ASA Rules Changes??

[AtlUmpSteve]

Originally Posted by Big Slick

Steve, not signaling you on this one, you just happen to be the last one that responded. Zaright-ok.

As for the on deck circles, this board is making much ado about nothing. It will be interesting how many batter will CHOOSE to use the other one. Well, maybe if they know they can steal signals .

I'm ok with the CHOICE if the batter feels safer. This has been an accepted practice and recently codified in the men's game. At the highest level, where tempers can run at the highest, there is zero problem. I'll concede that there is a measure of self-policing in that game, but I've never remotely had to deal with any issues.

Chinstraps were a good move, or at least as written. Players were not wearing them properly (snug to the chin vs. "dangling"). The helmets these days are properly fitting. Of course, I'm talking about your tournament teams, not your rec teams (and the rec leagues can still require chin straps). Is there a problem in codes (i.e. NFHS) that do not require chin straps?

I'm not familiar with many men's fastpitch teams where a coach in the dugout calls the pitches rather than the catcher. So, the differences I see are that the men's on-deck batter really can't get in the way, and that they know how to self-police without the overreaction in the JO game.

As to the helmet and chinstrap, in my metro area there are a number of high schools that are inner-city or demographically similar in adjacent counties; and they field a softball team because the city or county insists they will. In some cases, I have been told by a coach that the only way they are fielding a team TODAY is that he/she stopped at the detention hall and negotiated a student to serve detention by playing that day so they would have 9 or 10!! Some of these "players" don't know how to put on a glove, let alone catch or hit a ball; and if you think they have a helmet that fits on that "do", well, guess again.

When these teams play each other, it is like 10U in-park rec with advances on each pitch on passed balls, and each player advances one base, overruns, comes back, stops, and then goes and retrieves the helmet; after each pitch. No chinstrap, the helmet comes off. Yeah, I know, we could try to enforce "legally and properly equipped", but in these cases, that's peeing upstream. They don't even have chinstraps to share; because NFHS doesn't require it.

So, I'm seeing that future in the rec leagues with the girls there for social reasons; and I doubt the leagues will require a chinstrap now that ASA doesn't (they already complain that "No One Else Makes Us").

That may not be an issue with you; I doubt you call much at that level at this point in your career. But I still do; as the leader/coordinator/assignor for these leagues, I have to appear from time-to-time, both as a sales call, and as the "I have to do this, too" example within my group.