Oh what ASA has wrought

[bkbjones]

I respectfully disagree that ASA is the cause of this...and it's not really theirs to fix.

IF umpires had consistently called obstruction under the previous rules when it should have been called, I doubt we would have seen the rule rewritten. Too many folks were disregarding any possible obstruction if the ball were, say, over dirt somewhere between the outfield and the dish.

I recall seeing something of a "tsk tsk" in the NCAA manual about how umpires needed to be calling the rule as it's written before the coaches, er, rules committee does something drastic like the ASA rule.