Interference - Did I Get It Right?
 

ISF Rules, Adult Rec Tournament this weekend.

Situation: No Outs, runners on first & second.

Ground ball to F6. Lobs to F5. Out at third. Ball was caught with R1 about 10 feet from 3B. R1 made no attempt to slide to beat the throw. After out was made, R1 collides with F5, but not so much as to knock F5 down, just stumble a couple steps back. R1 stumbles over into FT as well. I don't think for a second that runner was attempting to knock over F5, just didn't bother sliding or getting out of the way.

I call dead ball, and call R2 out. The rules state if the interference is an obvious attempt to break up a double play, the immediate succeeding runner will be called out. The conflicting argument I was replaying in my mind shortly after is no, this was not an obvious attempt, but F5 never had the chance to even cock his arm back. Based on how these fielders were playing in this particular game, and given R2's speed, and given F4 was already waiting at 2B for the double play, I surmised F5 would have had no problem turning a double play given the opportunity.

So my question is, despite the runner not making an obvious attempt to take out F5, did I make the right call?

Runner is not required to slide or get out of the way



Okay, you judged the contact as an act of INT. Not a problem. As noted, not required to slide or get out of the way, but that does not mean the runner has the right of way to interfere with the play.

That's why we get paid the big $$, to make those decisions. It is a judgement call. Situations like that point out why experience is important. The more you see, the greater the likelihood you will make a correct call or no call.

Any time the rules allows you to get two outs you have to get them, :D.

MTD, Sr.

Meh...in a timed tourney game, does it matter? This was an efficient game, to be honest. No new after 50, game at 60. They managed to play 5 full in 55 minutes.

Quite a difference from some of the rec-level women's games. One took the full hour to play 2 innings, I called it for time. Between both teams, maybe 35 walks. I was looking for any way to get outs that I can. Most of the walks were due to illegal pitches (slow pitch, so none of them were clearing 6 ft). Anything even close to the strike zone was a strike and any fly ball hit over head height was an infield fly.

I don't know ISF rules, but why go with the "obvious attempt to break up a double play" rule on this one? Isn't there an ISF rule on interference by a retired runner, like there is in most other sanctioning rule sets? In ASA, it's rule 8-7P, and the out would be called on the runner closest to home, so you'd get the same result without having to consider the "obvious attempt" criterion.

I agree with Manny.

"Obvious attempt to break up a double play" is one way an out for interference could happen. But certainly not the only one.

Since you judged that the retired runner's actions did, in fact, interfere with defense's ability to make another play, they interfered.

Having looked a bit further down the rule book i did end up finding--

ISF 8.9.o: Runner is out when, after a runner...has been declared out...the runner...interferes with a defensive player's opportunity to make a play on another runner.

Guess I still need a few years before everything gets committed to memory. You learn these things and pass the test and simply hope that you can keep it in the back of your mind for a long time until you need to use it.

So is the penalty in ISF that the runner being played on is out, or is it the runner closest to home?

In this case, the runner was already out because the throw to third beat him.

If it was say, the runner avoiding a tag by grabbing the fielders glove and smacking the ball out, then both would be out, one on the interference and the other on the break-up of a double play.

Interestingly enough, the wording for this type of interference to break up a double play says "the immediate successive runner is also out". This contrasts to the wording of interference where a third base coach runs down the line to draw a throw to home. The wording for that says "the runner closest to home is out". Presumably because there can be no "successive" runner behind a base coach...