pickle .. Obs ?

[Andy]

Originally posted by tcannizzo
Coaches have been known to teach their runners to run in the direction of the player who just threw the ball. The defenseive player will be in the runner's base path and will be subject to an OBS. Runners who practice this skill can do a good job of concealing their deliberate attempt to draw the OBS.

I had a conversation with Emily Alexander about this very tactic earlier this week.

Runners cannot run into a fielder to "draw" an obstruction call. In a rundown, if a fielder throws the ball and then moves to one side of the basepath or the other and the runner then purposefully alters her path to run into the fielder, you do not have obstruction. On the other hand, if the fielder throws the ball in a rundown and doesn't move from the runners basepath and the runner collides with her, now you do have obstruction.

This particular facet of obstruction requires BIG TIME judgement, but, hey, that's why we get the big bucks, right?!?