Thrown ball hits bucket outside dugout...
 

Sit:

14yo league game. Not sure of the rule set. Probably some OBR variation with some safety stuff sprinkled in. R1 on 1B, outs don't matter. Batter hits base hit to right-center. R1 goes to 3B. Throw from F8 gets by F5 and hits a bucket sitting outside the dugout belonging to the batting team. Bucket did not prevent ball from entering dugout or other dead-ball territory. Umpire called dead ball and awarded R1 home. Runner was not going to attempt to advance to home regardless of the ball hitting the bucket.

Correct call?

No way. Call it dead and leave the runners where they are. Even if it might have entered the dugout, I'm not helping the offense out here.

If it's the defense's dugout and bucket, I'd be looking really hard to see whether that ball could possibly have entered the dugout on the throw. Really hard.

Look at it this way... The umpire is going to reward the team who left a bucket in play?? No way...

Any specific rules references I can refer to?

How about 9.01c? :)

In a 14U game, Why do we have buckets outside the dugout in the first place?

Shouldn't the question be "Why do we have a bucket outside the dugout in the first place?"

It's more likely to have a bucket out in these type games since a lot of newer umpires are cutting their teeth on the lower levels and may not notice or know better.

Exactly!

The correct way to manage this is treat the bucket like any other equipment left outside a dugout (Bat weight for on deck hitter, etc). Play on and let things happen as they may.

In reality, penalize the stupidity. If a bucket left out by the defense stopped a ball from going into DBT kill it and award bases. If it's the offense, kill it and freeze the players.

Best to keep the misc garbage off the field in the 1st place.

I don't know if things have changed much in the last couple of years here, but in the past we never made too big a deal out of "bucket sitting." It was just a common practice to bucket sit (adult coaches only) outside the fenced in dugout area. We just play on, McDuff. And this is at the HS Varsity level, and it's the veteran umpires who really don't mind the buckets. It's the young buck anal types who get their panties in a wad about things such as this.

Play on! When play is over, get the manager to clear the equipment off the field.

Our association has emphasized this season that everyone must be within the confines of the bench area. This includes all buckets, which are only allowed outside the back end of the bench, and behind the fence line. This went over like a fart in church with the coaches, but we enforced the rule, with the backing of our association.

Now, had this sitch happened in my game, I would penalize the team whose bucket it was. In prior years, where we would allow buckets in certain cases, I always warned the coaches.

They probably have(changed) it's an NFHS point of emphasis this year.

Then perhaps there were some young buck anal types on the NFHS rules committee. Oh, wait...there always are!:rolleyes:

We have had this discussion with one TD. He is allowing 1 coach to sit on a bucket. We disagree, but its his plaything. So if it hits the one bucket play on. If he didn't allow we would keep them off and in the dugout.

This is a NFHS point of emphasis this year.

Had a HS varsity coach (who sent his assistant to the rules meeting) wants his kids to be allowed to sit on a low dug out wall with thier feet hanging on the out side. When he was telling this in pregame, he mentioned that only one crew made his kids put them inside. I told him it was a point on emphasis this year "Everybody in the dugout" . His comment to that was "I guess it's now 2".

OBR Ruling: Play on

FED Ruling: You could kill it and award bases based on your judgment if you thought the ball would have went out of play