Little League. Cat & Mouse

[celebur]

Originally Posted by Bandit

I like the leaving base early penelty. If the runner is thrown out. So be it. If they are not thrown out they simply go back and start all over as if nothing happened. If they leave the base early and the batter reaches safely they can only the equal of the batter. Hummmmmmm. dosn't it look like their is no penelty for leaving early?

There isn't much of a penalty, but note that you are missing one additional point--on an infield hit or bunt, no runner can score if any runner left early (this is the infamous case where a runner can reach home safely and yet not score a run).

You need to look at the intent of this rule. It is not to add softball rules into kiddie baseball. Instead, it is to help balance out the disparity between kids' abilities to get outs vs kids' abilities to run, and it does so always with an eye to the 'full' rules that get introduced in stages as the kids get older (i.e. as their abilities throwing the ball and making plays catches up).