Fall Ball Sportsmanship

[PeteBooth]

Originally Posted by ozzy6900

I don't care if it is Fall-ball, Summer-ball, or Spring-ball. Changing the strike zone as ctblu40 and LMAN suggest is Fool's-ball.

There is nothing that you can say to convince me, gentlemen. You two (and anyone else that does this) should hang up your uniforms and never darken the baseball diamond again.

An umpire is supposed to be unbiased. At least that's the way it's supposed to be. So by the same token, if it's a tie game do you guys shrink the strike zone to help the batters? Come on, you guys are BS! Please don't embarrass yourselves by responding any further. Take your sorry a$$es and burn your uniforms. You make the rest of us sick!

Ozzy, IMO you are missing the point on this one.

The first question?

Why are we there in the first place?

Answer: To make certain that one team does not gain an UNFAIR advantage not intended by the rules over another.

When the score is rediculous, how does changing the zone give one team an unfair advantage over another. Most kids in a blow-out game have already batted a "zillion" times. When I played and we were getting blown out I wanted no part of the game. It was time to go back to practice and get ready for the next game.

No-one, The coaches, parents etc. want to be there when the score is lopsided, especially on those cold days. Also, nothing good comes out of it.

As I stated in my original response, IMO the onus should be on the coaches to stop the game (absent any kind of mercy rule).

IMO, we are not "cheating" when we change the zone because the score is out of hand. Also, the game is for the participants not US so if our CLIENTS want us to change the zone and get the game over with, then we abide. They are the ones "paying the freight"

Also, we are talking about a BLOWOUT game not a game in which one team is up by say 7-8 runs in the early innings where the other team has a chance to come-back. By Blow-out we are talking about a team who is winning by some 15 runs and if they kept playing hard could easily be up by 30 or more.

Pete Booth