Laurel & Hardy..."Who's on First?"

Rec Fall Ball.
We are playing a younger team and we over match them by age and abilities; we are visitors.

By the fourth inning we have gone through our batting order a couple times and are getting near the end of the 3rd time through.

The first three batters in the 4th inning reach and load the bases. While the 4th batter is up the home team manager must have heard us cheering her name, because he calls time out and walks to umpire with his scorebook in hand, and says...

"What's the girls name on 3rd base?" We tell him...”Betty”

"Who is on 2nd base?" We tell him...

"Who's on first??" We tell him...

With a confused look he says..."This is all wrong..."Mary" should have been the first batter up, so she should be on 3rd. I said (from our dugout)..."No, "Jane” struck out to end the last inning, which means "Betty" is the first batter this inning...and "Jane" confirmed she struck out as the last out (and the umpire agreed that she struck out to end the inning).

He said..."No, you're all wrong...all these batters have batted out of order."

The umpire put a quick end to it by telling him we have advanced past their at-bats, so everything stands. I did not walk over to compare books because the umpire handled it effectively and efficiently to everyone’s satisfaction; nor was I called over for help. He was a little hesitant as he felt he was still correct, but conceded there was nothing he could do at this point and complied to the umpires call. He agreed he would pick his scoring up from where we were in the order. The whole ordeal and interchange was pretty calm and cool....but a bit bizarre.

Last inning comes along and we have the game hugely in hand, and by this time the home team coaching staff had displayed some frustration throughout the game...so they were obviously a little on edge.

Out first batter gets up and take’s a couple pitches. Home manager calls Time Out with an aggressive tone...and quickly walks over and says to the umpire....

“Who is this up to bat?”

We say...”Lisa!!”

He says...”No, you’re wrong again...”Jessica!” should be up!”

I said...“No...Jess was the third out last inning when she bunted...remember??..so Lisa should be up”

The umpire calls me over to compare books. It turns out we had a player show up right before game time that our manager added to the end of our order...but never told the other team...Ugh!

When this became apparent he threw his hands up and said....”There must be a penalty for this?”

Folks...what do you do? The home team book is the “official” book right?

He made an attempt to call us batting out of order, but was over-ruled...so I assume all that stands due to the judgement of the umpire.

The final call was he added her name to the end of his order and we finished the last inning.

Can anyone add their knowledge and experience, and what the rules say about this situation?

Thanks,
T

The "official book" has no bearing on the ruling.
And there is no umpire "judgment" involved here, simply applying the batting order rules which only compare the current batter to the previous batter in the lineup, and a potential penalty for BOO or Unreported Sub is discovered after the incorrect player has completed a turn at bat and a pitch has not been thrown to the next batter.
A player not on the original line card can be added to the end of the line up at any time during a game.

We do not even keep standings in fall ball, bat the same batter all game for all I care.

Why does he even care?

"Who's On First" should be credited to Abbot and Costello, not Laurel and Hardy.

EP Dad said:

"Who's On First" should be credited to Abbot and Costello, not Laurel and Hardy.

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OMG...You're RIGHT! What the heck was I thinking??? What a Jabroni I am!!

James Smith said:

We do not even keep standings in fall ball, bat the same batter all game for all I care.

Why does he even care?

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When he said..."There should be a penalty" I almost said..."You're right...we screwed up...you can wipe out the 16-1 score and take the win in this non-standing fall league program that was developed to give kids an opportunity to play more; and while you're at it you can slap your own hand for not catching the discrepancy in the second inning."

It should be a 15 yard penalty and a game ejection for caring. It's fall ball.

DD stopped playing fall ball last year. Yesterday her friend hit her first home run, well a hard single and you can guess the rest. If she says it is a home run, it is a home run and everyone is good with that. I am looking forward to hearing about it tonight when I see her at the school ball game.

James Smith said:

DD stopped playing fall ball last year. Yesterday her friend hit her first home run, well a hard single and you can guess the rest. If she says it is a home run, it is a home run and everyone is good with that. I am looking forward to hearing about it tonight when I see her at the school ball game.

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Ah yes, the HR off a bunt. I remember those rec league "fun" times........

T.J. said:

"There should be a penalty."

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And there is! Provided that a batting out of order situation really occurred and provided that it is properly appealed, at the proper time, by the defense. Apparently, neither was the case here.

One of the biggest blow-ups I had this summer involved this exact same sort of thing. One local league where I umpire uses a continuous batting order and also allows late-arriving players to be added to the bottom of the line-up. One coach showed me his line-up and told me that the last player listed wasn't there yet, but would show up later during the game. I told him to make sure he relayed that to the other team's scorekeeper.

A couple of innings go by and the other coach (who's team is now losing, so he's getting surly anyway) starts yelling about "batting out of order". They claim that the missing kid was on the line-up they received and that no one said anything about the player not being there yet. The first coach claims he told them when he gave them the line-up. Well, he did tell me. They don't give the umpire a line-up in this league, so I don't have an "official" line-up in my pocket to go by. I rule that there was no rule violation, ask them to correct their line-ups and get back to playing. The losing coach isn't too happy about that.

The missing player showed up about the fifth inning. Now, another league rule comes into play. All players must play a minimum of three defensive innings. Since this player got there so late, she wound up only playing two. The losing coach says that he wants to protest the game. I told him that he's welcome to protest anything he wants, but didn't have a leg to stand on here. The league rule also says that when a player shows up late, any inning completed before their arrival is counted toward the number of inning that player played. By that rule, this player had met her obligation to play at least three defensive innings.

Coach doesn't believe me and is still mad, wanting to "protest". About the time I start heading for my car, one of his team parents- a rather large and aggresive acting fellow- decides that he's going to give me a piece of his mind about how his team was "getting ripped off" and how the other team had "cheated twice". I kept walking toward my car and he started to follow, until I had to stop and tell him to get away from me.

Just another fun night at the old ballpark, where 16U rec league games are a life or death event!