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A little background before we start: the teams involved in a game i was umpiring today were 2 of 5 that were kicked out of the county league for various reasons. These 5 teams were all from the community i'm from, so everybody knows eachother involved in the games. This happened a few weeks ago, so the new "league" didn't really have any pitching restrictions set up (like number of innings per week). It was just OBR rules with the typical modifications.
Now. Today. We go to extra innings. Home team pitcher has just pitched the first 7. He goes out to the mound and starts to warm up. The Home coach then asks me "hey, how many innings are they allowed per week?" I didn't know. In fact, nobody knew since the rule really hadn't been established yet. The home coach then has the pitcher and the SS switch positions. I go over and say "coach, you can't do that. Once a player throws a warm up pitch, he is required to pitch." Coach says, "but then i'll have to forfeit." Then i say "i don't know what to tell ya..." But after a brief conversation with the opposing coach, we decided to let the substitution happen since the rules weren't established.
My questions: Do you think i handled this right considering the circumstances?
More importantly: (when the rules are fully set in stone)- how loosely do you inforce the rule about when a pitcher goes and takes a warmup pitch before the inning starts, he is required to pitch as per 3.08 (a) (1)?
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