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legalities
High school playoff time. Fed rules. No.1 seed team is hosting teams who have never been at it's home field. Field is fine but has unusual feature. About 200 feet or so in the outfield the field begins sloping down another 30 feet or so on all sides. The slope end in trees/undergrowth. No fence. From any umpire position we cannot see where the ball actually ends up at when it rolls down the hill. We can only see the top of the fielders' head. Ground rule has always been get what you can:no two base award as mentioned in 4-1-3-d. Local umpire organization and county athletic director have always told we umps to call it that way.
All the local teams know this is how it's played and have no real problem. But playoff time brings teams from other places.
Pregame a few days ago begins with visiting coach saying that he wanted to be sure that we understood that the umpires were "legally responsible" if one of his girls gets hurt retrieving a ball at the edge of the woods. We went back and forth a few times accepting his concern but being clear that we accepted no legal responsibility. Game goes on with no problem.
Saturdays' regional championship started with a different visiting coach handing me (plate ump) a letter from her AD saying that they also did not agree with the ground rule and expected umpires to understand that we were liable for any harm to their players if they went into the brush. There was even a place for us to sign. I told her I understood her concern but we wouldn't be signing the letter. Let's play. We did. No problems.
We're bringing all of this up at our next organization meeting. We want something in writing from the county saying they sanction the groundrule interpretation. Anybody experience anything like this? Are we on shaky ground?
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