Question from WCWS

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by Dakota

In NCAA's words, when both the offense and the defense are doing what they legally can and a collision happens. Those codes that removed "about to receive" now require possession to avoid the obstruction call. Not so with NCAA. If you have "about to receive" in play, but the defense does not have possession, and the runner is not illegally "crashing", and there is contact, you merely have a wreck. The term "wreck" (you said you didn't like it...) is actually used in the NCAA Umpire's Manual (at least the one I have a copy of; several years old by now).

I know it's in the book, and I see your point. I'm not saying there's no such thing as TW. Just that a very large majority of the time when an umpire uses the term, they are not, in fact, describing an actual TW - they are missing the call one way or the other.

Regarding ATR - we're taught that ATR means that the fielder can move into the basepath to receive a thrown ball as the ball becomes closer to the fielder than the runner. There is no case where a collision could occur where the fielder is about to receive a ball that is closer to him than the runner - the collision makes that distance zero.

I will say that I omitted a significant TW from my original statement though - that being the batter getting out of the box as the catcher's coming out to field a bunt.