Why are there appeals, its our job
 

Why does the defense have to see a rule violation (appeals) before it is enforced? It is our job to watch tag-ups, leaving too early, etc. If we see it, we should call it. What do you think?

I think we have enough to do than carry the coaches on our back also.

Because I'm paid to enforce the rules as written.

NFHS rules used to not have appeals except for BOO. Base running infractions were not appeals. If we saw a runner leave early or miss a base, at the end of the play we just called time and announced the out. It felt really weird.

Appeal plays have been part of softball for, well for a long time. WMB can no doubt consult historical rule books and tell us exactly when the appeal came in to the game.

From a "spirit of the rule" standpoint, making base running infractions appeal plays forces the defense to pay attention to what is going on in the game, lest they miss an out.

I used to disparage the idea of doing away with appeals, but now I'm not sure it wouldn't be an improvement. However, such a major change in the way plays are called might have negative ramifications we haven't considered.

Carl Childress, for one, believes that (in baseball) appeals for missed bases and bases left too soon should indeed be simply umpire calls.

Wow, Carl would do away with appeals? Maybe I will have to rethink. Carl was my mentor as a young official in baseball and basketball 25 years ago.

I think that we should follow the rules and not worry about it. If the rules ever change making it the umpire's call (without an appeal) then we'll have to change as well.

SC High Schools still carry on the old NFHS rule of calling the "appeals" at the end of playing action, like FED did several years back.

Their comment to the officials has been that they think it improper that baseball/softball is the only sport where an official sees an infraction but does not call it immediately.

I personnally don't have a huge preference, except everytime a fan or coach gets on my butt for making the call without an appeal by the defense.

Part of the reason has got to be that softball, like baseball, is a traditional game. I'm definitely in the traditionalist category. I'd even like to see punky balls and wooden bats used - at all levels but especially in the higher levels.

I enforce the rules of the sanctioning body whose game I am calling. I try to enforce them all. Which also means that I look for the boogers such as sliding shorts not being the same color and more. The rules say these questions from the OP are appeal plays - leave them that way.

"This is an appeal play and the umpire should not make any decision until his attention has been called to it and the play actually made at the base in question."

From the first unified national rules of softball in 1932 (predecessor of today's ASA rulebook). Appeals were required for leaving early on a caught fly ball, missing a base, and attempting to advance to 2B after over-running 1B.

Though BOO was in that first book, it wasn't formally an appeal play until the early 50's.

WMB

Then you are on the wrong board. Carl abhors softball umpires. He does not believe we are "real" umpires, just a bunch of guys chasing little girls around a ball field. Not making that up, he has made this comment directly to me on the e-mail list which preceded this site.

So weird that many umpires would ignore violations because they didn't want to be the bad guys. And I think you can trust me when I say that many of these calls were and would be suspect in the eyes of the visiting team, right or wrong.

Umpires react to plays. The competition is between the teams and, IMO, it is their responsibility to observe and "catch" the opposition cheating, taking advantage, or whatever, not the umpire's.

Those who work SP will tell you that quite often a runner will cut a base short in an attempt to get the outfielder to hurry a throw. I do not want to be in a position to rule that player out for using a strategy to hurry the defense especially when there is no rule dictating the path of any runner.

Agreed...but I think the question is about the reasoning behind the rules being as they are.

WMB provided some historical context back to 1932, but does anybody know why the rulesmakers decided that those infractions shoud be appeal plays?

Just curious.....

Yeah, that sounds like Carl. He gave me the same ribbing when I got some contact info from him last year for the TASO Softball Chapter in South Texas. But "abhor"? Naaa, he has simply chosen his game as I have chosen mine.

Carl does like to give people a hard time though. I once watched him officiating a girls high school basketball game in Raymondville, TX. The home coach was also a high school baseball umpire who worked with Carl during baseball season, and as I recall, someone who always liked to spar with Carl at association meetings.

The home team had ran away with the game, but with about two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Carl called a flagrant technical foul on his fellow umpire (the home coach in this game) for "failing to comment on my poor officiating". Vintage Carl.

If you were part of that e-mail list, you wouldn't hold such a kind opinion.

He invited me to join along with a couple other softball umpires. Carl and his protective little minions, wasted no time or effort in making personal attacks on anyone citing anything which didn't fall directly into line with what he wants to be a fact.

It didn't make any difference that you were simply comparing the rules of the two games or just offering an opinion, Carl publicly treated everyone not in line with his world with absolute disdain and made every effort to demean the individual.

He never missed an opportunity to make a disparaging remark about the game of softball and those involved. I invited him to more than one Major SP National to see exactly how unathletic the players were only to be ignored.