Expert: Andrew Senger - 5/19/2009

Question
during a little league game the runner on second was stealing third and the pitch was in the dirt the catcher then picked the ball up and the batter stepped back out of the batters box and when the catcher went to throw the ball it hit the bat of the batter. question is: is that interference that the batter was out of the box when hit or not, if it is then if he is in the box would it not be interference? if he is in the box i know it is not .

Answer
Chris,

In your situation, it would definitely be batter's interference. In fact, a batter can still interfere with the play while in the batter's box. For example, if a catcher tries to throw to third on the fair side of the line and the batter leans that direction, causing the catcher to not throw or impede the throw, it could also be batter's interference.

However, there are very few times that batter interference would not be called if the batter were out of the box.