Doubleheader situation

[UmpJM]

canadaump6,

I would concur with others who suggest that 20-30 minutes between games is pretty standard and reasonable. What the umpires do between games is their business.

As to the question of whether a player ejected in the first game of a DH is eligible to play in the 2nd game, I would agree with SD Steve that that question is in no way the umpires' concern and I would further suggest that it is not within the scope of the umpires' authority to rule one way or the other on the question.

That is a league matter. The umpires do have a role in determining eligibility during a game, but not prior to the start of the game. If a team uses an ineligible player in a game, most leagues have a specified penalty (most commonly, automatic forfeit of the game in question, in my experience), and it is the league's business to enforce the penalty.

In response to cbfoulds' point, while I can empathize with his point of view, if I eject a player in the 1st game of a DH and he is in the lineup of the 2nd game of the DH, he "starts over" from my perspective. If the player in question "behaves", I've got no problem. If he deserves it, I'll eject him again.

If I happen to know that the league in question has a mandatory & immediate one subsequent game suspension (as the IHSA does, for example), I would ask the manager in question if he was aware of that and still planned to use the player. If he did, I wouldn't try to stop him, but I would likely file a report with the league noting that he had done so. It is not the umpires' responsibility to enforce league disciplinary regulations outside the context of the game.

JM