Coach Interference Question

[tiger79]

The play was a ground ball to F6 and a really bad over throw to F3. The ball went behind the 1B coach who had moved to avoid getting hit by the throw. F1 ran into the 1B coach trying to track down the ball and BR ended up at 2B in the whole process. I want to confirm if this is interference on the 1B coach. 

[grayhawk]

As described, it's not interference.  He moved to avoid getting hit.  Don't reward the defense for making a poor throw.

[maven]

 I want to confirm if this is interference on the 1B coach. 

​It is not. Good for coach to dodge. If he doesn't dodge the thrown ball and it hits him, that's still not INT: the ball remains live, play the bounce.

It's also worth mentioning here that 'coach interference', properly so called, involves the coach physically assisting his own runner, and it has a rather different penalty. The kind of INT under consideration in the OP is interference by "offensive team personnel" (the term in FED 3-2-3; other codes have equivalent terminology for people from the offense who are permitted on the field).

In a truly abominable sentence (which attributes intentionality to the ball), FED has this: "If a thrown live ball unintentionally touches a base coach in foul territory, or a pitched or thrown ball touches an umpire, the ball is live and in play." OBR 5.09(13)/7.11 is comparable.

[lilleaguer]

The play was a ground ball to F6 and a really bad over throw to F3. The ball went behind the 1B coach who had moved to avoid getting hit by the throw. F1 ran into the 1B coach trying to track down the ball and BR ended up at 2B in the whole process. I want to confirm if this is interference on the 1B coach. 

​I'm having trouble visualizing the collision between F1 and the 1B coach. How much time elapsed between the throw and the collision?

[noumpere]

The OBR rule / AR (which is similar to the OP, but the coach falls to the ground) contains some phrase like "If the coach did all he could to avoid, it's not INYT, but if the coach just made it seem like he was avoiding, then it is INT."  It's somewhere in old rule 3 -- 3.09?  3.15?  I forget.

 

So, the OP is a "had to be there" play.