Last tournament of the summer.

[BretMan]

Originally Posted by tcannizzo

Now, I don't know if I saw anything that the INT was really intentional, but I would have called INT also. And I would have ruled B out also because there was an "opportunity" to make a DP.

So, my question is why do we still have "intent" with certain forms of INT?

Since this was a deflected ball, you can't rule interference unless you judge whatever the runner did to be intentional. Since you say it didn't appear intentional...no interference. (8-7-J(4)).

You need more than "an opportunity" for a possible double play. You need to judge that whatever the runner did was an actual part of an intentional effort to prevent a double play. Again, you said you didn't see anything intentional...(8-7-J(3) "EFFECT").

Why is "intent" still in some rules, even after it was removed from others? I think that it is because the removal of "intent" from some rules was more of an editorial change than an actual rule change, or change to how we actually umpire these calls. The removal of "intent" seemed to be a concession to those that argue "we can't be mind readers" and thus could never possibly know a player's true "intent". It got removed from a couple of the rules that come up most frequently and cause the most controversy (like "intentionally" interfering with a thrown ball) but didn't get removed from others just because those others come up less frequently and probably weren't the focus of the discussions.

It's common for people to say, "They removed "intent" from the rules a few years ago". But they actually removed "intent" from just a couple of rules. There are plenty more that mention intent that were never touched!