[greymule]

I played school ball in the mid-1960s. Appeals had to be with a live ball, but I don't know how closely the rule otherwise followed OBR. (We all thought we played simply under "baseball rules," which we assumed to be the same throughout the universe.) I coached HS baseball in the early 1970s, and I remember that appeals were problematic, with many players and even coaches (and umpires) not knowing how to put the ball back in play or follow other requirements. The high school I coached hired its own umpires, and so did the schools we played. The umps dressed differently. They didn't seem to represent a particular association, and I never saw an official rule book. (Our principal, Bob Kanaby, later became president of NFHS.)

I don't know when Fed took over, but I wasn't surprised when I heard that they had abolished appeals entirely (temporarily). Did Fed invent dead ball appeals to make its reinstated appeals process easier, or were dead ball appeals around earlier?

The few high school games I've attended in the past decade have been almost unbearably slow. I end up talking to other spectators and barely watching the field. So I'm for practically anything that keeps the game moving.