The guys on the TV and radio for the last several hours exhibit an amazing lack of interest in intellectual tidiness. They keep saying obstruction has nothing to do with intention, as if that ends all debate. Fine, the question is this....if Middlebrook had lain perfectly still so as to avoid interfering with the runner, and the runner had still tripped over his legs, would it still be obstruction? The reason I ask is that the rule as written, and the rule as discussed by the talking heads since the game ended, seems to suggest that the defensive player has an obligation to keep himself from slowing down the progress of the runner under all circumstances, even in the immediate aftermath of a collision and entanglement at a base. I SUPPOSE, but I have not been so informed by the experts, that the key to obstruction in his case was that the legs were raised, and that obstruction is thereby in effect whether they were raised with the intent to impede or not. The water is further muddied by the fact that at least ONE talking head on the radio said that the raising of the legs was irrelevent to the call. If that is true, the call and the rule it was based on are thrown into incoherence. Who can shed light in this darkness?
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 06:40:02 +0000
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