Runner out due to look back rule?

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Jun 22, 2008
3,731
113
Not only did she never stop moving, she was in motion before the pitcher entered the circle so she still could stop or reverse direction legally.

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Feb 18, 2014
348
28
It seems to be an interpretation of must "must immediately return to the base or attempt to advance to the next base." But Comp is correct, the stop one never happened.

But... I do think there is too much lolly gagging going on in general. I see the desire to keep the game moving. We had a recent tournament where the 20 seconds from catchers throw to next pitch was enforced, as well as allowing only one foot out of the box then getting the batter back to hit without 15 seconds of coaching and 7 swings off the bat. I will also not be sad when the constant center of the diamond high fives go away. We don't drive 10 hours for so much wasted time.

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May 1, 2017
47
0
Georgia
Looks like the kind of umpires we get. The opposite happened to us 2 tournaments ago. Very clear and blatant look back, wouldn't give us the call. I don't think half the umpires even understand that rule. Kinda like the umpire in PGF A State who ignored 2 instances of catcher's inference in one inning, instead of giving us the call, instructing the catcher. Hello, this 12U **A State**. Not the time to teach them and let it slide, if it ever is. For some reason we seem to be a magnet for this stuff. I often have to bite my tongue when I see things about abusive parents and umpires, because we get so, so many awful calls and we are never abusive, our coaches are calm FTMP and when they do get fired up it's never in an abusive way. And yet, bad call after bad call. We have it all on video. We don't use it, just look at it to see if we were wrong (rarely). We could probably start a whole YouTube channel if we were so inclined. It's worse every year, I swear.


I think my biggest issue with this particular umpire is that he was a jerk. We've dealt with umpires who didn't know the rules 100 % but they were always nice and communicated with the coaches fairly well. We had a game a few weeks ago where the umpire and our coach were chatting in between innings and our coach asked about the last strike he called on our player. He said he knew it was a ball, but our coach wanted the player to hit that pitch so he called it a strike. And don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for umpires. It really is a thankless job and I greatly appreciate every good umpire that we get. I just hope we get good ones when school ball rolls around in August.
 
Nov 18, 2015
1,585
113
While we don’t have to drive 10 hours for tournaments, I do wonder what the girls really get out of a 10U-C level game that even if not a complete walkfest, sees them finishing barely 4 innings in the allotted 1hr 15 mins.


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May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
While we don’t have to drive 10 hours for tournaments, I do wonder what the girls really get out of a 10U-C level game that even if not a complete walkfest, sees them finishing barely 4 innings in the allotted 1hr 15 mins.


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1:15 isn't much time. For my DD's 14U TB team, the typical 1:20 friendlies we play don't often get past 4 innings.
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
While we don’t have to drive 10 hours for tournaments, I do wonder what the girls really get out of a 10U-C level game that even if not a complete walkfest, sees them finishing barely 4 innings in the allotted 1hr 15 mins.


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My DD's 10U games have time limits anywhere from 55 minutes to 75 minutes depending on the tournament and whether it is pool play or not. Rarely do they get past 3 innings. The way I look at it is you can play 2 to 3 7 inning games in a week, like we did growing up or 4 to 10 games in a weekend of 2 to 3 innings. More or less the same thing. The only advantage the non-tournament model that we had was that you played every week so there wasn't a two week gap between seeing live pitching. I think at the younger ages this is a problem, which is why a good rec. league setup (which we don't have here) where they play every week a few times can be advantageous. It often takes my DD's team a few ABs (e.g sometimes a game and half) to get going against live pitching after seeing front toss for 2 weeks. Most 10U teams here don't play tournaments every weekend, which I more or less agree with.
 
Mar 14, 2017
453
43
Michigan
This call is so wrong that I can only come up with two possible explanations:

A. The umpire just doesn't know the rule or doesn't understand the rule.
B. The runner should have been called out on the previous pitch or pitches and he is now making up for missing it. She is certainly making an annoyingly slow stroll back to the base. Perhaps she stood around on the prior pitch before she started her slow journey back to the base & someone said, "She's out for that." Then the girl wisely corrected her mistake, but he rang her up as a make up call.

I offer B as a possibility because I've seen it happen. The girl violates the LBR and the coach and crowd start yelling to the ump. He realizes that he missed it, but is going to get it right this time... of course she hears the crowd so she doesn't violate the LBR this time, but he calls her out anyway.
 
May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
This call is so wrong that I can only come up with two possible explanations:

A. The umpire just doesn't know the rule or doesn't understand the rule.
B. The runner should have been called out on the previous pitch or pitches and he is now making up for missing it. She is certainly making an annoyingly slow stroll back to the base. Perhaps she stood around on the prior pitch before she started her slow journey back to the base & someone said, "She's out for that." Then the girl wisely corrected her mistake, but he rang her up as a make up call.

I offer B as a possibility because I've seen it happen. The girl violates the LBR and the coach and crowd start yelling to the ump. He realizes that he missed it, but is going to get it right this time... of course she hears the crowd so she doesn't violate the LBR this time, but he calls her out anyway.

I pick A.

Possibly someone who is much more familiar with the rules of baseball, and hasn't quite grasped the LBR in softball.
 
Nov 29, 2009
2,975
83
And yet, bad call after bad call. We have it all on video. We don't use it, just look at it to see if we were wrong (rarely). We could probably start a whole YouTube channel if we were so inclined. It's worse every year, I swear.

The reason for it is the abuse the umpires take from parents who don't know the rules. The good umpires are leaving the game because the abuse it not worth it. So you're getting inexperienced umpires at the lower levels because the good/experienced umpires will only work the older levels.

I had to yell at my parents one time after the umpire made a correct call. It was a caught foul tip for a 2nd strike with a stealing running. The runner was safe. My parents were yelling at the umpire the runner had to be returned to 1st because it was a foul ball. The umpire was trying to explain the rule to my parents without success. I finally had to come out of the dugout and tell my parents the umpire made the correct call and I will explain the rule to them after the game and it's not the umpire's job to explain the rules to the fans. My parents were still a little grumbly until I pulled out the rule book and showed them the rule.

Last season during a fall tournament had an opposing coach go off on an umpire because he did not understand the interference rule when a call when against his team. He got tossed from the game and started to make it personal. The umpire forfeited the game to us. The TD asked me what happened and I told him the coach was arguing with the umpire and made it personal.
 
Jun 12, 2015
3,848
83
The reason for it is the abuse the umpires take from parents who don't know the rules. The good umpires are leaving the game because the abuse it not worth it. So you're getting inexperienced umpires at the lower levels because the good/experienced umpires will only work the older levels.

I had to yell at my parents one time after the umpire made a correct call. It was a caught foul tip for a 2nd strike with a stealing running. The runner was safe. My parents were yelling at the umpire the runner had to be returned to 1st because it was a foul ball. The umpire was trying to explain the rule to my parents without success. I finally had to come out of the dugout and tell my parents the umpire made the correct call and I will explain the rule to them after the game and it's not the umpire's job to explain the rules to the fans. My parents were still a little grumbly until I pulled out the rule book and showed them the rule.

Last season during a fall tournament had an opposing coach go off on an umpire because he did not understand the interference rule when a call when against his team. He got tossed from the game and started to make it personal. The umpire forfeited the game to us. The TD asked me what happened and I told him the coach was arguing with the umpire and made it personal.
I don't agree at all with yelling at umpires, of course. Even if I have to resist the urge myself sometimes. Sometimes our team let's out a "Come on, Blue!" or something asking those lines but it stays pretty inoffensive.

There are lots of coaches who don't know the rules. We had one arguing about a dropped third strike. One out and runner on first. She was out because 1B was occupied and there were not 2 outs. He had no idea and came out to argue that she was safe.

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