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When I raised this issue to a friend who is an ASA umpire he responded that he would never penalize a team with any more than assessing an out for leaving a base early. He asked me if our team was ever beating up on a team so badly, with no end in sight, that we had runners leave the base early, on purpose, just so an out could be registered and the misery could end. He has seen that many times.
Of course we have! But that's not the same thing at all. When a team purposely makes an out and they are winning 17-0, there really is no argument that can be made that the team is employing a tactic to their advantage. What advantage could there possibly be?
But in the example I just gave, the team is deliberately doing something illegal to extract some advantage. The advantage in this case is to force the game to be lengthened. The losing team only stood to gain by being "awarded" a fresh inning to catch up.
They did something illegal and they gained an advantage by the penalty being imposed for that single act. They INVITED the penalty!
Now, one might think, "There should at least be a warning!" Well, umpires are usually given the OPTION of issuing warnings. But, in this case, I think a warning would be inappropriate since it would serve no purpose. Besides, if an act is heinous or obvious enough - there really is no reason to issue a warning. In this case, the infraction was OBVIOUS. While the pitcher is holding the ball in the circle, the first base coach is practically PUSHING the girl off the base. "Get off! Get off!" he yelled.
Wouldn't it be almost comical if the umpire HAD invoked ASA 10-1-L and put the girl back on base - only to have the offensive manager argue that their runner SHOULD be called out? Imagine an offensive manager arguing that his runner should NOT be allowed to remain on base, but should be called OUT! That argument, in itself, validates the invocation of 10-1-L since it is tantamount to a confession of guilt.
But then again, softball has no rule equivalent to baseball's rule 5.04 which states, "The offensive team's objective is to have its batter become a runner, and its runners advance."
Perhaps the softball equivalent might read, "The offensive team's objective is to do whatever it needs to do, even if it involves purposely making outs, in order to gain the maximum advantage to win the game."
Now don't take me so seriously, guys! I like to play devil's advocate a lot. I *love* the game of softball and I think the ASA is a great organization. Baseball has it's share of loopholes, as well.
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