- May 29, 2015
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That 95% would be right. It is not grounds for ejection. The only way it would be would be if the catcher came back out with it after being instructed it was not usable until repaired.
I was being absurdist in saying it would get finally get coaches' to take responsibility and pay attention to the equipment if we ejected when we found it at the pre-game. I didn't necessarily mean ejection for screws, I was referring to the illegal bats. I see how I caused confusion by listing the other issues we commonly find. Sorry!
You bring up an interesting point on discretion though ... Do we have discretion on equipment? If I let the other team use an illegal bat because the girl wasn't a big hitter anyway, would your coach be OK with that? Should I let a batter come up to the plate with no face mask on her helmet because I don't think the pitcher throws "that hard"?
We've seen videos on here and chastised umpires for assessing proper penalties for illegal bats. Do we have discretion? No, illegal bats are a very specific penalty.
If a batter comes to the plate/catcher comes out and her mask is missing screws, and this is the FIRST time it seen by the umpire: we call time, make the player go replace or repair the equipment (likely we aren't waiting around on a repair though). The second time the player or same piece of equipment comes out, we are going to start getting more severe. If the direction is continually ignored, it could lead to ejection.
What drives me nuts is tossing the same batting helmet repeatedly on different days. Fix the darn thing or quit bringing it out!
I was being absurdist in saying it would get finally get coaches' to take responsibility and pay attention to the equipment if we ejected when we found it at the pre-game. I didn't necessarily mean ejection for screws, I was referring to the illegal bats. I see how I caused confusion by listing the other issues we commonly find. Sorry!
You bring up an interesting point on discretion though ... Do we have discretion on equipment? If I let the other team use an illegal bat because the girl wasn't a big hitter anyway, would your coach be OK with that? Should I let a batter come up to the plate with no face mask on her helmet because I don't think the pitcher throws "that hard"?
We've seen videos on here and chastised umpires for assessing proper penalties for illegal bats. Do we have discretion? No, illegal bats are a very specific penalty.
If a batter comes to the plate/catcher comes out and her mask is missing screws, and this is the FIRST time it seen by the umpire: we call time, make the player go replace or repair the equipment (likely we aren't waiting around on a repair though). The second time the player or same piece of equipment comes out, we are going to start getting more severe. If the direction is continually ignored, it could lead to ejection.
What drives me nuts is tossing the same batting helmet repeatedly on different days. Fix the darn thing or quit bringing it out!
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