Catcher Interference

Welcome aboard the HSBBW!

With that said, I'll offer my usual smarty pants answer...in each of the two cases you described the catcher had it coming to him!

I'm sure someone else will enlighten you further...

The batter is entitled to an un-interrupted opportunity to hit a pitched ball. If the catcher extends into the hitting zone and makes contact with the bat, it is "Catchers Obstruction".......

NFHS Rule 8 Section 1 Article 1 e
A batter becomes a runner with the right to attempt to score by advancing to first, second, third and home bases in the listed order when:

e. The catcher or any other defensive player obstructs him.

This is commonly called catchers interference, however by rule it is catchers obstruction, (offensive players can interfere, defensive players obstruct).

If you have seen this twice and not had it called, it would be what we umpires call a "gross miss"......its usually fairly easy to call.....if you track the ball to the mitt you will see the impact, most certainly hear the impact and see the result of a glove being knocked away or off the catchers hand......a catcher hopping around shaking his hand after being hit with a metal bat is a dead give away as well.....

Hope this helps....

I have seen this happen as well. The umpire did not call obstruction by our catcher. The reason he gave the opposing coach was he felt the batter was trying to hit the catcher's mitt...he had a VERY unusual swing! It did appear like a deliberate attempt to hit the mitt.

Sometimes though, the umpires just miss it.

It did appear like a deliberate attempt to hit the mitt.

Funny, seems to me that the batter would do better to make a deliberate attempt to hit the ball.

lol

Yeah, normally I would agree with you, but they were having a lot of trouble hitting our pitcher and it was in the 6th inning of an elimination game. I think the kid figured he would get on base somehow.

Missed call

As a general rule I would say the call is missed at least 50% of the time at the high school level in my area.

Perhaps the "missed call" is the umpire showing his appreciation of good catcher positioning behind the plate!! i.e. the typical HS catcher is so far back that ever other low pitch bounces in the dirt hitting the umpire and making the umpire look bad when he calls it a strike!!

quote:

Catchers Obstruction".......

Catchers Interference??

If the batter hits the ball into fair territory it is a delayed dead ball and the offensive team has the option to take the result of the play

Just want to make sure on this:

If the bat hits the glove or other part of the catcher on the backswing, it is NOT obstruction right? Just played on like normal..

Hitting the catcher on the "backswing" is not catcher interference......

It can however be batters interference depending on what is transpiring on the play........