LBR Question (lifted from eTeamz)

[Dakota]

Originally posted by WestMichBlue
I won’t offer a rational argument, but will suggest an emotional one. FP umpires pride themselves on not calling time; of keeping the ball in play. It is the way we play the game! This difference between FP and SP has been discussed many times on this board and others. More than once I’ve seen a crossover umpire kill play in a FP game and get called out on it. “What are you doing, Blue? This is not slow pitch!

Anyone out there from the FP side want to support this argument?

WMB

I agree that the argument is mostly emotional; that is, I do stay aware that the ball is live most of the time, and this becomes a bit of a challenge with single man games, and the stop-start of the SP game seems wrong somehow. But this is, as you say, emotional not rational.

This is because given the look-back rule, once the pitcher has the ball in the circle and the runners have stopped on a base, nothing else happens (normally) until there is a pitch, so there is no harm (or very little harm) to the game to just call TIME.

So, WMB, do you see any real harm to the game by killing the ball after play has stopped?