NFHS Equipment Inspections

[BretMan]

This came up last weekend...

Doing equipment inspection and see a half dozen bats in the dugout.

Me: Coach, you need to get all of your bats out here.

Coach: We only put the bats we use out here.

Me: (Pointing to bats in dugout) If I can see it, then we have to inspect it.

Coach gets the other bats...

I'm about a dozen games into the high school season and, so far, I have heard some variation of this phrase from three or four of my partners: "We're not allowed to go into the dugouts anymore".

The rule says that the umpires aren't "required" to go into the dugouts to check equipment. Somehow that's getting translated into "dugouts verboten!". I haven't seen anything that makes a dugout off limits to us.