[IRISHMAFIA]

You need to remember a couple of things.

When the bat issue reared its head in the SP game, the FP folks mocked any concern in their game and laughed at the possibility that any illegal or non-approved bats showing up on THEIR field. Yeah, little did many realize that some SP playing daddies were providing their carrot-chasing DD with hot bats. I don't believe this happened in HS simply because kids aren't being recruited out of HS.

Meanwhile, baseball, especially NCAA laughed their asses off at the possibility of altered bats in their game until HR started flying out of the park and all of a sudden there was a concern to the point they placed a moratorium on composite bats until they could address their safety 10 years after ASA got into the bat testing business.

And then there are the coaches who believe winning is everything and that means anything that they can get away with goes. No, this isn't rampant and probably barely a blip on the overall radar of the game. But it only takes one time and as an umpire, I would rather have done what I could on my end. After all, are you really expecting the manager to do a real equipment check to make sure someone didn't bring a non-approved or altered bat to use without the coach's knowledge?

As previously noted, it isn't just non-approved equipment, though helmets and masks need to have their certification check, but also the condition of the equipment. If there is any chance something could go wrong, I'd like to think I could help avoid and injury or worse by taking 2-5 minutes checking the equipment.

And then there is the issue of liability