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Originally Posted by SRW
Anyone there care to enlighten us as to what the scuttlebutt is with the proposed rule changes?  |
You may recall from prior years that subcommittees (JO, umpires, player reps)decide what they support, which report to next tier committees (Fastpitch, Slowpitch, and Modified), which report to the Playing Rules Committee, which makes a recommendation to accept or reject. It then takes a 60% +1 majority of the Council to overturn the final recommendation.
The first two tiers have met, and Playing Rules meets tomorrow, with the Council vote on Thursday. So, as Mike said in a more curt response, there really is no results to report.
Based on the first two tiers, expect that the effort to expand 4th out appeals to fail; expect efforts to tweak/clarify/explain batter interference to fail, expect metal cleats to fail, expect efforts to define a bunt, a chop, and a legal slide to fail, expect efforts to change slow pitch pitching distances or redefine the arc to fail, expect legalizing the pitcher not wiping after going to the mouth to fail. Proposals to delete all 10B running limitations should pass, expect the 18A to pitch from 43' (but, apparently not 18B or 16A, at least, not in 2008). An effort to clarify that any game participant that smoked or drank an alcoholic beverage anywhere while their game is in progress seems to fail, too; the issue is about where the umpires should be paying attention, or if we should monitor the players that go to the bathroom, too. Dakota's favorite line that the pitcher is not required to pitch to one batter seems destined for deletion; slaughter rules will likely add 12 after 4 in fastpitch (15 after 3 and 8 after 5 unchanged), and slowpitch to 20 after 3, 15 after 4, 10 after 5.
Proposals to make college players ineligible for JO play are hotly disputed, and are easily too close to have any idea what will happen this year. The standard arguments over slowpitch homerun limits and inning-ending homeruns will never end, so who knows what this year's outcome will be (that will be revisited again and again in the future).