Rule 1, Section 7, Art. 3...(FP) Any non-adult warming up a pitcher at any location within the confines of the field shall wear an approved catcher's helmet and mask combination and throat protector.

Note that it does not say anything about whether the catcher is standing or squatting. If both players are throwing overhand, the mask is not required. You may not find it anywhere in any book, but a softball pitcher warming up is throwing underhand.

Regarding "copse". Had to look that one up. I wouldn't have passed that one on the vocabulary test. :(

I don't have the 2016 nfhs rule book but I have seen somewhere there was wording added that specified the catcher was only required to wear an approved helmet when crouched.

I'll get my books Sunday. The 2016 rules and rule changes are on-line. Checking those, there is no mention of crouching, either in front of or behind a copse. (Had to use the new word I learned today! :D )

The only change in NFHS for 2016 is the useless definition of "projected substitute".

The warm up "catcher" has never needed any gear besides the mask/helmet.


The open question and the OP is whether the designated warm up area can be outside the umpires' view. No more, no less.

They had to issue a definition of projected substitution after they initially released a statement saying offensive substitutions could not be made until the player was actually coming to bat.

I swear I saw the wording about crouched position soemwhere but cannot find it on the internet. Wonder if it was another release like the initial projected sub statement that they then had to retract.

Not really. It hasn't been defined for decades and I've never seen it as a problem until just recently when you have people looking for problems that should, and in the past were, handled with simple instruction.

You are correct; it's NFHS Baseball.

Wow, wonder who came up with that gem?

A local school has their bullpen located about 20 yards behind the back stop. they use to have bleachers positioned right behind the backstop where you could not see the bullpen from the field. It was brought up numerous times in the past with some umpires not allowing teams to warm up there As the area behind first has copse's behind it with a gully behind that and third base has school buildings behind it. They use a lot of game balls every year. Last season the school moved the bleachers apart towards each dugout about 10 feet so the bullpen is visible from the field and within the confines of the field.

Talk about OOO, from the top down

If it is not within the confnes of the field (meaning it is not within view of the umpire), isn't this kind of a "if a tree falls in the forest..." kind of question? :confused::)

(But, then, what do we expect from NFHS test question writers?)

Or, maybe "if a tree falls in a copse ..."

BTW, since the definition of "copse" is "a small group of trees", isn't a "copse of trees", then, "a small group of trees of trees"? :D

When reading threads like this, I can't help but think of a bit George Carlin did about him and his friends at Catholic school (when Catholic school was Catholic School), and they would make up very complicated questions for the priests or brothers such as, "a sailor is at sea, and he hasn't done his Easter Duty yet, and its Easter Sunday.....but then they cross the International Date Line - would he have committed a mortal sin??" ;)

Having no practical experience with either NFHS or NCAA, I get reminded of that hearing about some of their rules and/or test questions.....

Okay, so maybe I am looking for something that isn't there. That's how I interpret case play 1.7.3.B. I can't imagine that NFHS would approve of a designated warm-up area being outside the confines of the field such that there is no adult supervision possible.

It can be anywhere in the county and always have adult supervision. Even though it sometimes seems to be so, the umpire is not the only adult on site. The issue is that NFHS (an admin and coach driven organization) is dumping the coach's and AD's responsibilities on the umpires and that is not why the umpire is there.