RBIbaseball

I fear the worst. I wish we had some sort of point of contact outside of his forum username. I'll hold out hopes that either someone does or he is still around to say so.

Anyone know the health or wellbeing of Senor Azul? I tried to search the forums and I don't see any mention of his whereabouts. I first started lurking this site in 2017, and his presence and dedication to rules citations were always a highlight of this community. When I think of umpire-empire, his name comes to the forefront of my mind. I've missed his presence and it looks like his last post was may of 2024. According to his profile he's out of the San francisco bay area and was born in '47. Did/does anyone know him personally?

Yes the run scores. The "tag up" appeal at 2B is not a "force out". No runner was forced to advance. It's a time play.

I mean we don't know what we don't know, as far as what they hid about the severity of his gambling. However, some of those conditions had nothing to do with baseball or gambling. MLB commish seemed to just be on a power trip just as much as wanting him to "be a better person". It was a carrot they intentionally made impossible to get and seemed willing to move how far it was dangling in front of his face. That being said, I won't say whether I think he should be reinstated or not (cause I've always had mixed feelings), but I do agree that if MLB was going to clear his name they should have done it before he died... And definitely not a few months after. It's like the most disrespectful slap in the face with this timing... Just pissing on his grave. And to me is further evidence that the carrot they dangled was not in good faith.

Where do I get access to the fed umpire manual

Yep that's the exact play I'm thinking of. Thanks for the reminder. He kills it on type 1, as prescribed by rule. He treats type 2 the same as NFHS, meaning delayed dead ball BUT he kills it at any point a play is made on the previously obstructed runner (if he's still protected to next base) Hopefully I said that right

To anyone following the discussion, I asked a friend of mine who does both NFHS and recently started doing some D1 level. Anyways, he didn't seem to think that it's anything but an immediate dead ball upon tag of R1 coming into 3B. When I continued to argue, he used rule 6-1-3 to justify calling time. Essentially, his point being when he is tagged you are making an award, therefore must call time. I pointed out it says "when time is taken" and illudes to the time "when obstruction occurs", not later on during continuation of play. Seems kind of like a chicken or the egg type of thing. However, it's something. And after all the discussion, I'm leaning toward killing it, even at NFHS level where I ump... Would y'all say I'm outright wrong if I did? It seems like a lot less chance of a big kerfuffle by killing it.

Ya I remember seeing something similar last year in MLB, and the BU wasn't allowed to retroactively get it. It's what made me think of it. Could be conflating two things tho, I don't remember for sure. Either way it's a funny thought.

Just to be clear . If it's a bang bang play and you have them safe regardless, then you just call safe and let it ride If it's bang bang but you have an out, then you SHOULD kill it, then place B/R Edit: which got me thinking, at levels with replay you could really screw yourself by calling safe on a bang/bang without killing it to award on obstruction. If it was to be overturned, you now how to retroactively try to say he gets it anyway on obstruction... Which I think is a no-no Edit: or the ULTIMATE SH*# show ... You call safe on a bang bang, then F5 throws back to 2B and they tag B/R out. On replay they call R1 out ... Then you retroactively safe he was protected, and therefore you also try to place B/R back at 1B, negating 2 outs ROFL Note to self. If it's close, kill it, and award.

Holy cow Seems as though my confusion on how to handle this was warranted. My instinct leaned toward an immediate and emphatic "safe on obstruction" verbal. Pointing at the runner than at 3rd could be a good combination... and let play continue However , it would probably avoid a lot of headache to handle it like MLB/NCAA suggests and immediately kill it, award 3B, then award B/R either 1B or 2B depending on judgement. (I can't tell whether you smart folks came to a consensus on whether this is explicitly not correct in NFHS) But if I did do that, I'd lean toward awarding 1B, because if the obstruction hadn't occured, most likely that throw gets cut off, or F5 ignores the tag and fires back to 2B if necessary Also, offense is happy they get 3B, and you throw defense a bone holding B/R at 1B, lol

Asking for NFHS Let's say R1 is obstructed on his way to 2B and you judge he is protected to 3B based on a ball hit to F9 and watching the play unfold. Subsequent throw to 3B is in time and R1 is tagged out. In the meantime B/R is halfway to 2B. We've already given and verbalized obstruction on the initial hindrance, but how do we rectify the fact that there is another play to be made, once the tag is put on R1 at 3B. In the event R1 is clearly out, Do we signal Safe and that's it? Allowing play to continue for the potential play at 2B? ... Seems like we'll have a bunch of confusion. Do we verbalize again "safe, on obstruction" and point back to where the obstruction happened? What's the best way to communicate/signal this clearly to both offense and defense to allow play to continue?

It's all good . That was still a good read/explanation, so not a wasted effort by any stretch. I also like to take things to the extreme to help make sense of where the line is draw. A tackle like you describe probably get malicious contact. Problem solved on that one. But, ya I could come up with a few examples of a runner doing everything but trying to advance to his base. But he gets to create his own base path, so who's to tell him he can't create a base path in another zip code that intentionally messes up the defense... Surely there is something. Do we have an "unsportsmanlike" call in baseball, lol

Great advice. I appreciate the time you took on the "explain to the coach" lesson. That's a good template to follow, and I may come back and reference that down the road as I try to finagle my way into my associates training regimen. That being said, it still doesn't answer my specific question with how would THAT EXPLANATION be backed by rule (ie the purple text in your template) So, I understand we're saying that we are not judging the B/R to be hindered, because he "hindered himself" by choosing to delay his run in order to draw contact. That would be sufficient to get to a NO-CALL (neither obstruction nor interference). However, in that hypothetical instance, that wouldn't change anything, as an overthrow to the backstop is actually best case scenario, because now B/R might get 2B. At the very least, his job of protecting R3 by initiating contact with F2 worked as intended ("big brain" intentional contact). So, the only way to "protect" the defense from this shenanigans is to call interference. But I just don't think you could ever justify interference in a scenario like this. After much digging, I can't seem to find any rule that would back up an interference call on B/R hindering F2. F2 is not fielding and is not receiving a throw... therefore, he cannot be interfered with. Unless there is some caveat somewhere that forces runners to "run within the spirit of the game", I think our hands are tied here... would have to be either a no-call or an obstruction call. The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion of it's just a "big brain" play by the runner - more power to em --> Obstruction!

I screen recorded on my desktop and re-rendered it just for you. Edit: sry I didn't resize the video to be phone friendly. Let me know if you can't make it out. Sequence 01.mp4

Thanks for all the insight. It seems we are all on the same page. @BigBlue4u Ya, exactly. Although I'm confident it should be obstruction, it was a weird play, so I understand PU not seeing it that way in the moment. He sold his call. @Richvee @Replacematt I also agree that we shouldn't call obstruction in my hypothetical example. But explaining it to the coach is the part I was wondering about. I pride myself in being able to explain my calls with rules accuracy. In the case of B/R intentionally delaying his running in order to create contact, I suppose the best we got in that the runner INTENTIONALLY interfered with a thrown ball. However, the ball would have to be thrown. So in the timing of this video, where the fielder hadn't grabbed the ball to throw it to F2 yet, what language are we using that is supported by rule to declare the runner was at fault (if we judge it was intentional "unnatural running(?)" to draw contact?