Bat Hits Ball - NFHS

[DaveASA/FED]

Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

Irish:

I know that you are applying the rules as written, but I am going to play Devil's Advocate here and look at this play from a different point of view. The Batter had received four balls and was "awarded" 1B. More importantly, why is the ball rolling around up the 3B line? F2 didn't do her job in catching the pitch. The Batter/Runner may be "required" to may a better toss of her bat to the On-Deck Batter, but if F2 had done her job of catching the pitch then we would not be having this discussion.

MTD, Sr.

I understand your point but being awarded a base does not give runners or batter-runners the ability to do anything they want. If I have obstruction at 1B and am going to award that runner 2B but they come plowing into the 2B person trying to apply a tag I can still have interference and that runner will be out, right? A runner or BR still has responsibilities for their actions and the rules give us the desired consequences if they perform such actions.


Now this is a HTBT play, and as Irish says you could have INT on this play if there was a play to be interfered with. Personally, I would envision that most of the time I would call "Time" a prevent anything from happening after there was contact with the bat and ball. Again, if the play had R1 on their way and F2 was working hard to get the ball and make a play when it went flying away from them due to the bat being thrown....I could see calling INT.