Hey all.

New here and to Umpiring. I have torn threw the manual and can't find where this particular part of the rule is addressed.

I'm doing low div C0-ED games, and today one of the teams played the game with 9 players. At one point, the official score keeper mentioned that she thought one of the automatic outs hadn't been recorded in a previous inning. The PU said she thought they had all been recorded. I was playing the field, and wasn't sure myself. Fortunately the game was decided by a handful of runs, so the outcome was not in question. This is a lowly div in a city league in San Francisco and NOBODY wears numbers. With 3 games and 6 teams, are we suppose to remember faces and names?? *shrugs shoulders*

Who -is- responsible for keeping track of this (from what I saw the short-handed team was telling the PU when that spot came up).

TYIA, hope I didn't miss an obvious part of the ASA Umps manual.

[Edited by Alameda on Apr 8th, 2005 at 06:21 AM]

Ok, not to answer my own question, but as a teacher I know it's good for the student to try. :)

So, after further reading, here goes:

In this situation the "Batting out of order" rule is applied and unless there is an appeal before the next legal or illegal pitch, all play stands and game cont.


Is this correct?

Thanks again!


Al.

Normally auto-outs in coed are pretty obvious, despite the lack of numbers...

If you have 2 guys or 2 girls batting back-to-back, the auto-out goes in between them.

Good point. But if it were to get past the PU? Then what?

Thanks again, I appreciate the reply!

As the opposing team, I'd definitely be pointing it out when I saw the 2nd guy bat in a row, just in case PU didn't catch it. As PU, I make a BIG deal out of an auto-out, just to make sure everyone (EVERYONE) is aware of it. If PU didn't make a big deal, I'd assume he missed it, and before pitching to the 2nd consecutive guy or girl, ensure that out was on the board.

If your "official" scorekeeper is a paid official, it is THEIR responsibility to alert the umpire. If not, it is the umpire's job. As an umpire, I'm going to make it my business to know when that slot in the batting order comes into play.

And as a back-up, I usually go to whomever is keeping score for the other team and tell them they need to make me aware of when that slot is approaching.

We hardly ever (and when I say "hardly ever" I mean "never") have scorekeepers who are not affiliated with a team. (I'm speaking girls fastpitch here). So if a team is playing shorthanded where the out is charged (most leagues overlook the out by local rule), I do what you suggest here - I ask the opposing scorekeeper to keep me informed when the "out" is "up to bat." I also tell the opposing coach that I have asked his scorekeeper to do this.

So far, it has worked every time.

Thanks a ton guys!

And yes, in the games I'm doing right now, the teams keep score.

i had this come up in a game, both coaches and my partner all happened to be in the meeting, the coach who had his 9th player leave early informed us both of it and I basically told him about the auto-out rule and he accepted it. I told the other coach that it would be her responsibility to appeal the auto-out whenever it came up, otherwise, if she misses it, we'd just play on normally. Both coaches agreed to do it that way and we had no further problems the rest of the game.

in some other rec games, i've actually had coaches on the side not short a player decline the automatic out and some have even gone as far as loaning a bench player to the other side so they wouldn't be short in the field.

In 7 on 7 football, sometimes, we'd have one team show up with only 5, which was the minimum req'd to play and 90% of the time, the other team would refuse to play 7 on 5 and insist on playing 5 on 5.

Not a shot in hell I would permit this and it isn't because I'm as anal as I am. :rolleyes:

The reasons I would not permit it are 1) it is the rule that is already permitting them to play instead of forfeiting the game (which a lot of people have either forgotten or never knew the rule); 2) it is quite specific in it's application; 3) once it is done in any league, rec or not, every umpire is going to be expected to fall in line and permit it; 4) but most of all, it is protestable no matter who agreed on anything. If the league wants this situation to occur, they can amend their rules to stipulate such an allowance. Barring that, I'm sticking with the rules of the game.

In the rec leagues I do, usually the coaches are also the league board members and would be the same guys who would handle protests anyways if protests were allowed. If these guys want to ignore certain rules, and they both agree, whatever floats their boat works with me. Who are they going to protest to? Themselves? The opposing coach? Besides, it's also a league I used to play in on the baseball side, so IM pretty familiar with their ways of doing things. They're also extremely generous on game fees, last weekend, I worked three games at $35 each and afterwards, the coaches tipped me an extra $35. Quite often, they'll tell me to keep the change and go buy myself a burger on them. It's a great league to work for...

I understand they are the ones paying your fee and the ones who call the shots, but they cannot write a simple set of sandlot rules?

Personally, I would at least ask them to put their ability to opt out of any rule or restriction, just to cover your tail should something occur down the road especially if there were the possibility of injury, no matter how remote.

Not to mention the fact that as time goes on, people in the org will come and go. Things will inevitably get lost in translation, leaving you high and dry when you go by the modified rule and someone wants to protest. If the rule changes are written down in black and white, the entire leadership could change, and their replacements could more easily pick up where they left off.

In my league, you see the same coaches/board members for upwards of 7-8 yrs at a time. The league actually has a pretty strict sportsmanship policy and there's almost no griping at all. And when leadership does change, it's usually friends of the current ppl who've already been accustomed to the league for a while. It's an extremely chill league, everyone's seen everyone in the community and know the unwritten rules well enough to not protest, not that protests would be allowed anyways. The coaches also like the fact that I only live 5min away from their fields and they don't have to worry about umps getting stuck in traffic.

When I do other leagues on occasion, I simply go by what the league's UIC tells me.

You seem to be trying to convince us that in YOUR situation it's ok that you're going by rules not written down. I think that the sheer weight of experience telling you that this is wrong should be enough to convince you. Unwritten rules are ALWAYS asking for trouble. Count yourself lucky you haven't had any trouble yet.