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hum, thats actually kind of funny about the batters box. I had a HS game a few years ago where the batter had one foot completely outside the box, smacked a good base hit but once he reached first and all playing stopped I called him out. The OC was pissed but I explained why I called him out. After that I had talked to some other experienced Ump's and they told me how to use common sense and do whats called as "Preventative Umpiring". Since then if I saw something like that I would casually have the batter get both feet in.
Besides that however as I was also told, we have more important things to worry about than if his feet are in the box. Dont worry about it so much unless, like most of you have already mentioned, the catcher says something.
With that, last night I was working a game with a guy in a 13yrold Tourney. You guessed it, "Daddy Ball" with HS rules. Let the fun begin. One team after every ball pitched the batter would get completely out of the box, didnt matter if the ball was fouled or just a pitch, the batter would get completely out of the box to take signs from the 3rd base coach. The umpire, my partner, after a couple of innings of this decided to tell the HC of the offending team to have his players keep at least one foot in the box because they were slowing down the game. To make a long story short the coach got pissy with him and PU threw him out. The coaches on that team were like "We know HS rules and thats the first time we ever heard of that one....blah blah blah...." Well again, welcome to "Daddy Ball", if they knew the rules then they would know that in HS, at least in Illinois HS, the rule says you have to keep at least one foot in the batters box at all times unless time is called, a foul ball and so on.
I told my partner after the game how I would have handeled it. Just to tell the first couple of batters in the first inning to please keep a foot in the box at all times. After the first inning, just a casual meeting with the HC to let his batters know to keep a foot in the box and let it go at that. But he let it drag out to the 3rd or 4th inning thats why the pissing match.
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