Can they do this?

[BretMan]

This is another one of those funky FED rulings that opens a fresh can of worms.

If the coach doesn't verbally indicate that he's giving the kids the ball besause one of them "might be needed to pitch", then I guess you just have two guys throwing a ball around.

It takes two to toss it. Without some verbal indication, how do you know which kid is warming up and which is the surrogate catcher? Aren't they both essentially "warming up"?

Absent the verbal, "Here you go, Lefty. Start warming up to pitch", if no pitching change was made during the visit to the mound, how do you know if one of them was really warming up?

Suppose you let the two kids throw it around, but no pitching change is made at that time. Does this preclude bringing either of the two players in to pitch at some point later in the game?

If not, how would you retroactively go back and tell somebody not to do something they already did two innings ago that is clearly a violation?

Inquiring minds want to know!