First, if the ball is not dead in OBR, why do umpires start each half inning with "Play!"?

Second, no matter who's goofing around on the mound the "pitcher" gets 60-90 seconds to warm up.

Here goes another 10-page argument thread like the donnybrook we had 5 years ago.

Not all (not even many that I've seen at every level) umpires start each half inning with "Play!" As stated by many of us back then, many of us feel that the ball is not dead between innings, because nothing happened to cause the ball to become dead. These same umpires, myself among them, do not believe in pointing the ball into play every inning. The very first pitch of the game, and then when putting it back in play after the ball has become dead, are the times when I point a ball back in play. Unless I specifically indicate to the pitcher to not pitch for some reason, I don't put it in play at the start of every half inning.

"Hey. Get off the mound."

Problem solved.

There is an official ruling from MLB Commissioner's office denying a protest which, by its nature, set a precedent for this issue. Billy Martin was involved in the game (shocking, huh?) back in the 1970's or 1980's. A protest was lodged (and subsequently filed) when the home plate umpire refused to acknowledge that the shortstop (or some other fielder) had become the pitcher (and thus required to face one batter) when he stopped on the mound on his way to his normal position and (fooling around) threw a warm-up toss to the catcher. The game was protested, and the protest was denied. Thus, the official MLB interpretation is that this action does not constitute a substitution. We learned this in umpire school.

If I am not mistaken this entire situtation was also laid out in some umpire's (auto)biography, too.

In The Umpire Strikes Back by Ron Luciano he explained the whole situation. It was Lou Pinnella warming up the infielders due to Chris Chambliss suffering a cut on his hand after being forced out at 2nd base to end the inning and Sparky Anderson who was in his 1st year in Detroit said that Lou was now in the game defensivley at 1st base and Bill Haller said no and thus Sparky protested the game. A little later in the same game Lance Parrish made the final out of the inning and Rusty Staub who was in Detroit at the time(and was the DH in this game) came out to warm up the pitcher and Billy lodged the same protest as Sparky had.(P 201-202 in the Umpire Strikes Back) Lee McPhail(AL President) rejected both protests and that is how it all went down. Play by play of said game in question

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1...060DET1979.htm

Thank you for the specifics. Obviously, my memory was not perfect as the actual situation did not involve a player tossing a warm-up pitch, but, rather, involved position players being warmed-up by a potential substitute.