{"id":17493,"date":"2013-10-27T11:32:47","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T11:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17493"},"modified":"2013-10-28T10:41:11","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T10:41:11","slug":"obstruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17493","title":{"rendered":"Obstruction!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>You know you have had a strange ending to a game when one of the leading videos on MLB.com is of a press conference by the umpiring crew.<\/p>\n

Game Three of the 2013 World Series will certainly live long in the memory as the game that ended on an obstruction call, putting St. Louis into a 2-1 series lead over Boston.<\/p>\n

Obstruction isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an especially common occurrence in MLB games. I went years keeping score of MLB games without really knowing much about the rules around it as the play hardly ever cropped up.<\/p>\n

Often the best way to learn is through finding out you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know something and then filling that gap in your knowledge. I suspect I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m far from the only baseball fan who knows a lot more about obstruction this morning than I did prior to Game Three.<\/p>\n

The umpires did a good job after the game of explaining the laws and the thought-processes they followed in applying them on this particular play. The main thing to keep in mind is that the law is there to be fair to the baserunner and that they have a right to attempt to progress to the next base \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in this case home plate \u00e2\u20ac\u201c without being impeded.<\/p>\n

It was tough on Will Middlebrooks as, even with his feet raised, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think anyone believed he was trying to impede Allen Craig. However, intent doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come into it and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not unique in sporting rules that a law fair to one side means that the opposing player can be seen as hard done by.<\/p>\n

In football, if a goalkeeper as last man makes a genuine attempt to get the ball, trips the striker and denies a clear goal-scoring opportunity, the opposing team will get a penalty and the goalie will be sent off. The \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdouble jeopardy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 aspect of this seems harsh, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s there for a reason and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up to the goalkeeper as a professional footballer to know the laws and to play within them. In other words, when he stretches to get the ball, he does so knowing if he gets it wrong he will be sent off.<\/p>\n

In the case of Middlebrooks, the argument that he had nowhere to go and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t evaporate into thin air\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (as I read one Red Sox fan putting it) is completely irrelevant. Middlebrooks should know the laws of the game. When he lunged to try and catch the ball he did so knowing that if it went past him and he ended up in Craig\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s way, he would be left obstructing the baserunner.<\/p>\n

As in the goalie example, Middlebrooks had a split-second to decide how to react to the throw coming down the line and if he had more time or could re-do it then he probably would have fielded it differently, but in sport you only get one crack at it. The way Middlebrooks played it meant he obstructed Craig so he has to accept the penalty.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted that the decision at third base didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t itself result in the winning run. Home plate umpire Dana DeMuth still had to make a judgement call as to whether Craig would have scored had he not been obstructed (again, as in football where the referee makes a judgement on if a clear goal-scoring opportunity has been denied).\u00c2\u00a0 It was a close play at the plate and so DeMuth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to award the run was sound.<\/p>\n

The cries of Jake Peavy and David Ortiz that this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the way to end a World Series game should be brushed aside as heat-of-the-moment comments driven by understandable frustration at losing in such a bizarre way. The umpires cannot ignore the laws of the game just because the result will be the game-winning run. And, indeed, the fact that it ended the game made it all the more important that the umpires called it. Considering the badly hobbled Craig nearly beat the throw home anyway, it would have been a travesty for the umpires to have ignored the obstruction that otherwise would have denied the Cardinals the victory.<\/p>\n

Yes it was unusual and yes it was a very harsh way for the Red Sox to lose the game, especially considering the wonderful piece of fielding by Dustin Pedroia that started it all off, but Boston\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad luck ultimately was that the umpiring crew made the correct call.<\/p>\n

In amongst all the discussion, that should not be overlooked or downplayed in anyway. On an unusual play in the most intense situation imaginable with just one real-time-speed chance to look at it, the umpires got it spot on.<\/p>\n

Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it sum up the life of an umpire that they can make an exceptional call on a very difficult play and they still end up under the spotlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game Three of the 2013 World Series will certainly live long in the memory as the game that ended on an obstruction call, putting St. Louis into a 2-1 series lead over Boston<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,553,119],"class_list":["post-17493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-mlb-2","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17493"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17496,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17493\/revisions\/17496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}