Courtesy Runner/Substition clarification

[Sioux23]

Originally Posted by Big Slick

The CR rule for slow pitch is not something that the offense can "game." The player's time to bat is when the previous time at bat has finished - in this case, when the second walk was issued (and in slow pitch, the walk is a dead ball).

It seems that your team was just caught up in the rule; you took your gamble in that the runner would be on base when it was his time to hit. It seems the defense played it perfectly.

You have to plan when the runner could come to bat. Had it this past weekend (45 over tournament). A team needed to use a CR, wanted to send out someone, but other members realized he could be due up to bat.

Looks like it, although the defensive team had no idea as they were just loading the bases to set up a force play everywhere. They didn't say anything until we were making the substitution as the umpires had no idea how to interpret the rule. We reported the substitution and then all hell broke loose and the UIC was brought over.

I know when we played in the 40 and over National in 2009 that they allowed substitutions if you had them and in fact sometimes teams substituted for the hitter who was due up and other times substituted for the runner to allow him to hit so when we were discussing who we should run I mentioned that it was possible that he could end up batting but we had a sub so we were covered.

The rule probably needs to be tweaked or cleaned up as there are a few scenarios that could play out....The walks were kind of informal as in the pitcher says we will walk the next 2 hitters which was treated as 1 action by the umpires where if they had walked the first batter we could have called time and placed our substitute in the line-up spot prior to the 2nd walk being issued or had the runner on 3rd feign injury which would allow the original hitter to return to the bases and the substitute to then enter for the "injured" player......we were not in that mindset based on how the rules were interpreted at the 40 and over national a few years prior.

Live and learn. All the lesson cost us was a probable state title.