I too had a chance to UIC this weekend--10U state championship--

Here's the situation:

Visitors winning 3-2 when last out of sixth inning is made (we're playing 75 minute time limit, no new inning once time runs out). Time on official clock (PU is keeping time) reads 15 seconds left.

PU waits until time is up, tells coach that since his batter was not in batters box and defense hadn't taken it's 5 pitches that the game was over; they begin to walk off field.

I had just finished working a game as a fill-in, so I was back to UIC status (assistant UIC was on another diamond). Coach yells to me that he wants to protest the game.

I catch umps before they leave the field of play, ask the situation of them.

PU states there was 15 seconds left when last out was made. PU agrees with what happened above (not ready to play, so times up).

I ask him if he said there was time left, just to be sure. HE said he did say there was 15 seconds left.

I placed umpires back on the diamond to finish time up.

Home team ties game at 3-3 in bottom of 7th.

Visitors go ahead and eventually win 10-5 in 8th inning.

My question: Has this ever happened to anyone else, and what would you do about it?

That 's why there is a protest procedure. The new inning starts upon the completion of the last innning (third out). That is one of the things that most UIC's go through in the umpire meeting prior to the tournament. It may only come into play one time in the entire tournament but all blues should be on the same page for timed games.

It has happened around here in the past, and it was either handled exactly like you did (properly) or screwed up and replayed later. Like you said - if there is even 1 tick left when the final out is made, the next inning has started.

Ditto the last two posts... third out. New inning..avoids all issues.

Agree with the last three posts, now. Had a game Sunday afternoon, visitors up 2 runs after 6 with less than five minutes left. They thought they won - wrong, lost in extra innings by 1.

Similar type time game ASA 14U B Texas State tournament.

Home batting, down a run. Just over 3 minutes left.
Defense wants warm up, now just over 2 minutes left.
First batter goes 2-1 count, grounds out. 1 minute plus.
Coach calls next two hitters over, they talk briefly.
2nd batter enters box, and on pitch, steps across the plate.
"Dead ball, batter out." 1 minute plus little.
3rd batter, is about to enter box, when I call time, approach offensive coach.
"Coach, do you know the penalty for hastening or delaying a
ball game"?
Tells me to get the game going. "Ok, head back to HP, give play signal.
F1 starts delivery, B3 steps across plate. I call ball game and
advise official scorer, that game is a forfiet for visitor team. No,
coach did not like it, but knew I had warned him.

ASA Rule 5 Sec. 4E.

Glad defensive team did not use their time out, wanted
to see if coach would still go through with his plan. I
could have probably used the time explaining the rule to
him, but he did ask me to get the game going.

Wow, Glen, you're tough. Uh, why did you let him have 2 timeouts?

Unfortunately, stalling is a part of the game when there is a time limit. As long as the coach doesn't yell out to walk over the plate, or come out with 4 straight shoe laces untied, or any of the other blase efforts to stall, I let them do it, if they're within the rules. Now, originality counts. You stay within the rules, and do something differnt, you might get away with a little more. Just don't tie shoe laces.

Had that tried one year. Cannot remember which player did
it first, say F3, then F6 yelled for time too. At that point
I told everyone to tie their shoes. The next one would not
be granted a time, but would play as they were.

Funny, no one else needed to tie their shoe.

Thanks for the minute !
 

Folks,
I thank this forum and I think it was this board that told me, this year, when the one minute warm-up starts.
I mentioned it at the plate meeting for LL Baseball last week, and I was actually shocked to hear the coaches parrot the comment in their dugouts before the games.

Folks, those players were ready! A buck seventeen was my longest game. :)

mick

Lazy umpire. There's some around here who end the game early just because they want to get off the field - and they get away with it. I've had some coaches really surprised when I told them that the inning started when the third out was made.

The best time management I have ever seen occured three years ago in a 16-U Metro championship tourney. Home team down by 3 going into the bottom of the inning. 8 minutes left at the end of the top half of the inning. Defense took their 1 minute warmup. 7 minutes left. First batter strikes out. 6 minutes left. Defense calls time, changes pitcher. Takes her 5 warm up pitches. A little more than 5 minutes left. Count goes to 3-2. Pitcher taking her time between pitches, but well within the time allotted to pitch. Batter walks. Again, defensive coach calls time, changes pitchers again. Takes her 5 warm up pitches. Approximately 2 1/2 minutes left. On the first pitch, batter pops out to F2. 2 outs. Pitcher throws 2 balls in the dirt, runner advances to second. Defensive coach calls time, walks to the mound, I give him about 20 seconds, walk out to break it up, he puts starting pitcher back in. No warm up given. Another ball in the dirt. Next pitch high, ball 4. Next pitch was rise ball, ball 1. Same pitch again, ball 2. My timer buzzes letting me know time has expired. I let both sides know time had expired. Next comes three blazing fastballs, strikes out batter, game over. Of course I failed to mention all the stalling comments coming from the offensive dugout during the pitching changes.
It could have easily worked against the defensive coach, but to me it was great game clock management.



[Edited by heyblue on Jul 15th, 2004 at 02:02 AM]

Good Job FU.

Bad Umpiring
 

Hey FU. Was this pool play or were you in the double elimination part of the tournament? It has been mentioned both about how coaches have done good jobs and bad jobs on this post about game/time management. What about umpire game time management? How much time can be taken up by brushing off the plate. Could be opening a really BIG can of worms here but don't tell me we all haven't at least thought about it ! I am going to have to look up that rule that was mentioned in the whiskers-ump post though.

Sorry FU, at least you could get this one fixed easily (teams still there, and same umps to finish it). And you didn't have to deal with the IP call we had in Upland!

Re: Bad Umpiring
 

Bandit,

It states: Rule 5 Sec. 4

E. If a teams employs tactics noticeably designed to
delay or to hasten the game.

With both batters doing
same tactic back to back, very noticeable.

Management
 

Whiskers, Thank You. Have not had a chance to get the book out myself yet. I personally believe that as an umpire you are part salesman and part manager yourself. If the umpire has a feel for the game and manages it within the guidelines of the book and fair play you don't have this problem and you don't have to quote the book in this instance. I'm not a control freak or a control nut as an umpire but I'm still steering this puppy they call a softball game and if I'm doing my job, the issue of a coach manipulating this particular rule never comes into play and the coaches respect me more as an umpire.

Bandit,

I did attempt to talk to the coach. I ask if he knew
the penalty of applying these tactics. He told me to
get back to my job. I did!

Glen,
Brain cramp here...
In your story, the home team is up to bat and down by one run. They are using tactics to speed the game up to go into another inning before the time limit? Why? What is their advantage? Did they have better hitters due up in after these three hitters?

Your ruling was to forfiet the game and award the game to the visitors. Did I get that right?

-Rick

Several Replies
 

I thought I did the right thing...although the same team won that would have with the "shortened" game. It set us back about 30 minutes.

It was the loser-bracket championship of the double elimination portion of our 10U "A" state championship. Two really good teams. And I am lucky I caught this one before all hoo-ha broke loose.

Final game was 16-0 in 4.

Had a dad catch me as I was walking by asking for the most "knowledgeable umpire here". Told him, "Doesn't matter who knows the most, I'm the UIC, it's mostly my call." Same dad found me every time his daughter was caught looking at strike three to complain about the umpires not calling consistent zones (and the two he complained about work Big Ten games, for crying out loud).

What happened in Pannell-land? Let me know, Dave.

Now FU.....Everybody knows that us Big Ten umpires are not worth our weight in salt. Just ask that "Coach"(Term used lightly) from Ohio that I ran into.....I'm sure you will find him in a parking lot somewhere. :)

FU,
We had an illegal pitch call on a pitcher whiping mud off the ball then going to the glove and pitching. Illegal for adding a foreign substance to the ball. That one was fun. Didn't end up affecting the game other than the 15 minute delay to protest. I posted about it earlier in the week, something like "would you call this illegal".