After reading WMB's recent post and some of your replys I was wondering about a "pickle". In a rundown between bases a fielder doesn't have the ball but is blocking the base ,the runner sees she is about to receive the ball so tries to stop and falls down. Easy tag.... Could this be obstruction? Brian

Yes. If the presence of the fielder without the ball caused the runner to react...obstruction

Careful...

If it was "the fielder's presence in the basepath" that caused the runner's reaction, and the fielder did not have the ball, you do, indeed, have obstruction.

The poster described, however, that the runner saw that the fielder was about to receive the ball. This tells me that the runner's reaction was not to the fielder's presence in the basepath, but to the likelihood of her being tagged out if she continued. This is NOT obstruction.

Yes - this means that we have to use judgement to determine the runner's reasons for altering her course. "Oh, no, she's in my way, I have to get around her..." is obstruction. "Oh, no, if I keep going forward, they are going to tag me" is NOT obstruction.

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?!? :D

EXACTLY! The defenses that practice side-stepping immediatley after the throw clearly understand what to do when they are on the other side of the ball (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). If a runner is in a run-down and keys on the thrower who doesn't move to the side, then we are well on our way to OBS.