skipping your time at bat
 

I was told about a situation that happened in a JV game yesterday and wanted to see what you guys thought about it. As head of my local association I want to tell my umps how to handle this in the future.

Fed rules. We have a very poor JV team that has problems scoring any runs or preventing their opponent from scoring. At the end of the 4th inning the visiting team was ahead 24-0. Instead of switching places and taking their turn at bat, they convinced the home team and the umpires that they would like to forgo their time at bat in the top of the 5th and simply stay in the field to speed up the game. All agreed to do this and the 5th inning ended 3 batters later.

I was told about this yesterday and it doesn't sit well with me. The only game ending proceedure we have officially is a 10 after 5 run ahead rule. Fed 4-2-3 certainly states that "by mutual agreement of the opposing coaches and the plate umpire, any remaining play can be shortened at any time or the game terminated". But to do so simply by stating you do not want to bat seems to be a stretch. Everyone wants to get these types of games over with as soon as possible but this doesn't seem right to me. Any ideas or opinions?

"Official" game ending procedure, no. If all parties agree in front of multiple witnesses at a JV game. not a problem with me. In spite of what the rule states, they really don't need the plate umpire to agree.

At least in my area, JV is not a competition leading to playoffs or championship levels. The two people making the decision are the ones who are paying you to be there, they are the customer. The team is doing you a favor if stats/scores are to be submitted to an authoritive organization as it will show the losing team batting the required number of times.

And the best of all, what if the coaches just tell you the game is over, go away? What are you going to do? Tell them that the game MUST be played to an official end and the teams MUST continue playing? And you are going to do what when they laugh at you? :D

Don't sweat it. At no time can you FORCE a team to play. Want to file a report to insure full fee will be paid? Shouldn't be a problem, file away. If any of the HS org. have a problem, they can take it up with the coaches and respective school administrators.

JMHO

Points well taken. I guess in situations like this I start to think what the next level would be. Hypothetical. After 1st inning one team leads 10 nothing. They decide to forgoe all at bats for rest of game. Still OK?

I know and agree that the teams are our customers and we work for them and the local school system (at least for high school ball). But at some point... I don't know. Play the game.

But my wife says that's my problem. I think too much.

A team refusing to play is a forfeit.

And if both teams are telling you it is over, what are you going to do?

Our local listing on this type of sitch would be a forfeit right at the point that the team declined to take their turn at bat. This would be followed by a report to our assignor, who would then send it to the state HS association.
Ball is then in their court. While yes it's JV, and there are no standings etc., there is an issue of the team being classified non-competitive. In previous years (and in sports other than FP), teams have been forced to suspend their season do to issues that have made them non-competitive, injuries, budget, academic, excessive cancellations (not related to weather/grounds) etc. at the V, JV, or freshman level.
As umps, not really our issue, we just report it and the state assoc. takes it from there....however it is not within our authority here to "OK" the game being played in a manner not listed in the rule book.

I don't think what you are proposing is possible. How can you forfeit a game against one team for not batting when there is no defense in the field?

Report it, sure. Go crazy about it? Like you said, not really the umpire's issue. It is also not unheard of happening, nor anything new. If neither team wants to continue playing (remember, both teams agreed to this), what are you going to do?

I've had some lopsided scores at sub-varsity and middle school levels, but nothing that had one team skipping a half-inning of offense.

It did happen in one of those lopsided church league games that was about 34-2 at the time. This league included a bylaw to override the ASA run rule and added that it was the discretion of the losing team's manager if they wanted to invoke the run rule. I'd say in the last 3 or 4 years, I've only had one game where the losing team invoked the rule. That makes for some really looooong games. But in this one game, the team on defense was ahead a ton, and after they recorded the 3rd out of the 6th inning, said they had just gone out 1-2-3 in their half of the inning on offense. So they just stayed on defense, got the last 3 outs and the game was finally over. I almost said "mercifully" over, but apparently, there is no mercy in the church league. And plenty of holey gloves!

I guess if the umpire wanted to run it strickly by the rule book, he could have told the Visiting team they would have to take their turn at bat. Then the visitors could:

> take their place in the batter's box and then leave and enter the dugout.
> step from left to right batter's box just as the pitcher was getting ready to deliver.
> take nine delay of game penalties for not entering the batter's box.
> wipe out a whole bunch of lines on the field.
> get on base, leave early, get on base, etc.

But, why?

Or bunt everytime to the pitcher. Or bat opposite handed.

At some point a coach has to coach and a player has to play. If it's in the rules I support it. If it's not, then I don't want to make it up. If a team has had enough say so. The rules support a game ending in that manner.

Simple, I'm going to do what my state HS association directed me to do in such a situation, stop the game right there, file the report, they declare the game a forfeit.
It's a forfeit because the team "refused to continue to play" (yes, in this sitch I realize they're refusing/declining to continue to play offense), but the fact remains that for all intents and purposes they're saying..."we've had enough, we don't want to play anymore."

I'm not suggesting the umpire not file the required reports, but more toward LJ's concern that it bothered him.

ASA had a proposed change a couple years ago that would have allowed such a move legal. I believe there is a sanctioning body which does allow this presently.

If the team that is supposed to bat stays on defense and the team that is supposed to be on defense stays in the dug out waiting for you to allow them to bat again who forfeits?

In one particular league, I permitted bat-skipping several times. It was a business league in which one company's team was loaded with serious players and usually won by big scores. On some evenings, after the second or third inning they would simply field and not bat.

What kind of satisfaction they got from constantly beating up on teams several levels below them, I can't imagine.

I guess skipping a turn at bat is preferable to what I used to see in a nearby township when I lived in New Jersey. Again, one team was so strong that they invariably went beyond the mercy rule limit early, so before the required number of innings, they would switch their infield and outfield and otherwise do what they had to in order to let the other team back in the game. Just to keep the game going, they always kept the opposition within the mercy limit.

As an indication of how things had deteriorated in that once-balanced and strong rec league, the team that crushed everybody contained guys I had played with and against 25 years earlier, some of them now ridiculously beefed up and barely recognizable. So a team of guys in their 50s spent the season crushing all comers, to what end, again I can't imagine.

Most of these teams are just there to get batting practice to break in their Freak 98s and Mayhems.

A number of years ago, we had a local coed league that had one team full of travel players playing against your typical local husband/wife boyfriend/girlfriend teams. A new run-ahead rule had to be instituted: 20 after 3, and 12 after 5 (WELL before ASA changed their run-ahead rule). We very frequently hit 20 after 3.

That team was the "beginning of the end." The coed league no longer exists.

I'll throw it back to you...what would you do?

I've already stated my position pretty clearly...the team that refused to bat when it was their turn to bat loses the game by forfeit.

"The coed league no longer exists."

I lived in central Jersey for more than 50 years. As enormously popular as softball was for decades, "that league no longer exists" applies to most of the leagues in that area today. Some leagues that had flourished for my entire life declined and folded over very short spans of time, such as from 12 competitive teams in 2005 to oblivion by 2007.

But I remember when there were softball fields seemingly everywhere, when township and business leagues had two or even three divisions of play, and when you could put your team in a competitive tournament every weekend from April through October.

Regarding Freaks and Mayhems: in 1978, my team finished third in the strongest SP county league in the state. Many of the players in that league also played on Trenton's professional team. We went 21-9 averaging under 6 runs a game. Our pitcher threw six shutouts that season.

This is not to imply that SP is dying everywhere. Clearly, it's not. But it may be that New Jersey has become so expensive that SP's natural base of blue-collar ballplayers has simply shrunk too much.

I don't have much of answer other than telling them they can't do that, refusing to participate in their sham, and reporting it to the state association; and let the administrators decide how to treat the score, game and schools.

I challenge how you could declare a forfeit for failing to bat when there is no team on the field preparing to play defense. Here is a case where you must have an egg to make an egg sandwich (there has to be a pitch to bat, and there has to be a pitcher to make a pitch, as well as the rules requiring 9 defensive players, 8 of whom must be present in fair territory to have a legal pitch).

In a 24-0 JV game there is "no game". JV for much of the country are an instructional tool used by coaches and schools to prepare players for the varsity level.I'd be the first one to agree in an varsity game there are no "rule
adjustments" but when officiating an 24-0 game commonsense should prevail.

if you don't have much either, then what you have is a wish sandwich, and you wish you had some meat, baow baow baow....

if there is "no game", there needs to be no more need for an official. it's called practice if that's what both teams wish to continue, and the official has already done his job to get paid for both teams. time for a forfeit, there's nothing else left to play out. that's your common sense, go home, and have dinner.

Great line Steve!
OK...I think we're all in agreement with what you said in your first paragraph if this sitch occurred in a HS (V/JV/Fr) game. We're not going to let the team do that, game is over at that point, higher authorities make the decision as to the official result of the game. They can call it whatever they want, we really don't care....not our worry.

So let's say we're working a non HS, or a non tournament game like a house league or rec league game. Same sitch as the OP. Team A is on defense, they're getting crushed by Team B. Team A records the 3rd out to end the half inning, and HC of A tells his team to stay out in their defensive positions as the HC tells you "we want to forgo our time at bat, and let Team B bat again, and we'll continue to play defense."

PU: "Coach you can't do that."
HC/A: But we want to...and the HC of B is OK with us doing it."

At this point what do we have? Many good arguments have been made as to why you cannot declare the game a forfeit. and I can see where the points made are certainly valid...but then what is this bizzaro sitch considered by rule?

I'm ready to be swayed to the other side of the debate.

Ok, but if no one actually tracks wins and losses of JV games and JV games don't lead to championship play, as stated, the game is still over. Who are you reporting the forfeit to if no one tracks wins and losses??

In Florida, the FHSAA would take this seriously and would probably fine the school. Our reports go to FHSAA on any game that doesn't finish "normally," including JV games.

Even a house league or rec league has some type of authority structure. If team A refuses to bat, stop the game, file a report with the league and let them deal with it. Unless, of course, the league has put in guidelines or rules addressing this situation....

We've covered that aspect of the sitch already...no disagreement that these would be the appropriate steps to follow.

The question posed is what specific book rule applies here. I've stated that I felt that any rule code's forfeit rule would apply here. Many posters have been of the opinion that the rules covering forfeits cannot be applied here. The reasons they have stated have made me rethink my position to the point of my thinking to myself..."OK, I think you're right. It probably does meet the rule book criteria for a forfeit. So, if it's not a forfeit, what is it considered by rule?"

KJ, you're right on the verge, man. I challenged your decision that the team refusing to bat was the team that forfeits; but I agree its IS a forfeit.

I'm not the administrative body, but, absent a local rule allowing (what we used to call a) "flip-flop", if it were my call, I would declare a double forfeit if neither team was willing to take the next position required by rule.

What I'm saying is that as the umpire....you don't declare anything.

Neither team wants to play...leave the field...file the report...let the league authorities decide the status of the game....

Well, think it all the way through. How are they refusing to bat? The pitcher is never "ready" - so no pitch ever started. Seems to me the other team is just as "guilty" of not playing as the leading team.

That said, there's nothing worse than the 14-0 in the 2nd inning game where the leading team gets on base and steps off on purpose to get out. To me, that shows up the other team WAY more than simply saying, "We don't need to bat this inning."