The Official Forum  

Go Back   The Official Forum > Softball
Register FAQ Community Calendar Today's Posts Search

 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Rate Thread Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
  #1 (permalink)  
Old Sun Sep 26, 2010, 08:16pm
Official Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Virginia
Posts: 164
Game time on scoreboard

I worked 10 games this w/e at a complex that has scoreboards that count down the game time remaining like a football clock. In one game a visiting coach with a 2 run lead came out for a conference with his F1 with 2 outs and about 90 seconds remaining to eat up a minute so that the game would end after the NNI. There was no strategic need for the conference. Home coach and his parents are now all mouthing off at me for allowing the conference.

The home batter is sent to the plate with about 30 seconds remaining and ordered to swing and miss 3 pitches. She does for 2 pitches, then there are about 8 seconds left in the game and F1 is taking her sign. I believe that she would have pitched the ball and got strike 3 with 5 seconds or less remaining, but the home coach tells his batter to swing while F1 is taking the sign and says to me at PU "that's strike 3" (Coach, no pitch was delivered so that's not strike 3, I explain as time expires). One parent asks me "What country are you from?" As that was the last of 7 straight games on a 90 degree day, I resisted the temptation to eject my first parent ever cause I was more than done for the day.

In another game today a home batter who would have been the final out of the inning (home down 3 runs) has 2 strikes with about 20 seconds left and F2 asks to tie her shoe. The shoe looked maybe "a little loose" and I'm not going to tell a girl she can't tie her shoe if I'm asked, but it makes ya wonder.

I've not worked much with running clocks on the scoreboard but it seems to give a team a very visible incentive to engage in delaying tactics and makes their actions much more of a flash point if they do because everyone is watching that clock. If you have a timer in your pocket and you are asked how much time is left at the beginning of an inning you tell the coach 4 minutes or whatever and at that point it's his matter to deal with if he wants to delay. But with the clock running on the board a player like today's F2 is overtly tempted to do what she did, or the parents are mouthing off everytime a few practice swings are taken because the clock is in everyone's face. It just seems to bring a lot of negative elements into the game.
Reply With Quote
 

Bookmarks


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Differences between Scoreboard & scorebooks chseagle Basketball 11 Wed Dec 09, 2009 08:00pm
Scorebook/Scoreboard Error at End of Game imagomer Basketball 47 Thu Nov 29, 2007 08:46pm
Rookie runniung the scoreboard ToolinFool Basketball 5 Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:57am
Watching the Scoreboard Ref Daddy Basketball 26 Tue Nov 01, 2005 08:33am


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:40pm.



Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.3.0 RC1