NFHS Rule 7

[WestMichBlue]

Whiskers: ”Was the ruling that "Any outs on the play stand" taken out intentionally?”

Yes.

Smiley: ” Although the words "Any other outs on the play stand" were deleted, this is still implied”

No.

The NFHS finally got it right with respect to BOO violation penalties. NFHS never wanted the infamous ASA BOO “triple play” where the out on a runner stands, and the out on an improper batter stands, AND an out is called on the proper batter.

Originally the NFHS rule read that “an out for batting out of order (the proper batter) supercedes an out by the improper batter on a play.” Thus you only get ONE out on a batter – that of the proper batter. Whatever the improper batter did (got on base, or was out for any reason) was simply ignored. Send her back to the dugout and start over.

In 2003 NFHS re-wrote Rule 7 to closely follow ASA 7, including picking up the words “any outs on the play stand.” I challenged NFHS on this and received an “administrative change” from Mary Struckhoff to ignore the new verbiage and to use the 2002 “supercedes” interpretation. I posted that here, though obviously it did not reach the majority of high school umpires in the country.

In 2004 NFHS changed the words again to read: “The umpire shall declare the batter who should have batted out (not the improper batter). Any other outs on the play stand.” The word “other” was supposed to convey other runners, not the batter-runner. But it still didn’t work, because most of you still believed that you could get three outs on a BOO violation.

Finally, NFHS has made it very clear what they want called. ”The improper batter’s time at bat is negated and she is returned to the dugout. In other words – she never existed! If she is on base (walk, hit, etc), take her off. If she struck out or flied out, erase it from the books. And if she is the next batter in the lineup, send her back to the plate.

Under some circumstances you can still get three outs (two runners and the proper batter), but one of those outs will not be the improper batter.


”If so should not it have been noted in the Major Editorial Revisions section?”

As you can see, Whiskers, this rule has been changed 4 times in 4 years and never documented. But that is not unusual; both NFHS and ASA perform undocumented wordsmithery every year, sometimes with results that lead to very different interpretations.

WMB