What Would You Do?

[semper_fi_72]

Got a call on this one today.

Little League Majors

R1 with no outs.

Batter hits a shot to RF.

Batter is very slow runner and R1 is fast.

R1 comes all the way around to score while BR is only at 1B.

Throw back to plate, which is way late and up the line, hits the next batter who should not have been out of the dugout.

BR then runs to 2B and is safe easily.

A protest was filed by VM after the Umpires Ruling, which was:

He allowed the score to score and placed the BR back on 1B.

His reasoning was the run scored before the interference and the BR only went to 2B on the interference.

The protest will not be heard anyway since the VM won the game easily.

So, now that I threw this out, what would you have done and why?

Besides ruling on R1 and the BR, one thing I may have done was EJ a coach for not supervising his dugout and allowing a kid to enter the field during a live ball.

[Rich Ives]

1) It is not interference by a teammate if it is accidental.

2) The throw was way off line so it would be a hard sell to say there was any intent.

3) You have to interfere with a play. There was no play.

Don't reward the team that screwed up.

[mstaylor]

I agree with Rich, what play did he interfere with. If you have him interfering with a play on the BR then he has to be out. Just for interest sake, what happened to the ball after it hit the ondeck batter, bounce away, drop straight down, what? Was the catcher anywhere close to catching the ball?

It sounds like the ball was offline enough that the catcher missed it. If so it is probably on the way to the fence so he wouldn't have a play anyway. Just looking for the rest of the story.

Edited May 16, 2010 by mstaylor

[jnazz]

If interference is called an out also must be called.

[mstaylor]

jnazz, I agree, I don't see an interference but if the PU has one then he didn't enforce it properly.

Was the VM protesting the runner should have left at second or was he saying there should have been an out? I didn't get whether the VM was the DM or OM.

[jnazz]

The other question I have is -- Isn't the next batter the on deck batter? If so, he should be on the field. And if he's on the ball, he should be behind home plate directing the runner to slide or not. If this ball hits him I've got nothing.

Now if it's a following batter, I may have a problem. Of course, it varies from situation to situation.

[mstaylor]

jnazz, it's LL Majors, they don't use an ondeck batter which is why he is saying the next batter shouldn't have been there. I wouldn't say he absolutely shouldn't be out that quick, that's a flow of the game type thing.

[jnazz]

sorry, not familiar with LL.