[BretMan]

Lucky for me, once fall ball ends in these parts indoor winter leagues start up. This provides me with extra learning experiences when I might otherwise be wasting time sitting in front of the fireplace sipping hot chocolate!

- Indoor league, ASA rules. R1 on first base. Batter hits fly ball to center, R1 takes off on contact. The catch is made and the runner is scrambling back to first. The throw to F3 is high and she has to go up for it. She catches the ball and lands on the colored base well ahead of the runner.

I called the out, but the offensive coach was kind enough to inform me that the defense has to use the white base on that play. I'll have to remember that...

- Same leage, different game. It's a pitcher's duel, score is 0-0 in the 6th and we're approaching the 75 minute drop dead time limit. (I hate drop deads, but it's the only way they can schedule back-to-back games from 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. and not be there until midnight.)

Top of 6th, visitors break through for two runs. At the end of the half inning I remind the teams that there are only about seven minutes left. They hustle in an out. In the bottom of the inning, home team gets a couple of hits and scores a run. There is now one out and the tying run is at the plate- and the clock runs out. We revert back to the last completed inning for a 0-0 tie game. Bummer, but dems da rules.

Home team coach pleads for me to finish the inning and, when I won't, goes on a rant about how I'm, "Stealing the game from the kids".

Sorry, Coach, my bad. I forgot about the rule that says the home team can randomly dump the agreed upon time limits, depending on if doing so might or might not benefit the home team.

I seem to be missing out on a lot of rules and promise to pay better attention when our umpire meetings start up next February. Until then, I've got two more months for the coaches in this league to educate me!