Visits Question

[His High Holiness]

All;

I am breaking with my tradition today and posing a rules question.

I was the BU in a fall game this week played by 16-18 year olds. (I know, that was a mistake but my assignor requires a few fall games from all of his umpires.) Anyway, OBR, bases loaded, two outs. I am in C.

The manager comes out of the first base dugout to talk (?) to his pitcher. He loudly berates him for a minute or so (even the fans could hear) and heads back to the dugout. Just as the manager is entering the dugout, the pitcher yells a politically incorrect insult at his manager. Well deserved I might add. The manager was wearing what looked like ladies lingerie (shiny purple baggy shorts with a white frilly fringe around the bottom. He looked ridiculous on a baseball field.)

The manager spins around and heads back to the mound. For some reason, my partner does not intercept him. Before he crosses the first base foul line, I jog over from C and yell at him to get back to the dugout. He says: "I am coming out to change my pitcher." (He also directed a couple of comments over my head at his pitcher.)

I said "No you're not. You cannot have two visits to the pitcher with the same batter at bat."

The manager proceeds to cross the foul line and says to me "I'll change him from the dugout then."

I said "You can't change pitchers until after this batter completes his time at bat. Go back to the dugout immediately or I am required to eject you."

The manager went back to the dugout and the pitcher thanked me for intervening. He then proceeded to strike out the batter and end the inning. Lo and behold, he was out on the mound the next inning. He and the manager made up during the half inning.

Question 1: Did the manager make what was an unauthorized second visit by crossing the foul after I warned him back to the dugout? (Side note for new umpires: The PU made a big mistake by not intercepting the manager and thus making me jog across the field to do the job. These kinds of things are what differentiate high school umpires from college umpires.)

Question 2. Could the other team have successfully protested the game when the pitcher took the mound in the next inning. Was I required to remove him? (For the record, the other team did not say anything.)

Peter