interference question

[mcrowder]

Originally Posted by MJT

So if you were in this situation and you have to either award 2 bases, or an out, BOTH have a big impact on the inning, you are not going to lean towards not rewarding the team that was "in the way." As I stated above caseplay 7.4.4 gives us some guidelines to follow, which does say to use the batters box as a one of these guidelines.

I think that once an umpire starts looking at things in terms of how important a situation is or who gets rewarded and whether that team deserves to be rewarded ... or thinking about whether the results of a play/decision are FAIR - we start getting ourselves into trouble.

Rule on what you SEE ... don't concern yourself with importance of a situation, or whether a "reward" is fair or deserved. Just decide, simply (in this case) - did the batter interfere with a play? From what you say, sounds like a yes to me. Then implement the penalty.