The weird stuff!

[His High Holiness]

Before you read this post get your mind into high school game administration. Get a picture in your mind of the scorekeeper, press box, and typical mediocre federation plate umpire. In other words, don't imagine perfection or ideal situations, imagine how things are in the real world.

I have been umpiring for 40 years. I have been umpiring high school baseball for 20 years. My written records only go back 20 years but I have only had one batting out of order in 20 years in any type of baseball. Until this season that is.

This season I have had two BOOs and both involved the same home team. That makes me very suspicious. (My suspicions were confirmed when I checked with others.) I was the BU on both occasions so I may not have all the facts correct but I will attempt to reconstruct what happened and what I think happened. As the BU, I did not get involved until late in the process when the PU became embroiled in the controversy.

Federation rules!

The eighth batter is the proper batter in both my personal experiences and in other situations that I have heard of. A pinch hitter comes out to the plate. There is a matter of disagreement as to whether he reports to the PU or not. (In other words, is he an unannounced substitute?) If he does report to the PU, he says that he is batting for the ninth batter. (It appears that the official scorekeeper who is controlled by the home team and the press box [also controlled by the home team] are in on the ruse. The coach does not, under any circumstance, state the position of the PH in the batting order!) The PU enters the name and number in the 9th hole on his line up sheet and points to the press box. (The visiting team has no indication who this guy is batting for and assumes it is the eighth batter.) The press box announces the pinch hitter but does not say who the pinch hitter is replacing.

The PH bats and may or may not get on base. Then the 1st batter in the order steps up to the plate. After he takes one pinch (and I am guessing what happens now), the official scorekeeper and the press box write in the previous pinch hitter in the ninth slot. (If for some reason, the visiting team objects to the 1st batter batting before he takes a pitch, I assume that the scorekeeper and press box enter the PH in the eighth hole and the PU is told that he screwed up, and then the ninth batter bats. No penalty. I have not heard of this happening but I have read that this is the way this cheating method works. If necessary, the PH insists that he told the PU that he was batting in the 8th slot and the PU screwed up. The PU is easily convinced that he screwed up because he has three different people telling him so.)

Anyway, here in Northern Va, the 1st batter has batted and got on base before the visiting team appeals. The visiting team has every reason to believe that PH hit for the eighth batter and the 1st batter is BOO. Not so! The official scorekeeper, the press box, and the maybe the plate umpire all show that the PH entered for the ninth batter and since the 1st batter has batted, it is to late to appeal BOO. The home team acts very innocent like it was an honest mistake. The visiting team goes ballistic and the umpires take sh!t. It is the PU's fault because he did not tell the visiting team who the PH was coming in for, but we are dealing, not with perfection, but with reality.

The second time that I saw this unfold and had finally figured out what was really going on, I wandered in as the PU was having a meeting with the scorekeepers. Neither team coach was in on the discussion because they had both been restricted to the dugout for previous misconduct. After it was all over, and the visiting team had been f$cked again, I said to the home team scorekeeper:

"I know that cheating is part of baseball. Congratulations on pulling this off."

The home team scorekeeper had a surprised look on his face at first and then a very sheepish grin crossed his face as he turned and walked away. (In this case, we had got to batter number 2 before the visiting team had figured out what was going on so they were screwed no matter what.)

The reason for this post is that I remember reading that this scam was tried in the big leagues 80-100 years ago. I recall that in response, a rule was instituted that said that a pinch hitter was always the proper batter no matter what was told to the plate umpire. In other words, in this case, we should have forced him into the eighth slot after the fact, no matter what anybody said. This would be the case for OBR, but I have no clue what Federation rules would be.

The federation reentry and illegal substitution rules further complicate these situations.

My assignor has never shown a willingness to root out cheating. (It's bad for business to accuse your customers of being cheaters.) I submitted a written report be I was lead to believe that he will not be acting on it.

Does anyone have any input on this. Carl, where are you?

One final item. The first time this happened, I walked away thinking that the home team was very well versed on BOO rules. They knew the rule better than most umpires. I should have been suspicious right then.

Peter