Player ejected-Little League

[CHSUmp97]

I will close with, stealing signs is not cheating. Cheating is gaining an unfair advantage through dishonesty (Webster). Picking up on signs is certainly not dishonest.

This is what I’ve been told was the genesis of the policy. During one of the LLWS games a couple of years ago, a batter was caught by the ESPN cameras looking back at the catcher as the catcher flashed his signs to the pitcher. The ESPN broadcaster for the game made a comment to the effect of sign stealing is cheating, and LL’ers shouldn’t cheat.

Whether this actually happened during a televised game or not, I can’t vouch for it. But it’s just semantics if you want to call it cheating or unsportsmanlike. The bottom line is that this policy leaves a lot of room for interpretation on what constitutes sign-stealing.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[The Man In Blue]

Interesting ... the same thing happened on the baseball side with the opposite reaction: umpires issued warnings and LL is backing them. Unfortunately, this is just a poorly written and barely thought out rule.

On another forum I frequent, there is heavy criticism of the baseball umpires for NOT ejecting. Some of this may sound a bit jumpy as it responds to the conversation over there, but I thought it was worth reposting here:

As with the last thread, people are getting hung up on the “shall eject” clause. That is the wrong part of the rule to be focused on. The problem in the rule is not in the penalty, but in the definition of the rule itself. What is “stealing signs”? LL has not provided a definition. Is simply seeing the catcher’s position and relaying that considered “stealing signs”?

Many folks are saying LL has egg on it’s face because of the occurrence in the RI/NH Regional game. Not necessarily true. In this game it appeared the runner was relaying the catcher’s position, not intercepting a sign, decoding it, and providing intel to the hitter. Given the sparse direction on what “sign stealing” is, I would back the umpire’s actions in this game ...

... IF Little League had not just had the exact same situation unfold on TV in a TX/OK softball regional where the player and coach were ejected for this same action. NOW LL has egg on its face. However the yolk’s not on those umpires ... each one did exactly what the rule instructed under its “If, in the umpire’s judgement” clause. One umpire judged it was stealing signs, one umpire judged it was not. Given the lack of direction from LL, both umpires made the correct (albeit opposite) call.

I am not a LL umpire and am not dialed directly into this issue, but for an outside umpire’s perspective LL is not handling the concern properly. Instead they are providing umpires with additional conflicting information and even worse, making contradictory statements to the public.

The link above from LRZ makes it sound as if ejection is contingent upon umpires mentioning this in the pre-game plate meeting. That is not a part of the written rule in the rule book.

The article provided by johnpatrick contains pearls of wisdom from LL CEO Steven Keener that further muddy the water:

Keener said Thursday “nobody wants to see a kid thrown out of a Little League game.”

“The umpires are instructed to say you have to be 100 percent sure that that’s what they’re doing if you’re going to enforce the rule,” Keener said. “If you think they’re doing it, you go to the manager and say this is what I think I’m seeing and I’m basically giving you a warning and if I see it again, then I’m going to have to enforce the rule. That’s the appropriate way to handle the rule and that’s how they handled it up in Bristol.”

Sorry Steven, that is not what you wrote in your rulebook. When organizations place poorly written rules into the rulebook and then issue contrarian statements or directions to their umpires, the umpires (and the game participants) are the ones who suffer.