2009 ASA Rule Changes Approved
 

A conference will not be charged when the pitcher is removed

A bat must have an ASA Certification stamp on it.

A bat cannot have any dents

Approved two-piece bats allowed

Optic yellow ball mandatory starting 2010

Metal spikes worn when prohibited will result in an ejection if the player refuses to remove them

No penalty for an unreported substitute (as of now)

HR limits established for women's SP

HR limits changed in men's SP (B-6, C-4, D-2, E-0) (Passed by General Council vote) Yes, there is now an E level

Adult FP run ahead for 5 innings is now 7.

Men's A run ahead rule is now 20 after 4 & 15 after 5

Men's 45+ FP to use tie breaker

20 second violation is now just a ball on the batter, not IP

Gorilla Gold now legal for FP

All SP batters now start with a 1-1 count (Passed by General Council vote)

16" ball remains live after a walk

Masters SP no longer need to run out HR

A fair batted ball which hits the fence, then the fielder and then goes out of play is a GRD

Any defensive player may make a live ball appeal

All FP and ADA players can use courtesy runner. ADA CR can be any player.

Men's FP catcher can use courtesy runner

Did you mean dead ball appeal?

Will ASA publish a text list of all non-approved bats with stamps, similar to the one that is all-encompassing on the website?

This will make the list a LOT shorter!

I love it! Hopefully that will make life just a bit easier.

I take it that this will pretty much do away with the need to check bats with a bat ring?

Might we see something established later before the season starts?

I like this change as well.

Interesting. Still has to be a legal sub I assume. So now, can a CR for F4 be a CR for F6 in the next inning? Or will the CR still be locked to the position they CR'd for?

Wouldn't count on it. For one, you still need to make sure that it's a legal bat. Secondly, a bat ring is your first line of defense against a bat that has been painted. These bat doctors are good, but even the best bat doctors eventually make mistakes.

Nope

I'm pretty sure they already do that.

No. "Any eligible player in the official line up including a substitute can be a courtesy runner."

BTW, the 1-1 count change excludes the Masters and Seniors game.

And the rule does not specify "Gorilla Gold", but references it as an example of an "approved drying agent".

Sort of. They currently have a list of non-approved bats, but the list includes the bats' pictures and turns it into 2 pages.

What they don't have is a list of bats with stamps that are unapproved. That would be an even MORE helpful list with the requirement for a stamp. Bat check becomes:

1) Bat have a stamp? No - OUT.
2) Yes, is bat one of the 2 (or 10, but very short list) unapproved bats with a stamp? Yes - OUT
3) No - Allowed

Then, I don't understand the change. Is it a technical change to the rule wording (since the RS already says ANY fielder...) :confused:

Click here for ASA's Non Approved Bats with Certification Marks (2000 and 2004)

http://www.asasoftball.com/about/bui..._pics_2000.asp

Are these people who are playing that have no clue what a softball, bat, or running the bases is? :eek:

Thanks... jeez, the list is longer than I thought it would be! :eek:

I didn't even think of the altered bat issue. Thanks!

Maybe I'm misreading the change. Unfortunately, my committee assignments kept me away from those in which many of these changes were discussed.

This adds the bold wording: "If properly appealed by any defensive player during a live ball, the runner is out."

Since a proper live ball appeal will always include a defensive player, I'm reading this as adding the word "any" for some reason.

Maybe Steve or Darrell had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting where this was explained.

Yeah, you would think it is that obvious, that a live ball appeal must be made by a defensive player, with the ball, touching a player or missed base, who verbalizes or otherwise indicates the intent to appeal. But the rule 8-7 F-I Effect 2 only says properly appealed, and defensive team, and I can only assume that some ucking fidiot (Sorry, John , but it fits) anally read that one section without any context and allowed a coach or someone else to verbalize what the appeal was.

This was Bernie's, and people generally accepted his position that it was unclear as written.

I am going to disagree with Mike's statement that unreported subs will have no penalty. All of the penalties and effects in Rule 4-6.C (1-9) described, remain, EXCEPT that there unreported sub is now NOT disqualified as a secondary effect.

So, if appealed after hitting, but before a following pitch or play, treat as a reported sub that has (effectively) now batted out of order. If appealed after making a play defensively, the offense has the option of the result of the play or nullifying the play (a do-over assuming the prior count).

As it used to be.

That is what I was getting at with the technical correction comment.

There is this wording in the rule book:

(8-7-F)

I guess that depends on what you think is a "penalty". :D For subpara 3, yes.

Okay, but that isn't a penalty for the Unreported Sub. It is an out that probably wouldn't have occurred, but it also is ruling another player out, not the one who violated the rule. BTW, I'm not completely sure this is "never" the player's fault especially in adult ball.

Look at the effect for subpara 4, 5 & 6. If s/he is not DQ'd, there is no longer a need to replace her/him on a base in other situations?

I cannot remember which committee (Slow Pitch rules, maybe) where someone was asked "What is the penalty?" when noted that DQ was too severe a penalty. The response was to the effect that they believed it would be an out.

I'm curious as to how close the author looked at the effects before proposing the changes.

Thats good. This is a mens ball issue IMO, and that will help them.



:rolleyes:

thanks for nothing on that


Thank you ASA. Very nice!

Free CR's for all huh?

Whatever.

No. Put back in rule context, the youth courtesy runner rule for pitcher and catcher (requires a legal sub, can only run for one position, run for position not player, etc) is now extended for all levels of Fast Pitch. If you do Men's, Women's or 23U, you know that is how they play most of the time, anyway, so now it is extended to Championship Play rules, not a local exception.

The ADA exception will apply to maybe 5 people in the country; but, it does. If an ADA certified individual (must have card, etc) bats and gets on base, and his disability affects running, they may have a courtesy runner similar to the Seniors, meaning any available player or sub. This isn't something worth getting worked up over; the odds of you needing to apply this in your lifetime are pretty limited.

I'm not sure what you mean.

Can they CR for F5 in JO championship play next year?

That's what Irish implied with my post earlier... Steve is implying that the current rule is expanded to other levels of play (which, IMO makes sense). But if Mike's correct, CR's can be used for any player and any position by any legal player on the roster. Seems odd if Mike's right...

They're going to need a whole separate book next year - just to list and explain all the new rules! :eek:

Hooray for Optic Yellow!

If F5 is a certified ADA player, yes. The ADA rule allowing a disabled player to play just offense or defense has been expanded to allow one playing offense to have a courtesy runner.

For the standard league or tournament game you will call, there has been no change in the JO courtesy runner rule. Only if a team presents a lineup with an ADA certified player do you need to change anything.

For all adult fastpitch, the same courtesy runners as JO. For Masters and Senior slowpitch, the same rule they have had.

OK thanks! Much better!

No, it means the existing Courtesy Runner in use now applies to all FP, not just JO as present.

An ADA can use it regardless of position.

What I don't like is that as soon as this passed, so did the exclusion of the Men's FP pitcher from the rule.

This sounds fine. I guess we gotta do whatever to cater to ADA, so thats a nonstarter, and the rule should be the same in all FP; thats they way they play anyway. ASA needs to make the mens FP exactly the way the men want them; then maybe ASA can regain some steam with the few who actually play mens FP.

So, what was meant by this was:

All FP divisions now use Courtesy Runners.

Any ADA player may have a Courtesy Runner, who can be any player in the lineup.

I read this, apparently like many others, to mean CR's for any position.

Then you need to read all of the posts.

If you check the Courtesy Runner rule, it clearly states that this is for pitcher and catcher only, but just JO. The rule change makes it all of FP.

Well, 24 bats on one list would bring it back down to a page, as opposed to the nearly 4-page list with 101 bats.

You know, that brings up an interesting question... What's going to happen to the "Approved Bats" list? Worth made a bat (SSEST, if I remember correctly) that's on the approved list, but not all of them have stamps. Some were simply manufactured prior to 2000.

<b>No penalty for an unreported substitute (as of now)</b>

I never understood why they changed this in the first place. I never liked that a legal sub coming in would get penalized. JMHO

Joel

OK, so the original "Men's FP catcher can use courtesy runner " is missing the word only, as in Men's FP catcher only can use courtesy runner
or
All FP levels have the CR rule like JO, except mens' pitchers.

I think I would wait for the official interp before assuming that. In the Playing Rules Committee, the chairperson opined that if both passed at the same time, the more overriding rule would apply, not the more limiting rule.

I don't believe the intent of the body was to allow CR for pitcher and catcher for all, and then immediately limit that. Both were approved by Consent Agenda at the Council without discussion, as each were considered a good change.

It will interesting to see how the NUS decides to address the discrepancy.

Wade,
I don't see that happening. ASA has not cared much for the men's game for years, and there are a couple of other organizations that do - they even cater to the men's game. ASA shot themselves in the foot the year that they required both feet on the rubber - for men. I know that it was to match the international rule, but it wasn't the game the players wanted. Even though that was only a 1-season/year foul-up, I think you'll find those other organizations made a big gain then.

They have lost about 80% of CA. Very few areas still have ASA mens FP.

Steve,

Some good discussions in the lobby last night. Already talk of adding a courtesy foul to the SP rule, but we already talked about that.

You are probably right about the men's FP pitcher, but you never know about these things. The one thing for certain is that it does not apply to all players, just those presently designated in the present JO rule.

I missed the rules portion of the Commissioners' Meeting, but from what I understand, KR addressed a handful of rules which will need to be massaged prior to implementation.

Apparently, there were some serious misunderstandings with a code change or two that will need to be addressed and clarified.

Leah O'Brien Amico stopped by for a while. Apparently, she is going to cover the BOD meeting for one of the player reps (maybe Stacey).

ISF report revealed that when a completed survey of all sports (softball finished in something like the top 40% of all sports in any category), it is believed that the IOC members never read this report since the results were too good to ignore.

Those in the know are cautiously optimistic as to the chances of getting back into the Olympics.

Thanks for the update on that mike!

Are these (or will these be) going to be posted online anywhere? I may pass these along to our SP "coach".

ASA will post the official rule changes, including explanations, on their web site in a few weeks. No doubt, someone will post a link here when that happens. I wouldn't distribute the postings here, since they are just a bit misleading in how some of them are worded, as evidenced by the discussions in this thread.

Dakota: Thanks for the adivce. I never do that anyways; I prefer to get rule changes from the source if possible (such as NCAA, NFHS sites, etc).

Generally speaking now: If SP is going to a 3-2 count (I'm not sure if there is a difference between using a 3-2 or starting at 1-1 :rolleyes:), I figure we better be prepared for that before our first game. If I do slow pitch stats again for my friends, I'm willing to bet there will be people surprised about the count change. :D

Definitely a good thing to go over in the pre-game conference.

And no, there's no difference between starting with a 1-1 count and having a maximum 3-2 count.

There was one hell of a difference in the terminology to get it passed!!

Efforts in previous years had people voting against it because it changed the fundamental definitions of the game, that you can't walk on 3 balls or strike out with 2 strikes. It was even offered to the rule author as a friendly amendment that it could pass if he would just change the terminology, which he chose to not accept. So, it was voted down every prior year.

This method (you start with one ball and one strike count) eliminates that concern; 4 balls is a walk, 3 strikes is an out, just like hot dogs and apple pie. Never mind how many pitches were thrown to get to that count, all's right with the count!!

What Steve said and you will not have to buy an indicator just for SP :cool:

Received by email the Official Rule Changes, about to be posted.

They eliminated completely the "catcher only" version, and have published:

Rule 8 Section 10: (All Fast Pitch)
Comment: All Fast Pitch will follow the Courtesy runner rule previously used only by the Junior Olympic Classification of Girls and Boys.

Here ya go everyone:

http://downloads.asasoftball.com/ump...RulesFinal.pdf

Thanks SRW.

Mike,

sorry but I don't get the point of this part of your post. Might be because I am not a native speaker! Can you explain what's about the report and the use or non-use of it?

THX

Raoul

To the best of my knowledge, a survey was taken of those involved in the Olympics (all facets: participants, vendores, sponsors, etc.) which reflected softball being in the top 40% of all summer Olympic sports which means it is popular, a good fan draw and a money maker.

The ISF & ASA believe that if the IOC members actually read this report (assuming it was made available to them by the Chair), there would not have been a question and softball would have easily retained it's position in the games.

This is my perception of second hand information provided at the commissioner's meeting of the ASA. As I said, they are cautiously optimistic for 2016.