[Manny A]

Unfortunately, LL Softball has historically been nothing more than LL Baseball being played by girls with a larger ball. This trend has been slowly changing recently, since LL HQ is trying to attract more players to play the game. But there are still a number of softball rules and umpiring mechanics that come from the baseball side of the house that LL HQ haven't changed.

As Hugo mentioned, LL Softball has the same obstruction rules--Type A and Type B--that you find in baseball. They still consider catcher obstruction as catcher interference. They don't protect runners who get hit with batted balls while on bases. They don't recognize dead ball appeals. They don't allow courtesy runners, but do allow special pinch runners. Pitcher's visits are tracked the same as in baseball. And, Yes, they still allow legal fields to have grass infields.

Umpiring LL Softball is also a challenge if you're trained as an ASA or NFHS softball umpire. Plate umpires must track pitches only with the eyes, and cannot move their heads. There is no distinguishing delayed-dead ball signal; when an umpire sees a violation that gets enforced after the play ends, such as illegal pitches or Type B obstruction, the umpire simply points at the infraction while verbalizing the call. Umpires cannot call "DEAD BALL!" to kill play. And the PU is rarely responsible for plays at third under two-man. From a mechanics standpoint, a LL Baseball umpire would be better-suited to call a LL Softball game than an ASA umpire.