[Manny A]

Somehow I got scheduled to do bases for a JV game yesterday, after our assignor asked for those available to open their calendar. We have a no-new-inning after 1:45, drop dead at 2:00 time limit for JV, along with the 10-run rule.

Top of the first, and the home team manages to record three outs with the first four or five batters. I thought, "Hmmm, not too bad for JV."

Spoke too soon. In the bottom of the first, the visiting pitcher could not find the strike zone. No idea since the scoreboard wasn't turned on, but I'm guessing that the home team scored around 25 runs on bases-loaded walks. I was almost literally rooted in the C position. Every now and then, the pitcher would manage to get two strikes on the batter, and almost always she would then hit that batter. The visitors did manage to retire a couple of batters on ground outs early in the half-inning, but later on a come-backer to the pitcher after about 10 runs having scored, she threw it away at first. That led to another 15 runs or so scored. Finally, mercifully, the home head coach in the third base coach's box told one of her runners to leave third early to end the inning. Trust me, I was looking for that for about 20 batters.

End of the first, and we "played" for an hour and six minutes.

Top of the second, and the home pitcher suddenly caught the same virus the visiting pitcher had. More bases loaded walks, and I'm back in C. Eventually the inning ends on a dropped third strike that nobody bothers to do anything with (batter goes into the dugout, catcher doesn't go to retrieve the ball, nobody is yelling, "RUN TO FIRST!" or "TAG HOME!" or "THROW TO FIRST!", nothing). Now we're at 1:37 of elapsed time.

My partner gets the two coaches together and announces, "Coaches, we have only 8 minutes left before our no-new-inning limit. What do you want to do, since we will likely not get the third inning started on time? Do you want to play the bottom half of the second?" Visiting coach thinks for a moment, and then responds, "We played enough defense already, so I'm good with stopping now." I'm thinking, "What defense did his players play?? They were standing around for an hour, just like me!"

Honestly, out of about maybe 40 batters who batted, there were only five batters who hit the ball fairly. Three of them led to outs at first base, one was the error I mentioned earlier, and the other was a ball hit to the home pitcher with the bases loaded who tried to throw home but dropped the ball twice.

That's the last time I open up my calendar when asked...