Batting the entire roster

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by Manny A

So, two teams are playing pool play in a national. Both teams decide to put 12 players in the batting order. Team A has 14 players at the game, so they have two subs on the bench. Team Z only has 12 players, so they have no subs.

During the game, there's a play at the plate, and the runner for Team A comes in standing and maliciously crashes into Team Z's catcher. The catcher gets up off the ground and retaliates by cold-cocking the runner upside the helmet with her mitt and the ball in it, knocking her to the ground. After order is restored, the PU ejects Team A's runner and Team Z's catcher.

So as I understand it now, Team Z has to forfeit because they have no subs to replace the catcher, even though they still have 11 players remaining on site? But Team A is good to go, even though their runner started the problem with her malicious act? Is that really what ASA/USA intended when it allowed teams to bat more than nine for pool play?

Originally Posted by Big Slick

Technically, it isn't championship play, it is pool play. The records of pool play do not determine seeding (at least the last time I was at the GOLD). There way a blind draw for the brackets after pool play. These are extra game, dare I say "exposure games."

At the JO Cup (circa 2017), pool play is open batting order, no line up cards are kept. A coach could send the same person up to bat every inning.

Too much fuss about nothing. When bracket play starts, we are back to championship rules.

Other than toss the rule entirely (which I am OK with, BTW), there are only a couple of adjustments that should be made so the rule truly serves its intent.

1. The shorthanded rule is already a modification of the lineup rules, so adjusting it to be consistent with the intent of the bat-the-roster rule is not vastly violating the game further beyond what bat-the-roster does in the first place. Change it so a single ejection does not result if a forfeit (unless this would drop the batting order below 9). Leave the rest the same, including taking an out for an injured player, etc.
   
2. For courtesy runners, again, the CR rule is itself an adjustment to the sub/re-entry rules, so again, adjusting it to be consistent with the intent of the bat-the-roster rule is not vastly violating the game further. The purpose of the CR rule is to avoid delay and perhaps prevent exposure to possible injury for the pitcher. Is this purpose still valid in bat-the-roster? If so, some simple adjustment can be made. I've seen a couple of ways of doing this in "friendly" tournaments, and the most popular is use the last player who was put out as the CR.

All of this is a "violation" to the purity of the 19th century rules, but so what? The ASA/USA rule book said so-long to that notion long ago.