Lineup issues, quick pitch, and a D3K call.

[CecilOne]

Originally Posted by chapmaja

The home teams comes out for the top half of an inning (3rd I think), and has a different pitcher pitching. The PU goes over and tells the home coach that he needs to report changes in the pitchers position. The switch was moving the CF to pitcher, previous pitcher to 1b, and previous 1b to CF. I know the home coach argued this with the PU, but I was in my position and did not feel the need to enter the discussion.

In HS ball, the position changes are not required to be reported to the umpire are they? I could not find a reference to the requirement to list position changes, only changes to the lineup. Am I wrong? I know it is much easier to have a coach report changes to the pitcher or catcher for CR purposes, but is it required. I think NCAA requires all position changes to be reported, but not NFHS.

Not a rule requirement, but maybe it should be.
A question I have had is what to do if the pitcher was changed, not reported or noted at the time. Then the team wants a CR for the new pitcher, and the ump realizes it was the new one pitching, but not reported.

[BretMan]

Originally Posted by CecilOne

Not a rule requirement, but maybe it should be.
A question I have had is what to do if the pitcher was changed, not reported or noted at the time. Then the team wants a CR for the new pitcher, and the ump realizes it was the new one pitching, but not reported.

I had this exact same thing come up in a game about two weeks ago.

Top of the inning and right before we start in I notice that a different pitcher is out there. Hey, all of these kids look alike and they're all wearing the same uniform, to boot! I'm surprised that I even noticed.

I went straight over to the bench and asked if there has been a pitching change. No, there's no rule about reporting positional changes (F6 had swapped with F1), but in my mind I need to know about the pitcher for courtesy runner purposes.

Coach immediately gets all defensive and starts going on about how it's a positional change and he doesn't need to report it and no other umpire has ever told him that...blah, blah, blah...

I just told him that there was no penalty involved if they didn't inform me, and I wanted to make note of the pitcher whether he told me or I noticed it myself, in which case I want to confirm its a new pitcher and that's all I was doing now. I told him that if it doesn't get recorded, then they ask for a courtesy runner, the pitcher of record would be the last pitcher I had on my line-up card.

I don't know if there's any backing for that, but it seemed like preventive umpiring at the time.