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majority rules...
I've played in and have now umpired in several different leagues. When umpiring, I always have to remind myself which league I'm working that night because of the many different modifications to ASA.
Some rules I've pushed for in my playing days:
In a modified-fast pitch league we allowed bunting but no stealing. HBP was in effect. Since I was a pitcher with reasonable control my complaint was that when other pitchers had a batter with 2 strikes they'd try to really zip one in. Unfortunately, without control, the pitch often times ended up hitting the backstop on the fly, and with no penalty, i.e. baserunners advancing, didn't develop the required discipline on developing pitchers. So we put in a rule that stated if the catcher caught the ball on the first attempt, including a clean trap, runners could not advance. But if the catcher bobbled the pitch or it did in fact hit the backstop on the fly, runners could advance at their own risk. This calmed down the wanton recklessness of pitchers, especially with a runner on third base.
Regarding courtesy runners, we had a rule where a CR could be requested by the offense, and if allowed by the defense, the defense could pick who the CR would be. Often-times if I was requested to allow a CR, I'd pick the opposing pitcher. Sometimes the CR chosen was due to bat within "x" batters. In one game where I was pitching a shutout at the time, the batter dropped down a bunt w/ two outs in the 5th or 6th inning and beat it out for a base hit. Then he had the softballs to ask for a CR. DENIED! We ended up passing a rule modification that allowed for 1 CR each half-inning to be used at the discretion of the offensive coach. The runner would be that person in the lineup preceeding the leadoff batter for the inning [first inning would be last batter in the lineup]. Now sometimes the CR would be a rabbit and sometimes the CR would be a turtle. But it took out the emotion of having to do the "requesting thing". It was fortuitous in some cases if you could replace a slower baserunner with a faster one, but it didn't always work out that way.
Some other "modifications":
1. Over-30 womens slo-pitch playing on a girl's FP field and pitching from 39 feet; allowing bunting; no infield fly rule; stealing on ANY pitch unless umpire called it illegal; unlimited foul balls.
2. Modified leagues none of which wear helmets; one league allows tag ups from 3B only; no bunting; no stealing; one league makes HBP the batter's choice, another ignores HBP [it's just a called ball]; one league had no penalty for illegal pitches, i.e. no baserunner advances. Good thing, because there's not a legal pitcher in the league. One league does use 10 on defense. One league claims they use a "DH", such that if that player goes in to play defense, the DH is lost for the game. We've had some pretty wild arguments between the teams on that rule! Course there is no "DH" in ASA.
3. Men's slo-pitch starts w/ a count of 1-1, and they allow for 1 "extra" foul ball. So a count of 1-2 is 1-2 with one to spare. If a foul ball is hit, it is now 1-2 w/ none to spare. Another foul ball and the batter is out.
4. Church League w/ no run rule [last year]. So we had games that were literally 47-3. So they put in an amendment which allowed for the losing team to decid if they wanted to continue playing if run rule limits had be reached. So we had games that were literally 47-3 because the losing team wasn't about to give up. How that's fun for either the team winning or the team losing is beyond. It's certainly not fun for me.
Ted
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