[NCASAUmp]

I don't care what level you're calling. If the lines are completely gone, they're gone. It's now umpire's judgment, and any umpire who nitpicks over an inch or two about the back line is one who is probably constantly looking for trouble.

One of the local fields is notorious for getting the boxes wrong. Instead of 3'x7', it looks more like 2.5'x5-6'. The front of the box is clearly short, as the outside corners didn't even meet the foul lines. A few years back, we had this umpire who nitpicked everything to death. One night, it was towards the end of a very tight game, and I'm the BU in A. The lines are almost gone by this point, and this batter gives a short pitch a decent knock.

"DEAD BALL!!!"

The batter had stepped out of the front of the box by maybe a couple of inches. No more than 4-6" from my perspective. The batter, naturally, goes nuts, and the team, frustrated with this guy's temper and nitpicking, feed off of this.

By rule, yes, the batter was out of the box. However, by rule, the box was wrong, and had it been right, I know for a fact that his foot would have been in the box. Not out, not on the line, but in.

Regardless, a good umpire will take steps to head this off at the pass. If the boxes are wrong, I let the teams know before the first pitch. If they're grossly wrong, I'll let them know AND wipe them out myself (making sure the field supervisor sees me doing it - maybe someday, he'll get the message). In the sitch presented, if I REALLY feel the batter isn't in the box, I'd just calmly tell them to step in. I rarely have any problems with calls for out of the box.

Nitpicking, IMHO, is NOT a survival tool.