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Joel,
I have had this call in a "rec" league game and it wasn't hard to sell at all.
Midway through the 3rd inning a coach brought his book out and told me the other team was batting out of order.
Bob was standing in the box, but by his book Charlie should be up. I called the other coach out with his scorebook for comparison. The protesting coach's book showed the other team to be batting 10 players while the other book showed 11 in the line up.
Well, I reached into my ball bag and removed my line-up card holder and checked out the always-well-maintained line-up card. Sure enough, only 10 players on my line-up card. I compared the my line-up to the book and there is Jack's name in the book, but not on the card.
I asked the coach if that was Jack on 1st base (last batter) and he said no. Easy call, "Coach, Jack is done for the game, let's play ball." Of course, now the other coach wants a forfeit, or at least an out, for the mistake. Told him that was not the appropriate remedy, but if he wanted to play under protest, I would be more than happy to sign his book, but we were going to continue the game. His team lost, he filed the protest and lost.
Aesop's moral of this story:
Never underestimate the value of maintaining a line-up card.
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The bat issue in softball is as much about liability, insurance and litigation as it is about competition, inflated egos and softball.
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