Obstruction? or out?

[celebur]

Originally Posted by LIBlueASA

It was bothersome to me to think, because the rule states, that we have to "award" her third - when in reality, she merely would have been out by 40 feet instead of 43 feet.

I used to be bothered by this too. . .until I changed my attitude. Rather than thinking of this as an award, think of it as a punishment. Send the runner to 3B as punishment for the defense doing something they weren't supposed to do.

I think you hit it on the head when you said that we have to determine what base she would have reached safely had the obstruction not occurred.

I would, under these circumstances, more than likely call out and state that the obstruction was irrelevant to her making third safely.

Once you admit that there was obstruction, you're inviting a protest if you still call the runner out. Rather than say the obstruction was irrelevant, I think it would be better to say that you saw no obstruction.

[MD Longhorn]

As much as you want to, you can't NOT call this obstruction. F6 simply can't be in the way. Period. Assuming the out was not YET made, you don't know, at the instant of OBS, to certainty that there will be an out. It's not runner's fault F6 got in the way.

If you don't call this and award third, what would you do if runner was a bit closer to third? What if F5 was a little further in? What if F5 stumbled right after the OBS, then barely beats runner, but you didn't call the OBS when it happened?

There's no leeway here. Sometimes we just have to call what we see, regardless of our personal feelings of fairness.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by mbcrowder

If you don't call this and award third, what would you do if runner was a bit closer to third? What if F5 was a little further in? What if F5 stumbled right after the OBS, then barely beats runner, but you didn't call the OBS when it happened?.

If that were the case, this wouldn't be an issue, would it?