Barrett did not obstruct Holliday from the plate. This ends the debate.
In an interview with me today, Jim Evans, the man behind the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring, discussed the topic of obstruction as it applied to Matt Holliday’s slide into home and Michael Barrett’s attempt to block the plate in the recent Rockies vs. Padres one game playoff. At the core of the conversation were baseball’s Rule 7.06(b) and the definition of obstruction under Rule 2.0.
If you google 7.06(b) today, you will find that many of the references listed are from discussion forums, or even websites such as this one, where the rule is cited by armchair umpires across America. In attempt to present an authoritative voice on the topic, I decided to contact Mr. Evans who was gracious enough to spend a few minutes of his time discussing the topic with me. According to MLB.com, the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring is one of “only two umpiring schools approved by The Professional Baseball Umpire Corp. (PBUC), which oversees all professional baseball umpires.” It should therefore go without saying that Mr. Evans is an expert on this subject and that his opinion is a well informed one, to say the least.
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See the play this interview refers to below (with added commentary)
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I informed Mr. Evans in advance that I had no intention of asking him to comment directly on if Matt Holliday was safe or out. It’s not that I wasn’t curious about his thoughts on the play, but I felt that asking him to specifically comment on the disputed safe call would be inappropriate. My intention for this interview was to explore only the issue of obstruction and so I limited my questions solely to that area. As such, Mr. Evans interview here should NOT been seen as an endorsement of this site’s position that Holliday missed the plate. The interview went on for about 10 minutes but, due to space considerations, I will only present the pertinent excerpts here. However, I hope to make the entire audio file available if I can figure out how to do that.
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Holliday Never Touched the Plate . COM: What’s happened is with this play there’s a lot of people on the web who have called (the play) into question, and are searching the major league rules and are citing the rules that apply to the play. And, when you look for the comments on the web via search engine, its really hard to get to the truth and I’m wondering if you could tell me what you think the applicable rules were on that play. I’m assuming of course that you are familiar with it (the play.)
Jim Evans: Yes. The catcher was totally within his rights in what he did. There’s totally no obstruction. Anybody who says that there’s obstruction has no experience in enforcing official baseball rules. Unquestionably no obstruction. The catcher was in the act of fielding the ball . And in section 2 he’s given full right to occupy that position if he’s in the act of fielding the ball. And so he had a right to be there. The fact that he did not have the ball at the time of the contact is ridiculous because he cannot vaporize, if the ball had left his possession and he continued to lie there and block the plate now you have obstruction. But as long as the aftermath is immediate like that, its nowhere near obstruction. There’s a reference in the rule book to obstruction when the example they give is when a ball is hit by the first baseman, and he dives for it, and loses it, and then continues to lie on the ground and impedes the progress of the runner from first, then you have obstruction. But the key to it is if he continues to lie on the ground. So the play at the plate wasn’t even , obstruction wasn’t even considered. You have hundreds of those plays a season happen, and there’s no obstruction.
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Holliday Never Touched the Plate . COM: I just want to thank you for taking the time to clear this up because it is a topic that is receiving a lot of discussion on the web…
Jim Evans: I’ve been in baseball for over thirty years, teaching and I’ve got the Academy and everything… Anybody that thinks that’s obstruction doesn’t know much about the professional enforcement (of the baseball rules). There may be some rule somewhere that I’m not even aware of in high school or college, and I know there’s some safety rules involved and must slide rules, you’ve got to slide directly into the base, and all kinds of different things. And so, you know I don’t claim to know or be an expert on high school, college, federation, or youth baseball rules, but if you’re enforcing the official baseball rule book, that is not, definitely not obstruction. He’s in the act of fielding the ball. He has a right to be there.
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After reading this I hope you can see that all arguments along the lines of “Holliday was safe because Barrett obstructed the plate” have just been fully and totally negated. Really. I don’t think that you will be able to find a more credible source anywhere than the man who is responsible for running one of the only two camps that trains MLB’s umpires. That I am the one who had to seek out Mr. Evans as a source to comment on obstruction as it relates to Holliday’s slide and Barrett’s block is further evidence of the lack of coverage that the media has afforded this disputed call.
If you still want to claim that Barrett obstructed Holliday, you are essentially saying that you know more about professional baseball rules and their enforcement than Mr. Evans does, in which case you are urged to use this site’s contact form to set up an interview.
Henceforward, all comments about blocking and obstruction of the plate as they relate to Matt Holliday’s slide and Michael Barrett’s block should be referred to this page.
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