These type of rules preceded the ADA.

OK, you have the DH rule if you have a defensive specialist who can't bat and a slugger with no defensive skills. You have the EP rule for the 10,11,12... player batting order with "pick your 9" on defense. Those are easier to remember and administer than DP/FLEX, so why all the extra bits to the DP/FLEX rule? Why not just adopt one/both of the DH or EP rules?

Probably morphed from years of coaches abusing the rules to gain a strategic advantage.

Personally, I really don't care for any of them. Play 9/10, hit 9/10, field 9/10.

If it wasn't the ADA, then it could have been another disability law that applies to ASA as a part of USA Softball, which gets funding from the USOC which gets funding from Congress. There's connections in which someone could have sued using one of the disability laws. I distinctly remember there was a person from Nebraska who sued the ASA because the rules didn't allow for her to play.

If these rules we're discussing were enacted before 1990 (and I don't remember them from back then), then they did predate the ADA.

I'm not sure of the date, but this rule is nothing new and has been around a while.

I believe that the DP/Flex was put in place in ASA ball right around 89/90 (my daughter was playing 14U when I first encountered the rule).

The DP/Flex was adopted to allow more options than the DH rule in baseball. In particular the DP playing defense. At a meeting I attended the explanation was that this allowed the DP to give players a break on defense. They emphasized that this was to help players stay fresh during tourneys where they played multiple games in one day.

<img src="http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/agree.gif" title="image: i agree">

The adult kickball league I play in uses modified ASA rules. I was surprised to see that for our second game, the field had the safety base since our first game did not use one. :eek:

I've only ever been involved in a game with the safety base once in my life and the umpire didn't explain the rule differences well or at all. So I was trying to recall the rules I knew from the NFHS rule book and from discussions here.

Because I didn't know that the BR only has to touch the orange base when there is a play at first base, I kept appealing that the runner improperly touched the white base on all of their extra base hits in the first inning. :o

It wasn't until I had a chance to read the ASA rule book that I saw there was more to the rule than what I thought (too many exceptions, IMO <img src="http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/twocents.gif" title="image: my two cents">).

It's not anywhere near that old, less than 10 years. Maybe 2004.

I think at least twice that.

That might be the year they renamed the DP/DEFO rule the DP/FLEX rule; same rule, just renamed the one position to be consistent with the NCAA decision to rename it.

I think it was actually in the mid-80's when the DP/Defo showed up in the college game and a year or so later when it made it's way to ASA.

In the mid-80's, the college game used the ASA rulebook, with very minor modifications. I don't believe the DP/DEFO rule started in college first; ASA adopted it, which made it a college rule.

I thought that the DEFO literally was "defense only," and wasn't allowed to bat for any reason. Then the introduction of the FLEX added that new dimension. Of course, I could also be wrong since I have slept since then.

No, the only reason the name changed is because, as usual, the NCAA had to have it's own brand and called it the FLEX noting that the 10th player was flexible.

Again, something which which I disagree. DEFO is appropriate as when there is a DEFO in the game, they can play only defense. When the DEFO moves into the batting order for the DP, they just become another player and the DEFO position disappears..

Of course, JMHO

The rule did not change; only the name changed. And, it changed with apparently no sense of irony... the DP position is far more flexible than the FLEX position.