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Interested after you've seen the play. As you said this is a standard no call in MLB. Would you call this in HS? For everyone's reference: OBR Rule 5.09(b)(3) A preceding runner shall, in the umpire’s judgment, intentionally interfere with a fielder who is attempting to catch a thrown ball or to throw a ball in an attempt to complete any play

Haven't seen it but you and another have described it to me. As described I would have INT but have seen many MLB plays where MLB umps do not call INT as the runner is allowed to make his own basepath. Runner interference with a throw has to be intentional which as described seems to be the case. Maybe they want some hands in the air to judge intent. MLB umps do not seem to call that and the defense did not seem to object as described to me. They probably did not object because the know how MLB umps call it in contravention to the rule, of course, judging no intent can be their out.

Did you see Manny Machado taking an inside line on his way to second? Going from the dirt and direct to 2nd to running with both feet on the infield grass and getting hit on the shoulder with the throw from the first baseman. Where’s the interference? Should have gotten two outs there.

Had a pair of DaviShins since I started (well, since I upgraded from catcher's shinguards and moved into the world of "real" umpiring). I love the simplistic design (two straps, not a ton of "moving pieces") and the lower profile. I figured the notch-and-tab "hooks" would be the fail-point when they finally gave out. Roughly 15 years later and nothing has given out. Never took any hits that concerned me. The couple of times I wore the F3s, they were light and comfortable. I admit I missed the feel of the simple elegance of the DaviShins, though. The F3s were fine, but I felt more "suited up" like Iron Man than James Bond.

Since @MadMax did such a great job providing an analytic view (as he seems to always do), I'll just provide my opinion. My first mask I bought (side note: I got into umpiring by getting an equipment scholarship from Battlefields2Ballfields--a great veteran-focused non-profit) was the V1 Defender. I liked it. A lot. I blame on @tpatience my penchant for light masks--it was from him I bought my first Ti mask and was spoiled because of its light weight. Then a peer got the AS Mag and while I was originally put off by its appearance, the featherweight (relatively speaking) nature of the mask wore me down, and when I got it powdercoated it became my favorite mask. And the V1 Defender? You never forget your first love, but I ended up selling it.

☝️This, this right here.

Believe me, the last thing I think is they are lazy. It's situational and it has a time and place (until at least receiving becomes moot). It has a purpose. What I'm seeing are catchers who don't understand the purpose, and who are putting the knee down in scenarios where not only is the purpose not served, they are elevating the risk of a negative outcome for their team. You don't go OKD with the winning run on third when your closer has a swing/miss sweeper/slider/curve. You CAN go OKD if your closer paints the black with a 101 mph fastball, and is not at risk of overthrowing a slider. Your graph doesn't really demonstrate anything, except that as a whole WP's/PB's seem to have dropped. That can be attributed to many different things. Until you can demonstrate the data of one stance vs the other we have just our anecdotal and observational evidence. When the knee is down you're, to some degree, anchored...you will have a significantly more difficult time moving in that direction to block a pitch. It may or may not make any difference to pitches straight in front of you (though in my experience it is harder to lean forward and over the ball) and may or may not have a lesser impact on your ability to move to the opposite side of your knee down, but the ability to move laterally to the side where your knee down is self evident. Yes...I've caught...and I've down the knee down. It's great when the pitcher hits his spots. If this is something that gets resolved consistently in under 5 seconds, I can see a high limit in MLB...not unlimited, but I could see a high number of challenges if they continue to be right...but, yes, capping the wrong challenges in some way. The game gets along perfectly fine with unlimited check swing appeals...even when wrong...I don't see this being too far off that path.

Above are some stats that would challenge the perception that OKD is causing more PB. I will I am a bit biased on the OKD stance (think of all the Thighs that need PRO tection). My instincts as well as my DMs from guys complaining about "lazy" catchers are guys that caught in HS/college in the 80s and their knees are shot from it, so they think OKD is being lazy. It is not lazy, it is evolution. Guys knees are saved. Strikes are "stolen". Yes, balls are blocked. We are shown on X, IG, FB all of the passed balls in the OKD stance, but are rarely shown the PB from the traditional stance. (IE the Pads). This may/may not be fully correct. I worked the Pioneer League this past summer and teams were limited to a maximum of 6 total challenges per game, and once they got 3 incorrect, they were out of challenges. Let me tell you, when the pitcher challenged 2 pitches and got them both wrong, the hitters were NOT happy. The catchers still used OKD regardless of how many challenges they had left. I do not see MLB/NCAA allowing unlimited challenges. Just my $0.02

They didn't do it every pitch. They did it selectively when it made sense. They didn't do it with the go ahead run on third base. Even Santiago who had as good an arm there ever was, and really revolutionized throwing out runners from his knees, was typically not OKD on those particular plays. It's even to the point now where OKD catchers don't even know why they're doing it. If your pitcher has a hard breaking ball that is looking for swing and miss, you don't go one knee down. The knee down is to better receive low strikes, and turn them into balls. Precision pitchers need OKD to get more called strikes. Swing and miss pitchers don't need low strikes stolen...but they do need U3K's blocked. Your point? Yes, sometimes catchers miss. That's been true for as long as the game has had catchers. It's not a binary outcome, it's about percentages. A traditional stance catcher will block pitches in the dirt, especially those that are left or right, far far more than OKD catchers will, simply because the difference in lateral mobility is significant. It most certainly is - as soon as ball/strike challenges are part of MLB - likely not 2025, but almost certainly 2026 - framing/receiving will become a less important aspect of the game. Once ball/strike challenges become the norm there, MiLB and NCAA there won't be a lot of point developing the receiving/framing. Fooling the ump will be a waste of time. It may be fun at the amateur levels, but will matter significantly less in the highest levels. No different than infielders who no longer swipe and sell the tag...they hold the tag because replay review incentivizes it. Catchers will evolve again to focus on popup time for steals/picks, and blocking...both of which are sacrificed by OKD.

Guys from my church play in a local church league. No beer, of course!

I read this in the old guy voice shouting "get off of my lawn" (sorry @beerguy55) The amount of hate that OKD gets is unreal. Lets think back to the 80s.. Tony Pena- OKD guy (MLB Debut 1980) Terry Stienbach- OKD guy (MLB Debut 1986) Benito Santiago- OKD guy (MLB Debut 1986) The list goes on. Did you happen to see the Pads game the other night? Yup. a pitch that "should" have been caught missed and went to the backstop with runners on. Guy was in the "traditional" stance. Catching has evolved. We as umpires need to evolve with it. Stay on top of the latest trends in catching. OKD isnt going anywhere, anytime soon.

Interestingly enough, I have gotten tix this way, so I'm saying there's a chance..........................

I use and recommend the F3. These are the best shins I've had since UmpShins. UmpShins are no longer made (15-20 yrs ago?), but the closest thing to them are the Davis UmpShins. Ump shins being the lightest thing I could find, but just a bit to big/bulky on the knee cap for my liking.

I don't understand this shinguard thing. Bought some Konigs K whatevers in 2006. Have taken 80 to 90 hits off them and never felt a thing. They have saved a few runs due to WP PB.

Have taken 90 mph+ foul balls to the all star mag and my confidence in it is 99/100. Wilson is a great mask and I would wear it, but once I put that AllStar on, I was hooked. I have just grown to prefer the Mag and don't have the room here for 4 masks (and 3 CP, and ..........)

It’s a myth.

I won’t jump on you for that @MadMax … I’ll jump on Force 3 because I still do not have any shinguards. Sent them in about a month and a half ago. Honestly forgot until you posted that, since I only wore them a handful of times and sold my F3 CP shortly after. Just shot off another e-mail …

In Omaha...what @beerguy55 says is 100% true.

I call that EvoShield ProSRZ mask "the goblin". It is a hideous mask, lookin' very feral. The reason for the rust? It's untreated steel. If they claim it's paint, they're lyin'. Someone at EvoShield got paid (a few yuan, granted) to press the button on the paint gun, regardless of any paint actually coming out and coating the frame. But hey!... it's got that EvoShield logo on it, and the MLB Lou Gehrig on it, which is B-I-G for credibility swag factor. Supposedly, there's a titanium-framed ProSRZ (maybe it's the "Pro-" part) on the market, but I have yet to see it. I've seen plenty of EvoShield sponsored amateur catchers wearing the shins, the CP (which are both rather good), and with a goblin's face leering back at me. Hideous savage. You're going to get that with any of the 2 – someday soon, 3 – magnesium frames on the market. Magnesium is the mythical silver bullet for mask frames – it's light, it doesn't bend, and it doesn't break (unless under extreme stress). There are two paths, or avenues, to solving the "mask problem" – geometric or mechanical. Force3 has gone mechanical; it's a valid avenue, but it's hit a cul-de-sac, hindered by cost. The only way – the only way – to support the springs suspension is to house them in steel, and to weld them to the steel subframe. It cannot feasibly be done any other way. The only thing that can be lightened is the outer frame, perhaps being titanium. It cannot be aluminum, because aluminum won't deform enough so as to activate the springs, and all the stress will be on the aluminum frame at the point where it fastens to the spring assemblies. If carbon fiber was to be considered, we're now talking engineering processes and software that rival the labors of supercar manufacturers. Again, the Force3 Defender is a great mask, and is the co- "best" mask on the market... which it shares... with... All-Star. All-Star has gone all-in on a geometric solution. They started to do this with the FM1000 and FM2000, and culminated in the FM4000 (I don't know what happened to the 3000), increasing the slant and vectoring with each rendition. Instead of the mask frame absorbing the assailing impact, their frame deflects it into a glancing, ricocheting shot. The actual alloy cocktail of magnesium can be adjusted now so as to allow the frame to dampen – metallurgically – the impact energy, further reducing it as it is transferred to the pads... which @SeeingEyeDog pointed out, possess that hard distributor plate. To answer Dawg's rhetorical musing, the reason other companies don't infuse a distributor plate into their mask pads is because they "drunk the yelloW kool-aid", and fell in with the cult of Professional decree that "you must change your mask pads annually". Why on Earth would you ever put more cost of materials into something that you have to change yearly anyway?? The Rampage was another prototype planform that was, as far as I can surmise, a technical exercise. The FM4000 has its own challenge – due to the extreme sloped shaping of the forehead section, the mask cannot be molded in one go; it has to be two separate halves. So, at the ear guards, there are correlating wedges of steel inserted in promptly after the mold is filled, and the two halves are welded together at those two points. The Rampage, by contrast, is molded in one shot. Well, instead of shelving or discarding the mold, a production run of them was made, and Champro brought it to (the USA) market. Other companies have since picked up production batches of this frame, but they all suffer from the same shortcoming – pads. It's the pads, pads, pads... that make all the difference. Derek's right, to an extent. Windpact is merely the company that developed the technology, which they dubbed "CrashCloud". It's an air bladder, comprised of a membrane that holds air molecules at an ever-so-slightly different PSI than the outside air. When an impact compresses the bladder, the membrane allows the air to escape the bladder with resistance; at the same time (we're talking nanoseconds), a fill valve is inletting air in to force the bladder to re-inflate (I might have this inverted; if I do, I'll correct it later). Think of it like an airbag in your car, but on your face; or a whoopie cushion, without the... flatulent sound. Air has a decided advantage in these protective systems because its mass is negligible. Open cell foam has very weak compression... unless you have more mass. Closed cell foam has very hard compression... but the mass of it increases as you increase the volume. With CrashCloud, because you can securely hold–then flush–then refill (big) air cells, you don't need closed cell foam's structure, nor do you need all that much open cell foam; just enough to fit to and contact your face in crucial spots.

I agree. And the player didn't react in any way that indicated that he felt the fan interfered. That, to me, is the clearest evidence that this was just nothing.

That's my point...it hit the screen OR the player. You're guessing. On video replay review. With slow motion and zoom. And if it hit the player...that means it didn't hit the fan. Did the fan cause it to hit the player. Did the fan cause the player to miss. I know you don't need contact to have hindrance but typically fan interference does mean, if not explicitly in the rule but at least by anecdotal practice, that the fan has touched the ball or the player to prevent the catch. We have the fan reaching into the field and we have the player missing the ball. We don't have the fan contacting the player or ball. And we are not clear on whether or not the fan pushing the screen out 2-3 feet caused the ball to hit the screen. It's not even clear if the fan's arm caused the player to alter his path. This is interference by rule if we determine hindrance (ie. the fan's hand is over the field...doesn't matter if he's inside the screen)...but I just don't see anything definitive to show hindrance.

I always seem to have a terrible time unhooking these, but I've never been great unhooking bras, so...

Nonsense! These little babies – https://a.co/d/al4W5fc ... make a helluva lot more sense than T-hooks, which corrode (cuz they're cheap steel) or cut your (ever more expensive by the year/month/week/day) shirts when you get hit, or SR buckles, which are plastic and prone to breaking. The particular ones I pointed towards are aluminum, with no "moving" parts. Just slide the hook – mounted on the harness strap – thru the (leftover) loop on the CP (where the female end of the SR buckle was), and you're hooked. I've got photos. I just replaced my custom-fitted SR buckles last week, all set for 3 weeks in the desert. Should have put these G-hooks in a long time ago. My CP actually fits better than ever.