Because of the interference call, runner had to go back to 3rd?
Illini Baseball 2024
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
The announcers disagreed with the call. I disagreed with the call. It was, almost certainly, the wrong call. And yet, I could not care less.
Hard to empathize with Iowa, but I might have gone bananas like they did.
I'm not familiar with the interference rule in college...but I cannot imagine a world where that was the correct call to make in that situation. I woulda been tossed quicker than the Iowa coach in that situation no doubt...
No doubt about that. I can't imagine how they reviewed that & came back as "confirmed." But hey...I'll take it.
98% of the time, calls like that go against Illinois, regardless of sport.
band camp
- STL City
Totally agree here. Game bounced our way. That's sports.
I'll trade today's blown call for any of the five b.s. calls on James Augustine in '05.
MustangWally
- Mayfield
And it was confirmed on replay. What were they looking at??
Wow! Looks like NCAA rules are really strict on this. That same section - "On any force play, the runner must slide on the ground before the base and in a direct line between the two bases." "“Directly into a base” means the runner’s entire body (feet, legs, trunk and arms) must stay in a straight line between the bases." "Exception - A runner need not slide directly into a base as long as the runner slides or runs in a direction away from the fielder to avoid making contact or altering the play of the fielder."
I'll take the win, maybe we needed that to turn our B1G postseason around.
The ghost of the 2000 Illini/Michigan football game
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
It's one of those where it's hard to judge unless you watch a lot of college baseball and understand what the standards are in terms of how the rule usually gets called.
The runner was being cheeky there, I see what the ump saw, but that's never an interference call in MLB.
Sucks for Iowa that the throw was never going to beat the runner in a million years interference or not.
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
Does the fact that he had his right arm up, cause an interference? I don't watch much (any) college baseball, so I am just spit-balling.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
He's just kind of occupying the airspace the throw is going to have to go through in a subtle way, leaning his body and arms that way.
If they're going to call this kind of thing strictly and consistently (no idea if they actually do), you just coach the runner to stay out of the way and you're never going to run into an issue. The fastest way to the base is almost never going to put you in a position to interfere with the throw.
It seems like an incredibly ticky tack call, I don't want to be too much of a homer here, but the runner knew what he was doing.
Agree it feels very ticky tack to call in that moment, as applied this is the rule in NCAA ball. If, like me, you are used to watching MLB much more it will always look like a bad call. Fortunately for us, the rules in the NCAA are wildly different to MLB and it seems to have been at least defensibly applied.
If that's the rule, then it's a dumb rule.
I watch a lot of college baseball. This is a rule that has been put in place the last few years. Basically anything that even approaches an old school attempt to break up a double play gets called as interference.
The one you see the most often is sliding through and past the bag, which it looks like the Iowa runner does here, so I'm not totally surprised at the initial call. The weird part is that isn't what the explanation from the coordinator indicates they were looking at replay.
But bottom line is that this call does happen in college baseball with some degree of regularity.
The one you see the most often is sliding through and past the bag, which it looks like the Iowa runner does here, so I'm not totally surprised at the initial call. The weird part is that isn't what the explanation from the coordinator indicates they were looking at replay.
But bottom line is that this call does happen in college baseball with some degree of regularity.
Here's a good walkthrough of the rule and how it was applied correctly: