This happened to me tonight.

USSSA tournament. Visiting team up 10-1 in a game with a 8-run mercy rule after five innings. Home team gets a run across in the bottom of the fifth to make the score 10-2. Visiting team requests that the next FOUR batters to be intentionally walked, which can be done in USSSA without throwing to the batter. I'm the plate umpire, and getting kind of ticked because my quick ball game is now going an extra inning because some coach just wants to play more. Turns out that in order for the visiting team to get into bracket play, he must beat this team by nine runs. He needs to go an extra inning to do so. Home team manages to bring the score to 10-8.

Top of the sixth, visiting teams scores four to make it 14-8. Home team gets four runs in their half to make it 14-12 with a runner on first and the tying run at the plate. Luckily, he pops out, and the game is over, 14-12, by time limit expiring. The losing team makes it into bracket play by run-differential.

Hypothetical questions:

1)Wouldn't it have been better for the visiting team to walk one batter and balk him around the diamond to score the third run to send the game into the sixth inning?

2)Let's assume the tying run gets on base for the home team. The visiting team wants the run to score so they can go into extra innings and possible get the nine run win, but the home team, knowing that if they lose by less than nine runs, doesn't want to score and wants to get out intentionally. Question: Exactly when does this become a travesty of the game?

Like I said, tournament ball is so much fun.



1) Shouldn't the visiting

Anytime a run differential has meaning in seeding, it leads to idiotic ploys as you had to endure. There are better ways.

Bob

Unfortunately, our job is to enforce the rules and only enforce the rules. In your case, the rules were stupid and a coach figured out how to manipulate them to his own benefit. Soundls like it almost backfired on him though, and if it had, he would have learned a good lesson. While annoying, it's not illegal and so there is nothing we can do.