Quote:
Originally posted by wpiced
Last night I umpired a PONY league game of 11-12 year olds. Great kids, but coachs are competative. Two hours or seven innings. Game started at 6:05PM and at 8:00PM six innings were completed. My understanding is that if an inning can be started within the two hours of playing time, it can be completed as long as day light holds out. I told both managers that there was five minutes left. They wanted to start the seventh inning. The visiting team put a batter on deck at 8:03 and the home team went out to their field positions, but the pitcher had not warmed up--not one throw to the plate and the fielders were throwing the warm up balls around the outfield and infield. By now, it was 8:08 and I called the game for the two hour limitation.
The visiting coach (he was down two runs) came unglued because he said the inning was considered started. He didn't have a rule but knew he was right. I told him that I thought the inning started when I pointed at the pitcher and put the ball in play. The controversy is going to the league's board as a protest. Did I screw up?
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Okay, how about this... A new inning starts as soon as the last out is made to end an inning, where this all started was a question about a game with a time limit. As long as there is time remaining in a game once an inning has ended, you are there for another inning...period! This erases chances of a lot of controversy if a team hustles out and just before the umpire puts the ball in play the watch hits zeros. Plus, if we say the inning started once the ball is put into play we have more trouble. What if an umpire were to grant extra warm-up tosses due to inclimate weather? Or a team puts a new pitcher in and he get 8 pitches and not 5? The arguement over putting the ball in play or ball is alive the entire time is irrelevent for this...it's just baseball. JT