[umpjim]

Originally Posted by lpneck

I contemplated it. The whole situation was very strange. It was the 11-year-old state championship game. The game was a fantastic pitcher's duel- the other team scored a run in the bottom of the 1st, and then we didn't allow a runner the rest of the game (until the B6.) They didn't even get all the way through their lineup twice in the first 5 innings, and got caught on MPR.

I wasn't even sure they would do anything about it, because the penalty is a 2-game suspension for the manager, and this was the final game. After they got the first 2 outs, their manager went out to talk to the pitcher (who was obviously dominating), and I knew they were going to let us score. They "unintentionally" intentionally walked the next hitter.

Then once he was on first, they threw a purposeful wild pitch. Our runner went to 2nd. At that point I told him to stay there. They threw another wild pitch, and then threw the ball into CF on purpose- I kept telling our runner to stay there.

At that point I thought about protesting under the travesty clause, but I felt the other team would have at least gotten some kind of warning before they just declared the game a forfeit. Then they would have played straight up, gotten an out, and we end up losing 1-0. I don't think the MPR violation would have turned into a forfeit victory, and quite honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to win a state championship by forfeit anyway.

Because I knew they were going to let us score, I had the runner stay at 2nd because I wanted to get a chance to hit with the bases loaded and the middle of our lineup at the plate with a chance to drive in the go-ahead runs (and make their pitcher throw 16 additional pitches.)

It wasn't until after the game was over and I was replaying everything that we talked about "what if we had tried to steal the run by having R2 come up on R3 after the bases loaded walk?" Their defense was under the impression of "don't get an out," so it might have worked.

It was the craziest baseball game I have ever been a part of.

Some other people, such as the umpires and TD should have been contemplating at least a warning. While normal failure to get MPR would not be a forfeit, the travesty clause allows WP to consider a forfeit.