I would not have told him the runner was safe anyway. I would have simply told him that I cannot tell him how to have his players make a proper appeal... and hope the hint that it was his PLAYERS that had to make the appeal would sink in. Anyone who has watched any baseball has seen a live-ball appeal - the Dixie procedure is the same.

It is funny because I had this happen to me this weekend as a coach. I umpire Fed and ASA and I was coaching my daughter in a USSSA tournament. I went up to the umpire in a dead ball situation and said "I want to appeal, The runner missed third" He stated "You can if you want to" and then turned around to go back to the plate. He said play ball and I said "I really want to appeal the runner missing third" then he gave the signal. Afterwards, in the inning swap, he stated it had to be a live ball appeal but he did allow me to make it and it was a simple verbal appeal. The next game I had my pitcher wait for the call to play ball then step off and make a verbal appeal which was granted.

Fed allows the coach to make a dead ball appeal. They are the only ones I know of that do. ASA does not. I don't know u-trip rules, but apparently they do not, either.

You are correct. Our FED season just ended and I guess I had Fed on the mind. Looking at it now, he should not have accepted my first verbal appeal even after the ball went live but I did it correctly the second time.

Even with that said, After looking at all 3; a verbal appeal by a player is all that is required and the ball juggling is not.