To uphold or deny?

[scarolinablue]

Bretman,

Great question and pickup. Since I'm not looking at my lineup card for each batter, those issues of batting out of order must be brought to our attention by the defense (or offense, for that matter, depending on the time). So, to better answer you, yes, only on baserunning infractions.

In our state clinic last Thursday, the director of the HS League defended the continued use of this policy in SC essentially as this (and this was said in front of coaches present at the clinic) - to paraphrase, "why should kids who aren't taught the proper way to appeal, or even to appeal in the first place be penalized because they have bad coaching?" He went on to suggest some schools have coaches in place because they are the nearest warm body to put there, so the kids don't learn proper baseball rules such as appeals, so why should they be required to bring it to the attention of the umpire, when the umpire should just see it in the first place!

Yes, this is pretty much what he said, so I don't see it changing in this state anytime soon. And for the record, every school we cover in our association has pretty good coaching at all levels (1A to 4A). Nobody that I'd consider a warm body by any stretch of that definition.

[lawump]

Originally Posted by scarolinablue

Bretman,

Great question and pickup. Since I'm not looking at my lineup card for each batter, those issues of batting out of order must be brought to our attention by the defense (or offense, for that matter, depending on the time). So, to better answer you, yes, only on baserunning infractions.

In our state clinic last Thursday, the director of the HS League defended the continued use of this policy in SC essentially as this (and this was said in front of coaches present at the clinic) - to paraphrase, "why should kids who aren't taught the proper way to appeal, or even to appeal in the first place be penalized because they have bad coaching?" He went on to suggest some schools have coaches in place because they are the nearest warm body to put there, so the kids don't learn proper baseball rules such as appeals, so why should they be required to bring it to the attention of the umpire, when the umpire should just see it in the first place!

Yes, this is pretty much what he said, so I don't see it changing in this state anytime soon. And for the record, every school we cover in our association has pretty good coaching at all levels (1A to 4A). Nobody that I'd consider a warm body by any stretch of that definition.

I second everything that was said by scarolinablue.

[cviverito]

Originally Posted by scarolinablue

the director of the HS League...said in front of coaches present at the clinic) - to paraphrase, "why should kids who aren't taught the proper way to appeal, or even to appeal in the first place be penalized because they have bad coaching?" He went on to suggest some schools have coaches in place because they are the nearest warm body to put there, so the kids don't learn proper baseball rules such as appeals, so why should they be required to bring it to the attention of the umpire, when the umpire should just see it in the first place!

So...let me see if I got this straight...they allow the kids to play the game and the schools to hire or assign coaches. In some cases the coaches are not interested in the game and therefor not able to teach it. Instead of letting them fail and learn from their mistakes or shut down their programs...the league administration removes provisions of the game to improve the experience for the kids...thus sending a message to formidable minds that education/learning, tradition, and rules have no place or value in high-school athletics. Do I have that right?

[greymule]

I played school ball in the mid-1960s. Appeals had to be with a live ball, but I don't know how closely the rule otherwise followed OBR. (We all thought we played simply under "baseball rules," which we assumed to be the same throughout the universe.) I coached HS baseball in the early 1970s, and I remember that appeals were problematic, with many players and even coaches (and umpires) not knowing how to put the ball back in play or follow other requirements. The high school I coached hired its own umpires, and so did the schools we played. The umps dressed differently. They didn't seem to represent a particular association, and I never saw an official rule book. (Our principal, Bob Kanaby, later became president of NFHS.)

I don't know when Fed took over, but I wasn't surprised when I heard that they had abolished appeals entirely (temporarily). Did Fed invent dead ball appeals to make its reinstated appeals process easier, or were dead ball appeals around earlier?

The few high school games I've attended in the past decade have been almost unbearably slow. I end up talking to other spectators and barely watching the field. So I'm for practically anything that keeps the game moving.

[johnnyg08]

If umpires didn't "Call time" so often there's no need to "put the ball back in play" and make the appeal process "difficult" I'm not blaming umpires or anything...but I think that's part of why FED made the appeal process so easy and took it out of the umpire's hands (except in SC) to simply call players out on appeal w/o the defense appealing.

I see blatant misses every year for the last 5 years and not one time did the defense appeal...sometimes B/R missing 1B right in front of F3...

I think the appeal rules are pretty good for FED.

[cviverito]

Last season I counted 33 missed bases w/out an 6 bases with appeal. The year before it was a whopping 43 to 2!

[johnnyg08]

Originally Posted by cviverito

Last season I counted 33 missed bases w/out an 6 bases with appeal. The year before it was a whopping 43 to 2!

That's an amazing stat. 33 more outs...and how many more minutes of game time did those outs cost you. Very interesting post. Thanks.

[cviverito]

Originally Posted by johnnyg08

That's an amazing stat. 33 more outs...and how many more minutes of game time did those outs cost you. Very interesting post. Thanks.

I hear ya. But not my concern. My job is to grant and decide on the appeal if the defense requests it...not to draw attention to the mistake.

[scarolinablue]

Originally Posted by cviverito

So...let me see if I got this straight...they allow the kids to play the game and the schools to hire or assign coaches. In some cases the coaches are not interested in the game and therefor not able to teach it. Instead of letting them fail and learn from their mistakes or shut down their programs...the league administration removes provisions of the game to improve the experience for the kids...thus sending a message to formidable minds that education/learning, tradition, and rules have no place or value in high-school athletics. Do I have that right?

That's a bit of a generalization, but then again, SC does rank toward the bottom of the list on education rankings, don't we?!?