Many Rec.leagues (the governing boards) do not care for the continuous running garbage. So they have asked us to call time as soon as possible. In 14-17 or 16U leagues pitcher has to have the ball in the circle. Runners running to a base would be held to the bag they are running to. In 14U or lower anyone holding the ball in the infield is good enough. This causes controversy with the sharp mgrs as they are running the girls all they way home on a single !. The level of play is not that great so throwing someone out in this situation is not probable. Has anyone else run into this with your Rec level leagues..and got a sure fire remedy.

In ours we want the lead runner stopped and ball in the infield. Seems to work very well.

Call time when you determine all obvious play is finished and the ball is in the infield or held by an infielder nearby.

I guess I'm hanging onto the past, but I love to call youth SP games. We call time when there is no obvious play anywhere in the infield and the ball is being held by an infielder. If no attempt is being made on a trailing runner who is advancing, I usually call time right before they get to the base. The only SP I call for youth here is PONY. Was watching a game my son was calling as a rookie. He was the PU. He was calling a game between teams from different cities that had different rules for this play. The ball was back in the infied, but the runners were still moving. He didn't call time, letting the play develop. The defensive coach started yelling to call time and ran out onto the field by the plate to talk to him. He held his hand out, indicating to wait. She grabbed his arm and spun him around and started yelling at him. Now, I gotta tell you, I was pretty interested in what his reaction would be, as he was 18 and the coach was in her 30's. He just politely told her to not ever touch him again, he'd talk to her when the play stopped. She refused to listen and kept yelling so the BU, who was the experienced one of the group, rather abruptly showed her the way to the parking lot.

The safest time to call time is just like Mike described it. No confrontations should arise out of that. Just make sure there aren't any local rules that say differently.

I'm with you TexBlue! Actually have a couple to call tonight with 12U Youth SP.