Restricted To The Dugout??

[nopachunts]

Originally Posted by wvumpire1807

This is the dumbest rule in all of baseball. The dugout restriction. What good does it do. Every time I have restricted an ejection comes later. So I have stopped restricting and just ejecting.

I'm going to assume that you are from West Virginia by your screen name, I know that it's dangerous to assume, but here we go. BTW, I'm not saying anything bad about West Virginia, I'm just going to tell what the UIL wants in Texas. The University Interscholastic League, UIL, is the governing body for HS sports in the State of Texas.

UIL wants officials to keep head and assistant coaches in the game if at all possible. It's our job to diffuse any situation to where the coach is prevented from ejecting himself. The restricting to the dugout is a tool that we can use. It's like the first tech given to a coach in basketball. Basketball officials call it the seat belt rule, the coach can't get up out of the chair to do diddly squat. The restriction to the dugout does the same thing. The coach knows he has parked himself right on top of the line and he will be gone if he does anything else.

If we eject a coach, a report has to be filled out with the UIL. It shows due diligence on behalf of the official if a restriction to the dugout was done first. I agree with you that in certain events an ejection is warranted without using a restriction, but as Texas officials, we are encourged to use the restriction as the first step.