FED Mandatory Helmet Rule

[chris s]

Originally posted by dani
Frequently fields in our region have several feet of foul area past first/third base where it is much quicker to send a new ball to the mound and have a non-playing team member, from the dugout nearest to the foul ball, retrieve the ball.

Yes, officially there would be two baseballs on the field at the same time. I do not put the new ball into play on the mound until the foul ball has been picked up by the non-playing team member.

We have all watched umpires/players stand around while an outfielder retrieves a foul ball, throws it to the middle infielder, who relays it to the catcher, who hands it to the umpire who then checks the ball for damage and then puts the same ball back into play. This feat occurs only if all of the players can actually play catch (often they can't).

Given my practice detailed above, is the non-playing team member retrieving the foul ball required by Federation Rule to wear a helmet even though he is at least 100 feet away from the live ball that was not put into play until he is returning to the dugout?

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Dan, what we do around here is with fouls to the backstop, on deck batter gets it, I give new ball to catcher(also passed balls with no one on). A lot of my fields have a lot of foul ground down the outfield lines, LF line yesterday had at least 90 feet to deadball. If a foul gets down that way, send a helmeted kid to get it, and put ball in play. Save them kids' legs so they can get some outs!
I do not have a problem with a helmeted ball shagger in foul ground and putting ball in play, these kids aint that dumb as to not pay attention;o My take with this type of sit is to remember that scholastic events ARE an extension of the classroom, kids are getting PE credit for practice and (I think, playing time). But, none the less, safety first...who's gonna argue that??