[SanDiegoSteve]

Aw, jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,

Did you not see my first sentence? I said I would not allow these activities. I was just pointing out another ruling which isn't spelled out, yet should be.

Don't mistake my musings and posing of questions for lacking umpiring common sense. I have done just fine over lo, these many years. I've only had a couple of protests filed in 20 years, and did not lose either of those. I'm really not going to let the coach do those things, but I would like to see it written in black and white, too.

Like Rush Limbaugh, I sometimes say things that are absurd, in order to point out the absurdity of others. This is the case here. That's what my argument was based on to begin with, absurdity. I said that according to the non-specific rule (3-2-2), a coach could do all sorts of things with the baserunners when the ball was dead. Do you see what I was going for? Just making a point, which in hindsight was a bad idea.