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Mike: If that is your true belief, you didn't know the rule before last year. Until last year, that is exactly how the rule went into effect.
Actually I do know the rule and, unlike you, I know that it has been around for more than a year. That change came into the NFHS book in 2002 and it was probably in the ASA book a year earlier. (NFHS changes their rules earlier than ASA thus there is usually a one year lag between ASA changes and NFHS changes.)
Mike: So a pitcher who fields a slow roller in the circle is immediately a pitcher and not a fielder if BR reaches 1B regardless of the actions of any other runners.
That is kind of a dumb statement, but I didnt say it. The pitcher is the one that is designated so on the lineup card. Simple! All I said was that the LBR comes into effect when the pitcher is holding the ball in the circle and the B-R has reached 1B. If a pitcher fields a ground ball and stands there with it, the LBR will come into effect. Then all runners must go forward or go back. Why is that so hard to understand? If the pitcher attempts to make a play on any runner or B-R, the LBR is OFF. Note that runners come under the LBR as a result of a pitch OR completion of a batters time at bat. So if a batter grounds the ball to the pitcher and a runner is legitimately off 2nd base, at some point that runner will be under control of the LBR.
Mike: So, you are not contending that ASA, NCAA and NFHS are all wrong and you are correct? Interesting.
No, that is not my contention. But maybe some people have a hard time understanding the LBR.
Mike: If the runner is off with the pitch and F1 snags a line drive, R1 becomes aware of the catch, reverses direction and then hesitates trying to find the ball, when to you initiate the LBR?
Never! The play is not over. We have a runner in violation of a rule (which the umpire cannot call until appealed). The runner can stand there all she wants jump back and forth but at some point she better get back to the base before the ball reaches the base and she is out on appeal.
You didnt respond to this. Does that mean you agree that the LBR is not in effect until the play is over?
Mike: Apparently quite a few people care or the issue would never come to the table. I certainly hope you don't believe that there is a group of people in an ivory tower in OKC that make up these rules.
Certainly not. But just because some human comes from some acronym organization does not assume that person is smart or right. Are these the same people that changed the LBR a few years ago? Where they dumb then, and smart now (that they want to reverse the original rule)?
Mike: Once again, you must be terribly uninformed of the origin of the game . . . origin resembles SP softball more than it ever resembled baseball or FP softball.
Mike, I will yield to your knowledge of current rules and the ASA hierarchy, but you dont know diddily about the history of your game or your organization.
The game was created from baseball; it was played under baseball rules with 16 exceptions to define indoor baseball. Most concerned equipment and field dimensions. (Because it was an indoor game.) Baseball was pitched underhand then, but BB pitchers could throw sidearm and throw curves. Both were outlawed for indoor baseball. (Baseball pitching continue to evolve to the point that by 1900 pitchers were throwing overhand. Because of the restriction keeping the arm near the body, softball never evolved that way.)
Another change eliminated leading off by keeping the runner pinned to the base until the ball was hit. However, because pitchers so dominated the game, rules were changed continuously to restrict the pitcher and to add offense to the game. Thus the runners were allowed to leave the base on the pitch.
The game moved outdoors and became Kitten Ball or Playground Ball or Softball. It was played by men and women, and it was a fast pitch game. All this was 40 some years before ASA was ever created. I have a picture of a pitcher in 1916/17 and he doesnt look any different than one today. Stride foot way out, glove hand pointing towards home, pitching arm at 3:00 with wrist cocked, executing a legal drag, heel up and toe down. The most famous softball stories of this era are bout Babe Ruth being struck out on three consecutive pitches two years running (37/38). He supposedly told the catcher that he may as well step out in front the plate to catch the pitch because he (Babe) couldnt see the ball long enough to hit it. (Of course this came later, but how many of you remember a female pitcher throwing 40 pitches to Ted Williams and he hit one!)
During this time there were variations of the game for slow pitching. The rule was just that the pitch had to be at a moderate speed. (Moderate speed was an umpires judgment.) When ASA was created in 1933 they acknowledged the existence of slow pitch with a few sentences on the back page of their rulebook. And then promptly ignored SP for the next 20 years!
In 1953, for the first time, ASA added rules for slow pitch and starting crowning national champions in SP. In 1960 over 70 years after the initial fast pitch game the number of participants playing SP surpassed those playing fast pitch. Today probably 90% of adults in the game are playing SP. But when you look at the total female participation from 8 year olds on pitching machines to H.S., travel ball, college, and pro softball, I suspect that the total ratio of SP vs FP is less than 9:1.
Mike: However, SP carries softball organizations. Even the strictest FP aficionado in ASA must even cede this point.
Most popular? Certainly! But there are exceptions. The softball organization near me grudgenly allows SP on its fields when there is no FP scheduled. And then it is on the field with no lights nor fences nor scoreboards and a ¼ mile from the concession stand. We do Fast Pitch there!
WMB
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