obstruction

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Dateline.. July 4th Disneyland USSSA announced today they are following ASA's lead on cameras being installed on fields for "protestable calls" but added a $500.00 dollar protest fee to their events.

Opened a can of worms , Bill

God knows when USSSA got sued about the bat girl on the field event... we umpires had to buy all new shirts and our fees went up $5.00 dollars to cover their lawsuit costs

Go figure that one out. True story.

 

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Hate his rule. The catcher needs to be in a position to make the catch and tag. There is plenty of plate for the runner to slide/hook slide etc. Agree cacher can't camp out on plate, but 99% of the time there is room for the runner to make a softball slide and get to the corner of the plate. Calling obstruction on the catcher takes away a great play by the catcher and often rewards poor baserunning by the runner. Plays that are bang - bang (catch, tag, etc) are not obstruction. It is when the catcher basically pushes the runner away until the ball gets there. Hardest position to play and the rule penalizes the catcher for doing her job.

 

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... The Buckeye Heat as an organization sends out written materials to its parents setting standards for conduct that are way above any danger of a parent getting tossed. And the Buckeye Heat 95 parents have responded by modifying what was already acceptable fan conduct.

That's great - sounds like your spectators police themselves. Just curious, what are the ramifications for someone violating the code of conduct?

From my experience, rules are only effective if someone backs them up.

- HS program has codes of conduct for players and spectators. Coach explains rules and rationale behind them in preseason meeting and requires everyone sign them. Coach does nothing about people that violate them and conduct gets progressively worse over season until someone gets tossed in final week of season.

- My son played in a high-level week-long 16u baseball tournament in AZ. Coach addresses spectators before 1st game and lays down the law that if anyone says anything to an umpire, he'll bench their player. Parents got really quiet because they knew he was serious and had more than enough players to back it up. It didn't take long for everyone to adjust and we all had a very positive experience.

Spectators can negatively affect a team's chances of winning games, so it is in a team's best interests to keep them from doing so.

 

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SoCal:

To date, each individual team's coaches determine how to enforce the conduct rules. I can only say that for the Buckeye Heat 95 team, we have made it extremely clear that any conduct not conforming with the Buckeye Heat code of fan conduct is very likely to turn off any college coaches viewing the game. And that harassing umpires just shoots ourselves in the foot by getting a coffee can strike zone on defense and by losing most close calls. That seems to have been enough incentive. At the younger ages, the college coaches card is of course not available.

If something were to get out of control, I believe that we would tell the parent to leave the park before any umpire would order the same. And once that were to happen, I'm guessing we would seriously consider the type of rule you described about benching a player if her parent says anything to the umpire. I think as long as the comment is brief and we as coaches tell the parent that the call was correct (which in 80% of the time is true), I would prefer not to invoke the "bench the player" rule. But the conduct of the parents and fans are the ultimate factor in deciding whether the "bench the player" rule or some other serious code of conduct enforcement goes into effect.

 

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it always amazes me. how a play at the plate. can end up like this . start your own thread about your policies. always the same people.

 

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We already answered your question... I thought.

I would have thought you would have known the answer before you asked the question.

 

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I think he just enjoys being an @$$. He certainly does a good job of it.

 

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It isn't like it hasn't been asked for the past three years on the OFC

 

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At NSA states 12u. Runner trying to score from 3rd.Ball, catcher, runner all at the plate at the some time. Catcher holds on makes tag. girl never made it to the plate. Great play by the catcher. runner out. Wait, runner safe. obstruction by the catcher. (ch)ump says you can't block plate without the ball. you make the call.

Okay, I'll confine my answers to the first post, lest I invoke the wrath of "the clue"...

You didn't provide enough information to "make the call".

Questions: Prior to the catcher gaining possession of the ball, did the catcher blocking the plate cause the runner to in any way alter her path to the base? Did the runner have to slow down? Did she have to attempt to go around the catcher? Did the catcher contact the runner?

Answer us that and we might at least be able to give you an opinion (though it will be an opinion based on second-hand information from someone who obviously has an emotional bias in the outcome of the call).

Just going on what you did tell us, the explanation you got was only half-right. Contrary to what most people think, it IS NOT illegal for a fielder to block a base. Obstruction requires TWO elements. The first one is for the fielder to block a base without possession of the ball. The second element is for the runner to actually be impeded in some way. You need BOTH elements for an obstruction call.

It is entirely possible for a fielder to be blocking a base without the ball, but for the runner to never slow down, go around or otherwise deviate from her chosen path to the base. In that case, then the runner was not obstructed.

So...did the runner have to alter her basepath BEFORE the catcher had the ball? Then I would call this obstruction.

If the runner did not have to alter her basepath, I would not have obstruction- no matter where the catcher was set up.