Determining a final score

[Gags]

4th grade rec ball, but may be applicable as well to tournament pool play. 1st spring season of kid pitch, so games have come to screeching halt (3rd grade coach pitch we were able to get in 5, maybe 6 innings - now it's 3, MAYBE 4).

80 mins no new inning (NNI), 95 drop dead (DD). 4 run max per inning.

Home team is winning and at bat when clock hits NNI. If in pool play, this is usually treated the same way as DD - games over since home team is already winning. But for rec games, I don't see many situations where we'd want to immediately stop play, and not let the girls finish the inning. My question is what score do you report? Run differential may be factor in the final standings - so if the home team keeps scoring (5-3 @ NNI, but 7-3 by end of the inning), do you just report it as 5-3 or 7-3?

If the home team is losing, NNI is reached, and then scores the go-ahead, do you treat the go-ahead run as the winning run, or play out the inning?

It's not like the girls are really "giving up", b/c they're not really aware of the NNI concept, and there's times where we're clearly over the limit, but will let the Away team bat when we've only gotten through 3 innings (and there's not a game after ours). And this really is more theoretical discussion of what we "should" be doing vs. what we actually end up doing (I had 7-3, you only had 6-3? Go ahead and use 6-3 then, I may have missed something in the 1st inning walk-fest...).

Having written all this - I guess the "correct" ruling would be to record the score at the time NNI is reached (if Home team is ahead), but curious what the rest of you are doing.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[Rick M]

1. If the home team is winning at NNI, they should keep playing until the 4 run max is reached. Not so much for final standings, but because the whole point of rec ball is playing time. No need to stop just because one team is guaranteed a win. Some teams are guaranteed a win before the first pitch is thrown.

2. If the home team scores the go-ahead after NNI, as above, keep playing to the inning max. A walk-off can be exciting for the kids, but it's kind of contrary to the goals of rec, IMHO.

We played a game last year where we reached the NNI before the home team got through their whole lineup. Everyone agreed to let them keep hitting until everyone had a chance to bat. Keep it fun!

 

[dbronstein]

1. If the home team is winning at NNI, they should keep playing until the 4 run max is reached. Not so much for final standings, but because the whole point of rec ball is playing time. No need to stop just because one team is guaranteed a win. Some teams are guaranteed a win before the first pitch is thrown.

2. If the home team scores the go-ahead after NNI, as above, keep playing to the inning max. A walk-off can be exciting for the kids, but it's kind of contrary to the goals of rec, IMHO.

We played a game last year where we reached the NNI before the home team got through their whole lineup. Everyone agreed to let them keep hitting until everyone had a chance to bat. Keep it fun!

I agree completely - play as long as you can. We've had games where the umps wanted to call it early because one team couldn't come back due to the inning run max and I've had to argue to keep playing.

 

[Eric F]

For tournament play, if NNI time expires with the home team ahead in the bottom of the inning, the game should be over right then.

 

[Gags]

Thanks for the above replies - playing out the inning is what we always try to do. I was just curious what everyone reported score-wise. And also want to acknowledge that this is way, way down the "things to care about" list - more curiosity, and wanting to see if how we're doing things could potentially cause issues in the future.

 

[bmakj]

the more they play the better. and you have standings in 4th grade rec ball? I guess our small league makes it a little different, generally, on SB side of our league, only 2-3 teams, occasionally 4 in 12u division, in each division, so we do a little "playoff" at end to determine league champ (ie 2 plays 3, couple of days later winner plays 1 if 3 teams in division), so standings not all that impmortant, and generally not that tight anyway (always works that teams are 2-3 games apart)

 

[Gags]

We only have standings and playoffs for the Spring season. This Spring, we only have 5 teams (we were able to field 6 3rd-grade teams last Spring), and we do a similar format - end of season bracket play, with the Championship game at one of the nice HS fields that has a scoreboard and PA system.