Can A Player Be Restricted ?

[Spence]

Is there any scenario where a player can be restricted to the dugout instead of ejected? In looking through the book all I see is that a player can be ejected.

Do any state associations allow the umpire to make that distinction?

[bob jenkins]

An illegal sub is restricted.

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by Spence

Is there any scenario where a player can be restricted to the dugout instead of ejected? In looking through the book all I see is that a player can be ejected.

Do any state associations allow the umpire to make that distinction?

What rule set are you playing by? Except for NFHS ball, I've never heard of bench restrictions as an option in dealing with minor indiscretions that don't warrant a full-up ejection.

Back in the old days when I strictly umpired LL Baseball, I was a strong advocate for some kind of "administrative removal" from the game when a batter carelessly released the bat after swinging. But I was never successful in getting something like that put into the LL rule book. You either have to suck it up and hope the manager does the right thing by taking the player out of the line-up, or judge intent and then eject.

As for allowing umpires to make a distinction, that's not a good solution. You'd end up with different umpires making three different choices on an apparent infraction: ignore it, bench the player, or eject him. It's best to have the rule book outline what warrants a restriction.

[DG]

In my state there are 7 things that will be cause for ejection, things like fighting, biting, taunting, dis-respectively addressing an umpire, malicious contact, etc. Everything else in the book where ejection is mentioned would be a restriction to dugout.

[chapmaja]

This is a difficult topic from a legal standpoint.

An adult ejected is gone, don't want to see you, don't want to hear you, goodbye.

A player ejected from a game (high school or below) could be a different story. Why? In a high school game, what if the team only has 1 coach, and a player is ejected. Where is that player going to go? If you make him leave the dugout upon ejection, you are now creating a situation where you could have an unsupervised minor on your hands. If he causes problems or gets into trouble, or something happens to him / her (I ump softball), someone is going to potentially be suing anyone and everyone they can. A team with one coach can't, in fairness, be forced between supervising and coaching his/her team and supervising an ejected athlete.

There was a time when an ejected player could be sent to the bus, and the bus driver would be forced to "supervise" the athlete. Many teams no longer have bus drivers who stay at away events. In my area most teams are either driven to games by a bus that does a "drop and pick" which means drop them off, then come back when they are done, or they are simply dropped off and it is the teams responsibility (parents and coaches) to make sure everyone gets picked up.

We also had this discussion about our youth league. (14 and under) We have plenty of parents who drop their children off at games and let the coaches babysit for a couple hours. What if one of those players is ejected. We can't tell a 12 year old they need to leave the field area, because we would be opening ourselves up to huge potential lawsuits if anything happened to that child.


BTW: In most cases, an ejection carries an additional penalty (suspension), where restriction does not. I would do exactly what the rulebook calls for, but in the case of an ejection, the player is simply restricted to the dugout and may no longer participate in the game. The umpire simply follows the rule and at the same time provides the safest environment for all parties involved. If the rule calls for ejection, eject. If it calls for a restriction, restrict.

[DG]

Ejected players must be supervised. Around here, for HS games there is always a school administrator, and normally law enforcement officer. For youth games if there is not a parent present then they need to stay in the dugout supervised by the coaching staff, until a parent arrives.