Did I blow the rule?

[AtlUmpSteve]

This may not translate well to Italian, but ...

Think of it as similar to adding a civil rights violation to a murder case; the murder deprived the victim of his civil right to life, freedom of choice, etc.. Not exactly what a civil rights violation is intended to cover, but it is used to be sure to penalize murderers sufficiently.

Now, we have a flagrant misconduct violation by a runner; we are tacking on an interference call to call the runner out in addition to the ejection, using a theory that the flagrant collision kept the first baseman from making a play later in the sequence (maybe as the cut-off, whatever) because she was taken out of the play. Sure, the interference call is flimsy by itself, but it is tacked on to get the "out" in addition to ejection, because the ejection alone may be insufficient deterrent to stop that type of flagrant play.

This is intended as a matter of philosophy and policy, more than black letter law.