Bases are loaded, 2 outs. Shortstop is normal position and playing 2 to 3 feet behind the baseline. B1 hits an average groundball back up the middle, which appears to be a base hit. The shortstop miss reads the groundball and breaks up into the baseline. After breaking up into the baseline she then breaks towards the ball which is now up the middle and behind her, but while doing so, the shortstop and R2 runs into each other. You make the call...Is the runner out for interfence because the fielder is breaking towards the ball or is this a no call, or is this a judgement call or is it still consider the fielder is fielding the groundball and the runner must yeild????

Speaking ASA

If there is even a remote chance this fielder has a PLAY on the ball, it is interference. Where and when the fielder breaks is irrelevant. The runner should yield.



[Edited by IRISHMAFIA on Apr 2nd, 2003 at 12:09 PM]

again like most of these situations--
I'd have to be there to see it:
probably interference !
this is where judgement is important-----
you see a play like this and you think to yourself
"that runner prevented the fielder from fielding"
and you call it right away--
if you have any doubt-- let it slide !

No interference
 

Key words here are "behind her". Once the ball has passed a fielder, no interference. We might have obstruction, though. The fielder had opportunity, but blew it. Fielder doesn't have the ball, probably doesn't have a play, and is now in the path of the runner.

I've had that play and similar plays in girls' FP. If F6 still has a chance at the ball, it's interference. The way you described it, though, "appears to be a base hit," <i>then</i> "breaks up into the base line," <i>then</i> ball . . . is now . . . behind her," I suspect F6 has lost her chance at it. However, YHTBT.

Re: No interference
 

Please cite body & rule. It isn't so in ASA. As Grey stated, if the fielder still has the chance to make a play, it is interference.

Don't confuse this with a runner being hit by a batted ball. It isn't the same.

Still no interference
 

If the ball is "up the middle" and F6 comes in on it, and it is past her, I envision the ball to most likely be well behind 2nd, probably on the outfield grass. I'm sorry, but if this assumption is correct, NO INTERFERENCE, ASA or otherwise. I agree, I may have been too general in my statement "past a fielder." To what degree of a chance are you giving this fielder? No way, unless the runners are as slow as molasses, is this fielder now going to have even the slightest chance of making a play, anywhere.

Re: Still no interference
 

Just like you said, as you "envision" the ball.

All I said was that (a) if the player had the possibility of a play on the ball, it is interference and (b) that the ball getting "behind" the fielder was irrelevant to this rule.