IF you look at it from Tivo, Koast, Derek is exactly correct, you back that action up one full stride, which is where Rodriguez open palm hand-slapped Arroyo's glove, than Doug Mientkiewicz is at least 5-6 feet further away from Rodriguez and Arroyo's glove is already within a foot of coming into contact with him as by that time they were nearly paralleling each other as they ran.
Conclusion? No way obstruction would have ever been an issue because Arroyo would have tagged him out well before obstruction would have come into play and Rodriguez, even from this angle, is till running full speed within the base path, had already deliberately knocked the ball loose, and had not even reached Mientkiewicz yet which is where he veered off the base path and did not even touch Mientkiewicz as he missed the bag. If he had wanted to be theatrical, he could have faked running into Mientkiewicz as he tried to touch first base and tried to win sympathy that way, oh wait, no he couldn't have, because Arroyo would have already tagged him out a good 5 feet earlier, unless of course he slapped the ball away AND ran into Mientkiewicz, in which case he might have gotten ejected for violence ( :rolleyes: ).
The point is, this is the biggest non-issue I have read in a while, short of Arroyo pulling a Bill Buckner like choke and muffing the tag, (unlikely, the replay shows it would have been a clean tag) this was a clean a call as an official could ever make, he interfered, he got caught, he would have been out, he couldn't escape the inevitable other than to cheat, and the officials made absolutely the corect call, and, the sweetest of all, the STINKIN' DIRTY YANKEES get to watch this one from home. Go Sox!!!