Obstruction / Malicious Contact

[mcrowder]

I called her out and ejected for malicious contact. She didn't lower her shoulder, but from what I saw (I was watching runner and pitcher, not the ball), she had time to avoid.

Coach claims she was watching the ball and didn't see the pitcher until it was too late to avoid. And with the pitcher that far up the line it was certainly to early to slide and still make it to the base. I settled him down with "MUST SLIDE OR AVOID" - she failed to do either. I also told him if she'd made ANY effort to get around the pitcher, I'd have called obstruction.

This was a strange game. We had the first ejection of the year, the first obstruction call of the year (same pitcher), the first interference call of the year (R2 collided with SS making a play with bases loaded) for this agegroup (this group's 4th or 5th game) and a girl called out for throwing her bat - and they were all called against the same team. This same team won, by run rule. Coach (I've known for a few years) was civil throughout all the calls, mostly getting on his players for them. Also had a ground ball that went about 3 inches in front of the plate and stopped in the soft sand where no one ran. Catcher picked up the ball and accidentally tagged the runner. Again - "against" the same team.