[Bainer]

Hey guys-
I'm a little nervous about starting another thread after the debacle that ensued last time, but here goes-

In last year's season end tournament, a position player (RF)was brought in to pitch in a late inning. The player was wearing eye black.
The opposing teams manager, performing his best Earl Weaver impression, claimed that the eye black, a 'foreign substance' should not be allowed onto the mound.
The umpire ruled that the spirit of the rule was to prevent the pitcher from using a 'foreign substance' on the ball, and so, allowed the player to remain on the mound, along with his eye black.
The manager filed a protest with the tournament committee, and WON! They did find however, that it had no impact on the game, so the result stood. We were thereafter instructed that eye black would not be permitted on pitchers.

A number of us were upset by this ruling, as the tournament committee had no umpire members, and were unfamiliar with implementing the rules, only with citing them verbatim from the rule book.

Cut to this years tournament meeting-
The tournament-specific rules were given, and as an afterthought, we were verbally told to have any pitchers remove eye black. A few of us objected, and were told that we were wrong, and had no power to arbitrarily exclude rules.
In attempts to prove the 'letter-of-the-law' silliness of this ruling, we asked about sunscreen, or bug spray, and were told that we were being 'stupid a**ho**s' in questioning the rule.
We (the dissidents) agreed that for this tournament, we would swallow our prides, and umpire as a group, following the same rules, but would eventually get a clear and concise ruling.


Since that time we have learned that-
MLB allows it- see MLB site Q&A with Tim McClelland
NCAA allows it- learned through correspondence
And our governing bodies (OBA and Baseball Canada) allow it-


Anyone have anything to add?
Questions, comments, criticisms?



Bainer.