[chapmaja]

Here is another strange one. Not my game, but I heard about it through a friend.

Team A (visitors) uses a garbage can to store all of their bats (why I don't know). Prior to the game, the coaches pull all the bats out for inspection and they pass inspection and are cold to the touch. During play late in the of the first game of a DH, the catcher for the opposing team grabs a bat to hand it back to a Team A batter after a foul ball and it feels warm to the touch. The catcher comments to the umpire that the bats feel really warm and she thinks they are being warmed.

The umpire takes the bat and it indeed feels much warmed than a bat on a 40 degree day should feel. The umpires get together and feel they have reason to think that Team A us using a bat warmer to warm the bats. Upon inspection of the dugout it is determined that between the time the bats were inspected and when the game started someone put a lit Sterno can in the bottom of the garbage can. The heat from that can was acting as a bat warmer. By rule these bats are now illegal (altered).

The batter is declared out and ejected for using an illegal bat. The bats that were in the warmer are all deemed to be altered bats, and as such are no longer legal for use. This brings up a major problem for Team A. As was stated above, all the teams bats are stored in this can, and now all of them have been deemed to be altered bats, and as such are not legal for play. Without having any bats available there is no way they could continue batting. The opposing coach is not one to let the team borrow bats either.

The umpires in this game got luck in that the out for the altered bat was the last out of the inning, and the home team scored the needed runs to end the game by mercy rule in the home half of the inning.


This does bring up a few questions though.

First, what can be done in a situation where a team has all bats deemed illegal bats, and thus has none to use. Does the team forfeit the game because they can't legally play due to a lack of legal equipment?

Second, this has been talked about with multiple interpretations since last year, would the bats be legal for game two of a double header since the infraction happened in game one? (this did not apply since the acting coaches did not want to play the second game due to the cold).

My opinion is that the bats should be rechecked after game 1 of the double header prior to the start of the second game. If they have cooled down, they are no longer warmed bats, and as such are no longer altered. Thus they should be allowed in the game.