Quote:
Originally posted by SC Ump
I agree that in the spirit of fun play, it should be treated as "in play". But the more important question is safety.
Originally posted by rhsc I believe I would have told them if there is close play near the machine, leave it go until your sure you can make a play on it without getting hurt.
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Parallels our thinking exactly. When we first tried this, the operator was always a coach and always on the field and always charged with keeping girls away from the machine. And the ball was declared dead precisely so that girls would not dive for balls near the machine.
In practice, no one has ever gotten hurt, or even come close. Well, except the adult operators!
(They have pulled all sorts of muscles trying to get out of the way of the ball...) Last two years we only had operators when the machine was in use, and they didn't have to be coaches. Still no problems.
So this year, we are trying to handle it as a field fixture: the ball remains in play unless trapped by the machine. We are hoping to rely on the umpires to make that call and position runners appropriately, as we would if the ball got trapped under a temporary pitcher's plate or a base or an umpire (although I've never seen that happen). That's one of the reasons we came to this forum, to get advice about how "trapped ball" rules and rulings make sense when they might come into play on balls in the infield that have not yet passed a fielder other than the pitcher.