Interference ruling

[Medevilmetal]

Question for the experts. This was a girls fastpitch 14U tournament game. Runner on 1st and 2nd base. The batter hits a grounder to the short stop and the SS tosses the ball to the 3rd basemen who is standing in front of the base with 1 foot on base and the other in the base path. The umpire is raising his fist to call the advancing runner coming from 2nd out just as this runner is sliding into 3rd which knocks the 3rd basemen down. He then calls offensive interference and calls the batter out as well. What is the rule on this situation? Since the running is supposed to slide into 3rd to prevent collision is this still offensive interference?

[Mustang79]

It's a judgement call by the umpire. If he/she feels the player could have made another play for an out he can call interference and both runners out. Typically the umpire would only rule the runner out on the force out to save controversy.

[OhioTex]

agree umpire judgement and generally only 1.

[Forrest Howe]

IMHO this has the makings of a bad call all around. Where did the runner slide? If intentionally out of the baseline, that is one issue, but sliding directly into the bag that's another. So what is the runner to do? Stop about 10 feet from the bag and stand there? C'mon on. This is not dance class. The 3rd baseperson needed to get out of the way and throw the ball elsewhere. As for calling the batter out, that is bogus big time.

[FDT92]

If the umpire feels that the slide was intentional to break up a double play, then yes, two can be called out.