Okay.....Runner on 1B. Pitcher pitches the ball inside on the batter. The batter catches the ball and proceeds to throw the ball back to the pitcher. What's the call? Is the batter out for interfering w/ a live ball. Is it a ball since,obviously,it was going to be one anyway being so far inside or is it a strike for interfering? Thanks.

Was there a play? No.

There needs to be a play for there to be "interference with a play."

This is nothing. All he's done is prevent his runner from having a chance to steal (if you're in a league/level that allows it).

mcrowder,what about this.....Rule 7 BATTING Sec 6 The Batter is out when....

P.The batter shall not:
3.Intentionally interfere with a thrown ball,in or out of the batter's box.

EFFECT: The ball is dead,the batter is out and each runner must return to the last base that,in the judgement of the umpire,was touched at the time of interference.

*Would a thrown ball be the same as a pitched ball? If so,wouldn't the batter be declared out?

No, a pitched ball is just that - a pitched ball. That rule refers to a thrown ball, which is a ball thrown for a play (like a pickoff by the catcher, an attempt to throw out a stealing baserunner, or a recovered passed ball being thrown to the plate or another base).

Or a batted ball fielded, and thrown to attempt to retire a batter-runner, a runner, or to keep a runner from advancing.

Bob

Are you playing a leauge that allows stealing? If so I think you have an out. If not it is a dead ball play on.

That has been discussed before, and the overwhelming agreement was that if there was not an imminent play, there was no interference. In slowpitch, I don't believe you could possibly have an imminent play, as the things that have to occur before the runner can run could not have happened yet. In fastpitch, if someone was running, and the batter did this, you could then have interference.

As soon as the ball crosses the front of the plate the runner is released from their base so something has occurred so the runner could steal or step off the base. Could this not prevent the catcher from making a pick off play?

sj - in the situation described by the initial poster, the batter caught the ball. The ball never crossed the front of the plate. I suppose it's conceivable that the batter was set up VERY deep, and caught the ball very close to his body so that the ball barely crossed the front of the plate before it was caught. But surely this is picking nits.

Your dialog leads me to believe that you are motivated to call an out for interference. Not sure I see why. This is relaxed action, and there was no play to be played on. Maybe catching the ball was stupid, and warrants a "Don't Do That", but I can't see why, in the spirit of the rule, any softball organization would want a batter called out for this.

Since most SP leagues I come in contact with do NOT allow stealing, I would not be making any type of call in this situation as it is so common.

However, I have called strikes on pitches caught by the batter that were not close to being "brush-back" and might have had a chance at hitting the corner of the zone. Usually it takes just one of these calls to prevent any further batters acting as catchers.

Funny.
In our forum (italian umpires) we've just discussed about this kind of situation because of this:
http://www.pianorosoftball.it/video/SimoBox.html

... Lots of different thoughts about it. I can tell you some of us agreed with the out. Some others said 'why? Let her do this, it can't cause no harm...' - someone else said 'let's call dead ball and judge the pitch ball/strike' (but how can you tell this if the pitch never reached home plate...?

A.

No I'm not motivated to call the out. I would only call the batter out if it interfered with the catcher making a play on a runner.