NFHS JV game.. A walk-a-thon. I have the plate with a slow pitch umpire working the bases due to shortage of qualified fast pitch guys.
No outs runners at 3B and 2B , 1-0 count, when pitcher steps on rubber and start moving ball from one hand to other and back again, obvious and blatant double touch. No pitch is delivered and I call IP. Ball to the batter, runners advance one base. DC comes out of 3B team area to get explanation and play resumes. I give count as two balls no strikes. Two pitches later (both balls) I take off my mask and move to position to watch BR go to 1B when I notice a runner on 1B who should not be there. And the batter is looking at me saying "that's only the second pitch blue...". Uh, oh!
Apparently when I told the runners to move up the batter took it to mean her too and went to 1B while I was talking to the DC. And the on deck batter took her place in the batter's box.
Ok the obvious answer here is "Dumb Move Plate Umpire" I should have noticed rouge base runner at 1B and brought her back. My only defense is being a little brain dead from 58 minutes of JV pitching in which we had only managed to eek out five outs and this following doing the varsity game behind the plate as well since my partner was a slow pitch emergency backup. The defense never questioned why this batter went to 1B and my partner just figured I knew what I was doing and it was some crazy fast pitch rule....and l just did not notice it had happened.
My ruling was that the on deck batter had simply taken the batters place out-of-order and the ball three and ball four pitches stood. The correct batter was standing out on 1B but had no right to be there, however her presence had no effect. Since the on deck batter had watched ball four go by on the batters behalf I left the batter on 1B (now with a right to actually be there) and had the on deck batter start a new turn at bat with no count.
On reflection I considered a case could be made that when on-deck took the batters place who had 2-0 count that she was in fact an unannounced substitute under 3-3-3D. And since she is attempting to enter in a spot in the order that she has no right to she is illegal sub. But BOO seems closer and the result seems more in the spirit of the rule. Both teams were ignorant on the rules and yours truly missed the batter going to 1B so this was my fix.
What do you think?
