MLB Need To Reexamine The "Interference Rule."

Not since the 2003 playoffs has an inteference call caused this much attention. Well in the case of 2003 it was a lack of an inteference call that got the attention. Although, when you're the Chicago White Sox and the team has won a world series recently the interference just has to be called. If the same situation happened to the Rays the call wouldn't have been made. 

What's interesting about the call is that the play involved little to no contact at all by Willie Aybar. Still umpire Doug Eddings called inteference on Aybar allowing A.J. Pierzysnki to go from second to third instead of being out. My thoughts are is Joe Maddon should have been giving Eddings an earful. That was one of the worst calls in recent memory.

Now too me it seems that calling inteference is based on the judgement of the umpire otherwise Miguel Tejada in the 2003 playoffs against the Red Sox would have been given home. As Tejada was rounding third to score on a hit he collided with the Red Sox's third baseman Bill Mueller. There was some contact and Tejada assumed that he would be awarded home so he sort of stopped running and before he could get to home he was tagged out. More then likely the reason why Tejada was called out is because of the assumption of the "inteference" call and he just stopped running because of it. 

It's interesting that for Tejada the play stood because of the assumption of being safe at home because of being intefered with. When A.J. Pierzysnki fell to the ground he gave up on the play because he knew he was out there was no way around it. Even after Pierzynski had created the minimal contact with Aybar who was trying to avoid interfering with Pierzysnki who was retreating from being tagged.

So, this leads to the question what's the difference between two players one who assumed he was out and the other player assumed that he was safe? Isn't it interesting that the one that assumed he was out, was called safe and the one who assumed safe was out? MLB needs to start calling the inteference per what it says in the rulebook because by all means Miguel Tejada should have been called safe at home by rule. Choosing to make it a judgement call by umpires is going to create a lot of unhappy managers. Even though inteference is not really a huge issue in a game when it comes down to playoff positioning or a playoff game then it's extremely important that the call for inteference is correctly called.