards to the Look Back rule. Bumping into F6 10 feet from second base would certainly give the runner an opportunity to retreat to second base.

say the runner had already started sliding when the obstruction occurred. If we're assuming the runner was sliding into third base, it's unlikely that F6 would be the offending obstructionist. In that case, F5 may have been blocking the base without the ball. But it is F6 who was called for OBS.

None of this gets at what I'm asking: Is "the base the runner would have reached" a bit of rule book jargon that includes the possibility that the runner had already reached it safely at the time of the obstruction? That is, is a runner who's obstructed while advancing toward a base and judged to have not been able to reach that base safely ever sent back to the previous base, or do the words "reached" or "obtained" limit the possible award only to the context of advancing, rather than looking backward to the runner's status before the play with the obstruction occurred?