guinnemick

I am doing a juniors game last night. Runner on third, and a pass ball. the runner comes home from third, at the same time, the catcher throws the ball to the pitcher who was at the plate. The pitcher catches the ball and turns around to tag the runner. The runner comes in, the pitcher applies the tag on the leg, knocking the ball loose. The runner does not slide and comes in standing up. While being tag, the runner clips the pitchers leg and falls over. I called the runner safe. Of course, the coach comes out says the runner can not run into a player at home other than the catcher, and I should have called the runner out and tossed him from the game. I had other umpires in the stands say the same thing, but one was the dad of the pitcher, and the other was his friend. Tell me what you would have called.

Thank you all for your opinions on this situation. As you can see, we all have different interpretations of how this play should have been called. I still say the int should have been called, not only because the batter preveted the catcher from making the play, but the batter also put all 3 parties involved in danger. We, as umpires, need to put the safety of the players above all. Interpretations of the rule all vary, but our goal for safety should not. I appriciate everyone's insights and will come back to this site daily and anytime I have a questionable call. Thank you all again...

The batter can't disapear, but he does have to make an attempt to get out of the way. I could understand if he was offering at the pitch, then not being able to avoid the interference, but in this case, he was a kid who wasn't familar with the game(12yr old, playing in a juniors game) and didn't know what was going on and he just stood there. Doesn't this also become a safety issue. If the catcher would have actually gone hard after the runner, instead of pulling up because of the batter being in the way, the batter might have gotten injured, or could have injured the catcher and the runner. The batter had a chance to avoid the interference by moving out of the box, he had time. BTW, thank you for the welcome statement...

Ok, so my situation is, runner on 3rd, batter in the box. The pitch is made, runner is coming home. Batter stays in the batters box with the bat on his shoulder. He didn't try to make a play on the ball, he just stood there and watched it hit the glove. Catcher comes up to tag the runner out, batter is in the way of the catcher by standing still in the box. What's the call. I said it was batter's interference and he should be out, runner goes back to 3rd. Please help. I would like as many opinions as possible on this.