Local rule headaches

[Dabears17]

Runner on 1st and 2nd. Home team on offense. Local rule where after 2 walks in an inning, it’s coach pitch. Ball 4 on batter after 2 walks already occured. Observant catcher fires ball down to 3B who tags the runner jogging from second. My teenaged partner looks confused, starts to call runner out, then calls safe.

I turn to home book and quietly say “Here comes the unintended consequences of local rules, if the defensive coach appeals and my partner asks for help, I’m going to have to tell her in my opinon that was not a force and she was advancing with liability.”

Just as I finish saying that I hear “Blue, can I have time”. Defensive coach repeats my logic, I tell her to talk to my partner and my partner does not have to ask me for help. My partner asks me for help and she calls the runner out.

Home team isn’t happy and pulls out the rule book. Rec game, so I don’t eject them . I calmly explain the logic to them at least twice and they insist the runner to 3rd was forced. I politely tell them twice I will not be offended if they file a protest, but the game must continue. Defensive coach asks for game to start again.

I call the better to enter the box and almost get to call a strike for not getting in the box within 10 seconds after asking them to.

I ask the league UIC after the game and he says there has been a recent rules update that says in this case, it is not a walk and runners advance at their own risk.

I’m glad starting Friday I started saying ball, taking my mask off and walking to the front right corner of the right handed batters box, and say nothing. I didn’t say ‘Ball 4– take your base", so I provided no false information.

 

[CoachCeetar]

oh fun, that'd work in my league. ;-)

no stealing, but runners are forced back to the base, so the tag would be an out.

1. If the catcher attempts to throw out the runner after a pitch, the runner is forced back to the base. She does not have to be tagged out. If the player does not field the ball cleanly or there is an overthrow, no runner shall advance.

tracking the number of walks, coach coming onto the field, is all very confusing. It probably should be dead ball on the third ball four. I'd say eight out of ten times the third walk is met with "is that the third walk?" from coaches and/or the umpire anyway.

 

[Comp]

Local league rules arent teaching the game of softball, it is teaching a bastardized version of softball.

 

[Strike2]

Modifying rules to suit age and ability isn't the problem. It's the overly complex or weakly worded local rules that cause confusion. A simpler "no walk rule" modification that brings out the coach-pitcher anytime there is four balls prevents this from happening.

 

[CoachCeetar]

Modifying rules to suit age and ability isn't the problem. It's the overly complex or weakly worded local rules that cause confusion. A simpler "no walk rule" modification that brings out the coach-pitcher anytime there is four balls prevents this from happening.

depending on the level I guess, but you want to have SOME walks otherwise it's not really pitching. 2 seems to strike a good balance between letting it be still kid pitch but also keeps innings moving.

Generally speaking rule modifications at younger ages should be to introduce players slowly to more advanced concepts without penalizing them for not having years of experience to know what to do.

It's probably a toss up in this example. Obviously players should know "ball 4" means walk, and honestly having the runner on second realizing that and going to third is a GOOD thing. A large swath of players need to be told "hey, that's ball 4, a walk, go to third". Especially in early April rec ball. Chances are half of them haven't actually played a level with walks and strikeouts yet.

So do we want to penalize the player who's knows the general softball rule but wasn't paying close enough attention to the level-specific ones? Call it a dead-ball? maybe not, but on the other hand, maybe we want to reward the heads-up play by the catcher. And by the third baseman. I know in my rec league (3rd and 4th grade) there was, maybe, 1% of catcher/fielder combos that could've made that play with any reliability. Know to throw to third, know to cover, actually catch the ball, know to tag the runner.

Maybe the answer here is simply that the umpire should be calling "coach pitch" rather than "ball 4"? or "coach pitch, 1 strike on the batter" or whatever the new 'count' is.

 

[MoJo]

Gives me a headache just reading this.

 

[Dabears17]

I think they need to amend the local rule to say there is a dead ball on the 4th ball in this situation, but absent that, saying the runner was advancing with liability.

I had another strange situation in an 8u game today. Local rule says runners can advance with liability past the base they were entitled to. If they are not out, they can return to the base they were entitled to. One runner missed first base and entered the dugout out. On the same play, another runner touched home and headed towards the dugout. I was trying to tell the 2nd runner to not enter the dugout, but she did.

I ruled both of them out for leaving the field of play. Been umpiring 8u games since at least 2011. First time I’ve had that situation.

 

[The Man In Blue]

8u, 10u, rec ball . . . stop using rules to cause problems . . . stop using rules to "win" games. As has been said, well-written rules modifications can help introduce and teach the game at appropriate levels. The issue is two-fold:

1. these modifications are not written by somebody who understands (or likely has not even read) the rulebook. They have no concept of the ripple-effects.
2. these changes rarely come from a neutral administrator saying "It would help the kids learn and help us teach the game if . . . " They come from coaches who are mad that "they got screwed last year."

I've called a few house leagues with a rule like that, and I had never run into that issue. I don't believe any of them had an expressed rule in place, but there was an understanding that the ball was dead during the change from kid-to-coach and no action could occur.

 

[The Man In Blue]

I think they need to amend the local rule to say there is a dead ball on the 4th ball in this situation, but absent that, saying the runner was advancing with liability.

I had another strange situation in an 8u game today. Local rule says runners can advance with liability past the base they were entitled to. If they are not out, they can return to the base they were entitled to. One runner missed first base and entered the dugout out. On the same play, another runner touched home and headed towards the dugout. I was trying to tell the 2nd runner to not enter the dugout, but she did.

I ruled both of them out for leaving the field of play. Been umpiring 8u games since at least 2011. First time I’ve had that situation.

I am not understanding any of this play, especially the bolded part.

Even if I do understand, why would you use this rule in an 8u game?

(Even deeper into my broken record rant list, why are there umpires on an 8u game?)

 

[Dabears17]

I am not understanding any of this play, especially the bolded part.

Even if I do understand, why would you use this rule in an 8u game?

(Even deeper into my broken record rant list, why are there umpires on an 8u game?)

Will give a longer answer tomorrow. I just ran an umpire clinic in which 14 teenage and 6 adult umpires were trained. I did 3 games on Saturday. I left the house at 8 AM and got home at 6 PM. I'm beat. I didn't wear suntan lotion so I'm slightly burned.

Short answer: around me, there are several 8u pitchers throwing 35-38 from 30 feet. Do the math, that is equivalent to 50+ from 43 feet.