Expert: Brian Flaspohler - 5/18/2009

Question
In my son's LL game on Saturday, runner on third and batter (left handed) is backing away from plate after wild pitch.  Ball hits backstop and caroms along first base side of backstop and starts to roll back out.  2 things were said - the catcher while diving and trying to field the ball, knocked (no possession, he was trying to pick it up) the ball into our batter.  The 2nd was the catcher never touched the ball and it hit the batters foot.  I heard both, but could not tell from my vantage point.  Bottom line, umpire called batters interference and the runner on 3rd attempting to score was called out.  What is your opinion?

Answer
Chris,

This is completely a judgement call on the part of the umpire.  But, it is only interference if the batter hit the ball on purpose or interfered with the catcher on purpose.  The problem here is that it is hard to tell if the batter is clueless or if they are purposely causing the problem, so a good umpire tends to rule in favor of the interference call unless the batter is actively making an effort to get out of the way (which I agree with).

The umpire did call the wrong player out though - if a batter interferes with a play, the batter should be called out and the runner must return to the base where they started the play.

Hope this helps!

Brian