Lot's of questions this morning. Thanks for giving me something to do during long Stingray's rain delay!
In the case of the call at home, the home plate umpire made the out call, but the field umpire had called obstruction. After the play at the plate was complete, the field umpire announced his ruling.
That makes a little more sense. When one umpire calls obstruction, the other may not see it, or in some cases may not know to which base the umpire who made the call is protecting the runner. In that case, he should call the play in front of him (the tag out). Then, the other umpire can step in and annouce the obstruction and the base award.
One other thing, and Bret correct me if I'm wrong. You are protected as far as the umpire deems you would have made it w/o the obstruction. So that doesn't give the runner free reign to go as far as she wants. If the umpire feels she would have only made it to 2nd, but she gets throwed out trying to take 3rd she would still be out and not allowed to return to 2nd just because of the obstruction. You are only protected to the base the ump feels you would have reached, which should be unclear till the play has stopped.
Yes, you have it right. An obstructed runner can "overrun" her protection (ie: advance beyond the base the umpire judged she would have reached). Once she does that, she is liable to be put out and the out would stand.
That can be a problem if the base coach tries to "coach the call" instead of coach the play at hand. If he just assumes that the runner will be protected to a further base, then sends her because he thinks he's getting "a freebie", he runs the risk of getting his runner called out.
The best bet for the base coach is to coach the play as if the runner was not obstructed, then trust the umpire to award the appropriate bases after the play ends. I know that some of you might have a problem with "trusting the umpire"!
Another point/situation, ball hit to short CF, girl rounds 1st and gets bumped by first baseman and umpire gives obstruction call, that doesn't mean she should try to take second. If the umpire feels she wouldn't have made it to second regardless of the obstruction, he could call her out.
Bottom line...Obstruction does not equal free bases.
Your last sentence is true, but what you state in the first paragraph isn't. An obstructed runner cannot be tagged out in between the two bases where she was obstructed. If she is obstructed between first and second, goes to second, gets tagged out, but the umpire judges she would not have made second...she should be placed safely back on first.
When the runner is obstructed while rounding a base, it almost always means she was obstructed immediately past that base. In the case of a runner rounding first base...immediately after rounding the base, is she not still on her obstructed basepath? I would consider this as being obstructed between first and second. So the runner cannot be put out between first and second.
I will ask it here so as not to start a new thread...
Force out at home, but neither catcher or runner touch the plate. Umpire sees this and makes no call of safe or out. Player leaves into dead ball territory, then both coaches ask if the runner was safe or out. How should this be handled???
I know that missing of a base is an appeal play. But in this situation opposing coach is not appealing but asking for a safe or out call. How do you answer the question without giving the answer away??? lol
This is a question worthy of it's own thread!
Here is what the umpire manual tells us to do on a play like this. If the catcher missed the plate and the runner missed the plate, we:
- Pause momentarily to see if either player will recognize the miss and attempt another tag or try to re-touch the plate.
- If neither is happening...we are to signal safe! The safe call is the ruling on the tag, which was missed. And this runner IS safe...up until a proper tag or appeal is made.
Now it get's trickier...
This runner may go back and re-touch the plate up until she enters a dead ball area. The runner in your play left the field, so she can no longer correct her base running mistake.
But...for the moment...she's still safe!
If a coach asks me, "Is she out or safe?" (which I would hope they wouldn't be asking me, because I would hope that I had followed the right mechanic and already signalled her safe!), my answer would be, "She's safe". Which is 100% true and the correct answer. That shouldn't tip off either side.
What I WILL NOT say is anything like, "She missed the base", or, "She missed the tag".
I've been in this situation a few times and it can be tricky answering a coach's question without tipping off one side or the other that the base was missed. You don't want to tip off the defense that the base was missed, because you would be essentially handing them a free out (on the appeal). If they want to appeal, you want them to have recognized the missed base on their own.
Same for the offense. You don't want to tip off the runner to go back and touch home, thus denying the defense an an opportunity to get an out.
Any questions short of an actual proper appeal need to be answered as neutrally as possible, so as to not give either side an unintended advantage. Sometimes that's hard to do...and your neutral answers can come off like you're being vague or acting pretty darn stupid!
But the coaches already think we're stupid anyway.
I'll trade off being vague and acting dumb for giving either side an advantage over the other. Players need to recognized missed bases on their own and realize what to do on their own...without any help from the umpires!
