Quote:
Originally Posted by Manny A
Give me a break. Have you ever worked tournament play in Little League? Williamsport is the final arbiter of any and all protests during tourney games, even down to the district level. Their policy is, and has been for as long as I remember, that a manager may protest a rule misinterpretation, and if he/she isn't happy with the umpire's decision after the umpires get together to discuss, he/she may elevate it up to the tournament director, then the regional headquarters, and finally to LL HQ. What LL HQ says is final.
There are probably thousands of LL district games going on starting the last week in June in the US alone. Who knows how many others are taking place in the international regions. I would hazard a guess and say maybe five to ten times as many games. The chances are pretty good that W-port is dealing with hundreds of protests every day during district play. And I'm guessing that the staff at W-port that handles protests numbers maybe 10-15 people, tops.
When a rules misapplication protest is lodged, the game is stopped immediately, and not restarted until the protest is resolved. There is no "keep playing and we'll resolve the protest within 24 hours" like you see in MLB play. They get it taken care of right then and there so that it doesn't affect play later.
As a district UIC and tournament director in past years, I've had to deal with a few protests in our local LL. It usually takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes to get a protest all the way up to W-port and get an answer back. Once that answer was received, the game started right back up. The only impact was a slip in the daily schedule of games. No biggie.
So I laugh when someone says that a state cannot handle protests. Even in your "extreme" scenario of 128 districts, the probability of a more than ten protests being lodged at any one time for the state staff to deal with is infinitesimal. And if it really feels that it cannot handle it, then the state staff should delegate protest resolution to the next lower level. It can be easily organized well ahead of time, the right people contacted to let them know of their responsibilities, and be ready and announced before the first pitch of post-season play. It just takes a little initiative. JMO, but for states that say they can't do it, they are just shirking their duty.
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I am just going by what I've been told by the MHSAA as their reasoning for not accepting protests. Your use of Little League as the example is not comparable to most high school athletic associations. The simplest reason? Competency, as in LL has some and most high school associations lack what is needed in that regard.
Simply put, most high school athletic associations care about three things, football, basketball, and money. Anything beyond that, they try to find the cheapest way out. The proper way to handle this would be to have a UIC available at either the district or regional level (1 UIC should be able to handle protests from 4 districts simultaneously via telephone) in the case of protests. Heck if the association office were to be available they could handle all protests from across the state on district Saturday, but they aren't available.
Should protests be allowed in the post-season? They should, but I know in Michigan you won't see them anytime soon.
What I do find interesting is that some sports do allow protests within their rules without requiring state association adoption. Track and Field is a perfect example, and swimming files suit with basically the same rules.
Track and Field uses the following procedure. First, the offended team appeals the decision to the meet referee. The meet referee rules on the appeal. If the meet referee's decision is not made to the satisfaction of the offended team, the jury of appeals is brought in for a final say on the matter. The referee (not the offended team) presents the facts of the situation to the jury of appeals, which then votes on the appeal. They can either uphold or deny the appeal.
I have had the privilege of and have been the cause of a jury of appeals in track and field meets. I made a mistake at a regional meet many years ago that ended up going to the jury of appeals. The coach didn't like the ruling, but the correct rule was enforced after my mistake. I also had the chance to serve on the jury of appeals at a track state meet several years ago. We got together and made the decision to deny the appeal.
If state associations could get together and have a similar jury of appeals at the state level, they could likely have a easy method to handle protests. You would need 5 people at the state association office on game day (district and regionals) or on site (all finals are played at the same place). The district crews would need a designated crew chief that would call the appeal into the state office for a ruling by the jury of appeals.
One caveat about the jury of appeals in Michigan. At the state meet level the jury of appeals "fee" is $100 to appeal because it slows down the meet.