by softballfan33 » Mon Apr 15, 2013 2:24 pm
Along these same lines, have the umpires been instructed to be more "vigilent" of this type of thing this year? Sort of the same as a few years ago with the illegal pitches and the out of the box on a slap?
I have seen more interference calls in last weekends tournament than in my memory of my DD playing TB. Runners running from 1st to 2nd or 2nd to 3rd, 10 ft in front of the second baseman or shortstop (who is playing deep, basically in the grass for one reason or another), where the fielder cleanly fields the ball and throws out the kid at first but they call a dead ball, lead runner out, and leave batted runner on first. Saw this 3 times this last weekend at one tournament and not the same umpire either. The runner was not touched by the ball so this is not the rule in effect.
Even the defensive coach was trying to figure out what was going on...
One game in particular we were behind the dugout getting ready for our game and I heard coach tell asst coach in dugout that he called interference on the runner for obstructing the fielder. I was surprised since the fielder had no problems receiving the ball and throwing out the kid at first. 14U ASA was the rule set.
I have heard that sometimes there is a push to "clean up" bad activities that have gotten out of hand or teams are pushing the limits of. I was just wondering if this was one. I know that many times you see kids hesitate and slow down before reaching a fielder or even jump over a ball heading to the next base, my DD has done this and had it done to her and as long as there was no contact, we always considered it no foul, both ways....