Question for our California H.S. baseball umpires.
 

I was just reading the rules for a youth baseball tournament that will be played in NW Ohio later this month and one to the rules involves the "California Tie-Breaker". The rules described the tie-breaker and I do not have any questions with regard to it other than its name and is this something that is used in H.S. baseball in California? Thanks in advance.

MTD, Sr.

This tie breaker puts a runner at 2nd base at the beginning of an inning. I don't believe it is used in high school ball, but in many tournaments.

In Nova Scotia we use a similar procedure but with runners on first and second.

I think the most common tiebreaker format is the International Tiebreaker. The teams get to begin the inning at any point in the existing batting order, and place the first two batters on 1st and 2nd. The whole point of this is to quickly end the game, and it is primarily used in elimination games in travel team tournaments, because the overall schedule depends on games not greatly exceeding some time limit.

I've never seen a tie breaker used in California High School ball. Locally, high school playoffs allow 4 hours between start times.

A slanderous falsehood around here is that I have my own tie-breaker rule: when tied-up in the last half of the last scheduled inning, I walk the first four hitters. That is neither true now nor has it ever been so. I just try to call 'em where they're pitched.

I load the bases.
 

I have loaded the bases with the consent of both coaches and have never gone beyond one extra inning using that format.
With California each team bunts the runner over and scores the one run and we go to extra extra innings due to the sacrifice.

California has many things that it is famous for but the tie breaker rule is not one of them. We do however have the "California Stop". That move is now seen world wide.

Dungeness Crab comes to mind as well as hippies...but I digress:)