Intentional delay of game

[David Emerling]

I asked this question a couple months ago in another forum and I would be interested in the opinions of those who frequent this forum. This actually happened in one of my daughter's 12U fastpitch games played under ASA rules.

The tournament games were being played under 1:30 time limit. 7 innings, or 1:30, whichever came first.

Our team was winning 5-1 as the visitor. The home team was at bat and very little time remained on the clock. The scoreboard had a countdown timer, so there was no question about how much time remained.

Our opponent had a runner at 1st with two outs. The clock was ticking down and less than a minute remained. It got down to a few seconds and the first base coach start shouting to the runner at first, "Get off ... get off!" So she wondered off the bag while our pitcher still had the ball, and the BU called her out. 30 seconds were remaining on the clock.

According to the tournament rules, a new inning now had to be played. The tactic that was just employed was quite obvious.

I approached the home plate umpire and asked if it might be appropriate to invoke ASA 5-4-E which states, "A forfeited game shall be declared by the umpire in favor of the team not at fault in the following cases: If a team employs tactics noticeably designed to delay or to hasten the game."

He was understandably relunctant to do that although we all agreed that the game was now going to be lengthened considerably because of the tactic just employed.

Fine! Then I suggested whether ASA 10-1-L might be more appropriate: "The umpire will not penalize a team for any infraction of a rule when imposing the penalty would be an advantage to the offending team."

He would not do that either.

We then had a discussion about whether there was any doubt that the runner was not coaxed off the base by the coach in order to obtain an additional inning of play. He agreed that the runner PURPOSELY got out ... but still was unwilling to invoke any penalty.

I was wondering if any of you would have invoked either of these two penalties under these circumstances.

To my way of thinking, ASA 10-1-L seems uniquely intended to prevent EXACTLY these type of shennanigans.