Runner Out Of Basepath

Question
We had an interesting play last night in my daughter's softball game. Our team was in the field and we had two outs and the bases were loaded. The ball was hit into the outfield and two runs scored. When the throw in to the pitcher went offline, the runner at third tried to score. The ball hit the dugout fence and started to roll towards the third base line a few feet in front of home plate. Our third baseman attempted to pick up the ball, dive and tag the runner. While diving, the ball came out of her glove, but no one immediately saw it, and the runner went more than four feet out of the basepath to avoid what everyone thought was a tag play. The umpire ruled the runner out for running outside the established base path. Does it matter that the fielder dropped the ball in her attempt to make the tag play in ruling the runner out of the basepath?

Answer
Rob,

It all depends when the fielder dropped the ball.  

If the runner started around the fielder while she had the ball, then yes you could have an out for leaving the base path to avoid a tag.  

If the fielder did not have the ball when the runner started to go around her you could have obstruction if the umpire thought she was going around the fielder to avoid contact.

This is definitely a "had to be there" to make the call.  In either case the umpire is going to have an unhappy coach.  Calls like this make an umpires job interesting.

Tom