NFHS Rules Changes 2009 (Sort of)
 

Sadly not much change:

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INDIANAPOLIS, IN (June 30, 2008) - The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Baseball Rules Committee adjusted four rules at its annual meeting June 8-10 in Indianapolis. The rules changes subsequently were approved by the NFHS Board of Directors.
A revision was made to Rule 6-2-3 regarding infractions by a pitcher. The rule states it is illegal for a pitcher to intentionally pitch close to a batter, replacing the prior phrasing of to "throw"
close to a batter. The change was necessary for clarification and in order to be consistent with other pitching rules.
"This rule is violated while the pitcher is pitching, and not just throwing the ball," said Elliot Hopkins, NFHS director of educational services and liaison to the Baseball Rules Committee.
Infractions by a batter were also addressed. The committee is concerned that batters are still attempting to be hit by pitches and earn an undeserved awarded base by "taking one for the team." Rule 7-3-4 clearly prohibits a batter allowing himself to be hit by a pitch.
In such a situation, the pitched ball is deemed either a strike or a ball and the player who permitted the ball to touch him remains at bat unless the pitch results in a third strike or ball four. The phrase "or ball four" was added to the rule to clarify the pitch needed to be called a strike or ball.
Revisions were also made to Rule 1-2-2 regarding painted field lines. All non-permanent lines on the playing field shall be marked white with a material not injurious to the eyes or skin.
Non-permanent refers to all lines that must be painted on the field. Only permanent lines, such as on artificial turf, may be a color other than white.
Lastly, umpires will be given more flexibility with their uniforms beginning in 2009. An adjustment to Rule 10-1-9 eliminated the need for umpires to specifically wear heather gray pants.
"Equipment dealers are transitioning to charcoal gray slacks,"
Hopkins said. "This rule change will provide umpires the opportunity to purchase any shade of dark gray and be in compliance."
In addition to the four rules changes, the committee identified four points of emphasis: 1) simplifying illegal pitch penalty administration, 2) re-emphasizing that team personnel remain in dugouts,
3) keeping the pace of play steady and 4) having all coaching staff members display professional behavior.
Baseball is the fourth-most popular sport among boys at the high school level with 477,430 participants during the 2006-07 season, according to the High School Athletics Participation Survey conducted by the NFHS. It also ranks third in school sponsorship across the nation with 15,458 participating schools.


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About the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) The NFHS, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, is the national leadership organization for high school sports and fine arts activities. Since 1920, the NFHS has led the development of education-based interscholastic sports and fine arts activities that help students succeed in their lives. The NFHS sets direction for the future by building awareness and support, improving the participation experience, establishing consistent standards and rules for competition, and helping those who oversee high school sports and activities. The NFHS writes playing rules for 17 sports for boys and girls at the high school level.
Through its 50 member state associations and the District of Columbia, the NFHS reaches more than 18,500 high schools and 11 million participants in high school activity programs, including more than 7 million in high school sports. As the recognized national authority on interscholastic activity programs, the NFHS conducts national meetings; sanctions interstate events; produces publications for high school coaches, officials and athletic directors; sponsors professional organizations for high school coaches, officials, spirit coaches, speech and debate coaches and music adjudicators; and serves as a national information resource of interscholastic athletics and activities. For more information, visit the NFHS Web site at www.nfhs.org.

Any rumblings on the horizon about requiring adult base coaches to wear helmets?

I wish this was a joke. Unless you are an idiot, you knew the intention of all 4 rule "clarifications." What ump would not eject a pitcher for "pitching" at a batter? Who would have kept a batter at the plate if calling a ball four when he made no attempt to get out of the way? It seems as though the NFHS is in a race to the bottom. Sad.

I think you missed this one blue... 'remains at bat unless the pitch results in a third strike or ball four'

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), there was some discussion on this play on another forum with some members saying that it became a "no-pitch" since the rule didn't specifically say ball four.

Lah me indeed.

Just an opportunity to sell new rule books next year - no real change in how the game is played. Just "clarifications".

Not here, since we receive a rule book and case book with our State registration fee.

I'm going to be the optimist. At least they didn't make any real changes (like helmets for base coaches or something asinine like that.)

Here is my favorite rule change for the 2008-09 school year:

"4) Having all coaching staff members display professional behavior."

Right now I am ROFLMAO!! :D

MTD, Sr.

Nice.
 

So instead of actually dealing with issues, NFHS just publishes these "clarifications." How worthless.

People, try to remember that the NHFS is comprised mostly of coaches and lay people. Tim C. is one of the very few umpire inputs there.

Well, I don't know that Tee will appreciate being called anybody's "input." But they do have a fairly lengthy survey that they invite all their umpires to complete.

And MTD: remember, OH coaches get a $100 parting gift for ejections starting next year. (They're parted from their $100...) Maybe that will help encourage "professionalism."

There is a message here
 

Guys with the exception of Football, who has a constantly rotating rule set, and wrestling, which is a totally different animal, what we are seeing now in HS sports is the reality that there is not much left on the horizon to change in the game rule-wise. Even in hoops, when guys are thinking about the big change in clearing our the 1st lane spaces (what a waste) or moving the 3 point line back, this is not earth shaking.

Ask yourself, "What was the last major change in HS Baseball, or NCAA Baseball, to the playing rules?" To my mind, it is the FPSR, and that was what, 10 years ago? The only closer one in Fedlandia was the pitching rule change about turning shoulders to 1B, but that is not really significant.

So FED is down to "gardening" the rules, and maybe one day, cleaning up the book so it makes sense, until someone comes up with the next big innovation to the game (Like a 2 batter penalty for rules violations where the defense has to play with 8 guys or something :eek: ). In a lot of ways, we ought to welcome this, the rules are pretty stable, it easy to teach them, and the rats don't have new things to mess up.

But it will make for a lot of boring rules meetings in the future. In my state you have a mandatory rules meeting every year for your sport, which means I have 6 of them. And most of them can be done in about 10 minutes, so the interpreters have to fill the hour up with noise pollution, and talking to coaches about eligibility.

My impression is the the NCAA clinics are more like rules review and standardization of mechanics and enforcement than anything else, FBoFW.

Let's enjoy it while we have it! Who knows, someday the FED boys might decide to add the DP/Flex rule or some other miserable Softball crap into our rules, and then we will have a mess on our hands.

[QUOTE]Not quite true.

It seems as though there is at least ONE rule change per season.

We had the appeal rule change. Umpires used to call the infraction.

After the first season of the change in appeal rule, FED did away with the accidental appeal and also added the IBB into the mix. When FED first institutued the appeal rule change F1 could issue IBB's and then still appeal. That was "cleaned-up' the next year.

This past year we had a change in the OBS rule and IMO, the rule still needs clarification.

Therefore, I agree that most of the so called changes are interpretations but there is at least 1 or 2 rules that are either added, or modified each year.

Pete Booth

Where have you been for the last ten years? Appeals, obstruction, pitching, FPSR have all seen changes.

But there are rules that still need some attention:

1. Eliminate the practice of umpires inspecting helmets and bats. The coach should be responsible for the condition of his equipment.

2. Eliminate the courtesy runner, if not completely, at least for the pitcher.

3. Replace Fed pitching regulations with the OBR pitching regulatrions, verbatim.

4. Replace the FED FPSR with NCAA's FPSR

Dear:
 

Mr. Umpire:

The NFHS tabled the request to not inspect bats and caps, made officially by Oregon, because it caught the committee by surprise.

By "surprise" the real issue is that the change would have to be accepted by the NFHS insurance carrier. This review takes time.

The NFHS base insurance carrier is a different company than the company that backs the NCAA plan.

This part of the process was expected and that is why the issue was tabled and not voted down.


Two separate points here:

1) The second most importnat philosophy (behind safety) is to increase participation of students.

That being said:

2) The courtesy runner is by state adoption ONLY. Convince your state to not use the rule and you are home free. (Oregon does not use the CR rule and next season all schools will be reminded of that).

I ask you to remember that 94% of all rules are brought to committee by coaches. If coaches were in favor of this change I would expect to see changes. Also, the NFHS thinks that their rules should be intrinsically different from OBR as they are trying to accomplish something vastly different from teams that play OBR.

Again we tried but the change was tabled as it must be approved by the NFHS administration and insurance carrier. This issue is not dead.

5. Replace the FED obstruction rule with NCAA's obstruction rule.

In MI we are now switching to a every other year distribution of rule books. We will get them next year but not again until 2011.

Tim,

Was there any discussion on clearing up what some to feel the ambiguity in the obstruction rule?


Tim.

That all makes sense. We've had CR for as long as I remember and it does allow more kids to be able to participate.

Didn't know there was a problem with it. It's easy, doesn't distract at all from the game IMO, but that's in our area.

Might be different somewhere else.

Thanks
David

That's the main thing I thought they might address.

Must not have caused much problems since as Tee noted, the coaches are the catalyst behind any changes etc,.

Thansk
David

The courtesy runner rule was never, according to Indianapolis, intended to be a "participation" rule. It is supposed to be a speed-up rule. In my opinion it does not speed anything up. It's a pain in the A$$ rule.

No matter what it was intended, it works now as a participation rule. And I don't see how its a pain as you speak? BR walks, as soon as he reaches first I have CR coming out, they change the game continues.

So just wonderin how it's a pain?

But I do agree, it doesn't speed up the game at all, just works to the benefit of the team with a F2 who can't run.

Thanks
David

In my experience it slows the game down as the coach requests time, decides who he is going to insert, player looks for helmet, runs out, catcher comes in and still doen't put on gear until the end of the inning.

Yeah, I know, stay on top of it. In some case that only serves to piss off the coach and does nothing in the long run for game management.

It is a stupid rule. Running, along with hitting, fielding, pitching, is part of the game. If they won't eliminate it, they should change its name to the "Our catcher is too freaking fat and slow to run" rule.

As far as participation, if a coach considers CR as satisfying participation for a player, he should be ashamed of himself.

Well:
 

Mr. Umpire you win.

This is certainly the last time I will make an effort to answer anything you post.

Bye

well maybe not ...
 

MrUmpire, the ball you and I work must be completely different.

All of our HS teams know the rule and it works very smoothly. We cover in pregame - coach have your CR ready.

If he's not ready, we don't have a CR and the game continues. If or when the gets him ready, then we make the switch.

Also, we never have a problem with F2 getting stuff on. But I know from calling, that happens when it has been allowed by the umpires.

I'm not going to waste anymore time on this because obviously we are comparing apples and oranges.

Good luck

thansk
David

Mr. Umpire
 

With little Respect,

I have done about 800-1000 Baseball games in the last 10 years. Where have you been, calling Softball?

FYI: Appeals, the change was to have umpires call runners out w/o a defensive appeal, now it is changed. Is this a fundamental change to the game? Did it bring a new set of rules to the game? One, maybe, the dead ball appeal. That's a HUGE change :eek: .

Obstruction: Are you serious? Please reread the interp./rule change this year and tell me how obstruction has changed? How many more new OBS calls did you make this year over last year? I made one in 44 FED games.

Pitching: What has changed that has made a huge difference in the game? FED has nibbled at the edges, but if the biggest changes are when you can turn your shoulders towards 1B, and making sure the gorilla arm is illegal, then I fail to see the big change.

FPSR: The FPSR is 10 years old. It has not really been changed since that time. That was my point.

If you compare FED Baseball with Football, Wrestling, Basketball, and even Softball, you cannot escape the conclusion that the Baseball Rules are much more stable than the other rules sets in the past 10 years.

Pete,

One or two rule changes every year sometimes happen, though not for 2009. But the rule changes have not been very significant, or have greatly affected the play of the game. At least that is my opinion. I wish I had my 1981-2005 rule books still, so I could run through it and show you the changes that have taken place, and how many fewer we have seen in recent years.

The Courtesy Runner is not allowed by the Connecticut State Board for HS games so we have no issues with the rule. I have, however, officiated games in the Summer where the courtesy runner was used and I see no problem with it at all. I have not run into the "timeless, waiting" problems that others have stated.

And NFHS gives them to your state association? Are you really so naive that you think the cost of the rule books is not passed on to you through your dues?

Sounds like the state is planning to pocket the extra cash in the off years.