Baseball-Softball Rules Differences
 

Greetings colleagues,

I work in a small association in Northern California which requires our umpires to work both HS Baseball and softball. I have seen documentation that shows the differences between HS Baseball and Softball in a table format. I am not here to start a flame war or discuss which game is better - we can begin a new thread for that if you want. I am just looking for a teaching tool that will help better prepare our officials for the season ahead. If one of you have a document, or a link to a web site that I could go to to download that document, I would forever be in your debt.

Thanks for the assistance,

Dan Renninger
Middletown, CA
Coastal Mountain Officials Association

Dan,
Fed puts out just such a document. Here's a link

http://www.nfhs.org/web/2006/11/soft...ules_diff.aspx

"That was easy" :o

Paul

I am just trying to figure out why any association would require officials to work both sports. I know of many places where one assignor does both baseball and softball, but the officials for each sport tend to be sport specific.

I'm going to guess that Dan is in a rural area without a large roster of officials. The assignor probably needs all of the officials he has to cover both sports and it's easier for him/her to "require" that umpires work both to make the scheduling easier.

I'm pretty sure it works that way in some of the rural areas of Arizona. It's not so much a "requirement" as it is most umpires just accepting that they will work both baseball and softball.

Speaking for myself, I have tried umpiring baseball and didn't like it. Fortunately, I am in an area where there is an abundance of FP softball and I don't have to work baseball.

I've been in this position. I worked softball for years because we were short on softball umpires. I was good at it (ended up one step from the state tournament and was always the crew chief in the HS playoffs, which annoyed the softball-only umpires) but never found any real joy in it.

The softball only umpires were not asked to work baseball, though.

Why?

Many were women and the assignor didn't think it was fair to require women to work baseball if they didn't want to.

However, the over-riding factor was that there wasn't as dramatic a shortage of baseball umpires.

That's interesting, as we have the exact opposite situation here. The vast majority of umpires in the area are men, and women are the shortage around here. I can probably count on one hand the number of female softball umpires I've worked with down here.

Wouldn't it be fair not to "require" either gender to work a sport they did not want to?

(Since when is gender in officiating fair?

In Wisconsin (WIAA), a woman working girls only simply requires 8 varsity games to be at or maintain the top level. A man, with no exception, requires 16, even if they only want to work boys games.

Women get the fast track to the top in women's sports. I've seen third year officials work the state tournament only because they are women. It would be impossible for a man with the same experience to get that assignment and qualified men with 20 years in have never received a sniff of that level assignment. It is what it is.)

But back to the original. Only about a third of the softball umpires were women while none of the baseball umpires were. It wasn't seen as a big deal for the women to not work baseball and most would've quit if they were told to work softball. I wanted to work baseball, so I went along with the plan.