I'd never had to call this before...
 

I was working the plate in a girls' novice game this past Saturday and I had a new call--at least it was new for me.

Runner on third base. Nobody out. Batter hits a ground ball to the shortstop. The shortstop fields the ball and makes a bad throw to the plate to try to stop the runner from scoring. The ball get by the catcher and rolls toward's the offensive team's bench. The catcher goes to pick up the ball to stop the batter-runner from advancing to second base. However, the runner who has already scored, heads toward her bench, stops in front of the loose ball, and attempts to kick it! She missed the ball, but her kicking action clearly impeded the catcher from playing it. I called time and ruled interference. I allowed the run to score, but called the batter-runner out for her teammate's interference. Amazingly, no one argued the call. (According to Softball Canada rule 8-9 (m) the call was correct.)

I've never before had a runner who has scored deliberately interfere with a play. There's something new every year!

I had my first...

play with 2 runners on one base where the defense touched the leading runner ONLY, and then had the trailing runner return to her bag only to be caught in a rundown allowing the lead runner to advance. Did I mention this was NPF where you would think players might know what to do... always expect the unexpected!!!