That is not what I am saying at all....I am using that rule to address this one specific situation.

Letting a fielder with the ball intentionally trip a runner to make it easier to get an out is not, in my opinion, something the rule makers intended.

One could argue that in the situation I presented, there was intent. That is, the fielder intentionally placed her leg in front of the runner, and the runner tripped over it. Her intent was not to trip the runner directly, but her intentional act did trip the runner.

I would have ruled the same way on this. In this situation there was no intent to displace the runner from the base she had legally attained, but the defense did cause the runner to come off of the base. I am not penalizing the offense for a play in which they did what they should have done. I am not penalizing the defense for hustling to make a play either. Neither team is disadvantaged by ruling exactly what happened, the runner reached the base and was forced off the base she legally attained.

I did come very close to tossing a couple players last season over a similar call (men's SP, ASA rules). R1 on first, Be hits a single to right. Right fielder throws a shot to F5 covering 3b. The throw is slightly short, so the fielder has to step into the infield a couple steps. He catches it, and attempts to step back towards third base. The runner comes in, does a half-slide and pops up. As he pops up, his momentum carries him off the base. I call him out for coming off the base. The offensive comes unglued. The runner and the coach nearly get tossed arguing the call. I ruled the runners momentum, not the actions of the fielder caused the out.

An inning later, the wife of one of the players (someone I've known for years), comes over and tells me why they were so upset. Apparently the teams played the previous week and the defensive team was pushing players off the bases regularly on close tag plays. The arguing carried over from the previous weeks lack of calls by the umpire (this league uses a 1 man crew) for pushing players off the base on tag plays.

So a fielder with possession of the ball cannot slide in front of an advancing runner to keep her from touching the base until after the tag is applied?

The reason I asked the rule set is because ISF does have an allowance for a defender with the ball, but not making a play on the runner to be called for OBS. Rare, but I guess somewhere along the way something happened to cause that rule to exist.

If it wasn't intentional, IMO, the call would be out. I do, however, find it strange that F3 was reaching for a base that was so far away that a felled advancing runner was still short of the base.

Recalibrating for level of play... ;)

Had something kind of similar happen the other night. 18U using ASA rules. R1 on 2nd, left handed batter. F5 is well off the line and fields a ground ball. Reaching for a tag she had put the ball in her throwing hand, but reaching with her glove hand, slowing up/obviously impedes the runner, and then reaching back with the ball to tag R1 in the back.

Had F5 not hooked R1 with the glove (non-ball) hand, she would have safely reached 3rd. I (BU) called the runner out on the tag. OC came out to ask about obstruction. As I've said before I am an ex-(licensed) umpire who did NFHS/NCAA with my last test about 5 years ago, but get called upon when necessary.

THe PU is an ASA umpire so I brought him into the conversation. I had a hard time calling obstuction on the player with the ball, but he told me to call it OBS, so I did.

This was in the top of the 1st. It took 45 minutes to get 3 outs(including a step-off for the 2nd out, but coach wouldn't give us the 3rd).Final score 31-0. I told PU we could have used that out back in the 1st.

You CANNOT call obstruction on a fielder that has the ball.

Whether you can, or should, in this case use rule 10 to rule on a situation not covered in the rulebook (a situation which seems to me to be something that could easily be foreseen by the rulesmakers and thus would be in the rulebook if they wanted it to be against the rules ...) is the issue at hand.

The rule book is clear that obstruction can only be called on a fielder who is not in possession of the ball (ISF excepted) who is impeding the progress of the runner.

Putting it another way, impeding the progress of the runner is in the "job description" of a defensive player with the ball.

But, does this legal impeding include grabbing, hooking, tripping, or tackling and THEN making the play on the runner?

I have a hard time with that being the situation intended to be covered by the obstruction rule, but short of using 10-1, it would seem an out is the only call supported by the book.