Slow pitch Co-ed league, a couple of different situations involving deliberately missing bases out of laziness...or too much attitude.

1) Man walks, Woman gets to walk too. Man runs past the pitchers mound and directly to second never touching 1st base. At what point should we appeal to first base? Once the batter is in the box and play is set to begin again?

2) Funny how there are all sorts of rules about how a player can't play below his "classification", but for some reason they put a travel team in the lowest classification coed league. Anyway, this team is full of attitude, bases loaded and a guy hits a home run. ALL FOUR RUNNERS PROMPTLY RUN OFF THE FIELD AND INTO THE DUGOUT. I guess running the bases is below them, I don't know. Anyway, where do we appeal? Home? Bases in reverse order?

It sure is different being in the dugout instead of being called "blue"!

[Edited by orioles35 on May 12th, 2005 at 11:02 AM]

1) As soon as it is clear to the PU that the offense has completed its intended running responsibilities, he/she can accept a dead ball appeal. Only an umpires unsure of protocol would require the next batter in the box, a "Play" call, then hear the appeal.

2) I would start at home with the runner from 3B missing that base, then in reverse order, to preserve the force outs. However, since none actually advanced home, you still have missed bases, that absent a force, would still get you 3 outs without a run scoring. Remember, this is only valid in classifications that don't exempt running bases after home runs.

As for not running the bases on a home run, better check your local rules. Some local leagues don't require the bases to be run as long as the batter runs and touches first or don't even require that.

I did ask one of the umpires at our game this week about that and she stated it was an appealable play.

But of course, just because ONE umpire says so, that doesn't necessarily mean ALL of them will permit it. I've seen that first hand!

orioles35,

You said "I did ask one of the umpires at our game this week about that and she stated it was an appealable play."

Which play are we talking about? You mentioned two plays in your original posting.

Missing bases, period. I asked if this was some "park" rule, cause it sure isn't in the rulebook.

Most times when you sign up to play in a league, they tend to have a set of rules that are unique to that league or even rec department area. In absence of that, then the umpires should be following the rulebook governing the league play (either ASA or USSSA, whichever is being used in your league).

sometimes local parks will have their own hybrid rules that if a man walks, he doesn't have to hit first on the way to second. I've played at several parks where you hit and sit on HR's.

remember that if they're a travel team that "mistakenly" got put in the "rec" division, they're not having much fun either.

These situations are travesties. First violation, OUT, and warn. Second, FORFEIT.

Bob

Now, THAT is a travesty!

Actually, I wouldn't be shocked if some leagues have such a rule about forfeits over stuff like that. Not to hijack this thread, but there are some leagues that have zero tolerance for some rule violations, such as illegal bats, illegal balls, etc. I know of a city in the area that if you're caught using an illegal bat, illegal ball or metal spikes (we're talking SP here), it's an automatic forfeit (not an ejection as prescribed by the rules). Talk about harsh!

This league has a rule in regard to a player being ejected...automatic forfeit if that happens.

Then again I've never seen an ejection to see if they'd actually do that, either.

The problem with rules proscribing forfeits when ejections are appropriate is that often umpires will not eject when it is appropriate because they know a forfeit is not appropriate to the situation they are dealing with.

We have a local youth football league with a rule that tells us to penalize 15 yards for a particular transgression. Every official I know feels that this particular transgression should be penalized by A) warn for 1st offense, B) 5 yards after that (some would escalate to 10 for 3rd offense, 15 for 4th). So.... no one EVER calls this penalty.

Just like Fed changing the OBS ruling. When they dropped the automatic one base award, the rule was applied more often.

Really? Why?

Bob