Deflected batted ball interpretation

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by reccer

Yes, F4 had a chance to make an out.

but 8-7 J (4) says runner interference (only if) she intentionally interferes.

I am having trouble getting Blues to accept that the word "intentional" is still part of that particular rule

This argument is part of the problem I foresaw when they insisted on removing the "intentional" wording from the rule.

The argument of the powers-that-be is that just running into the defender attempting to field the deflected batted ball isn't interference unless the umpire judges it to be. Of course, they trust the umpire will take into consideration that the runner may not have been able to avoid getting in the defender's way.

Unfortunately, as we are experiencing in this thread, there is little specific direction in this matter and that only leads to confusion as we now have 42,000 UICs applying their own interpretation.