League Rules (aka Calvinball)

[BretMan]

The worst one I've ever seen was in the men's fastpitch league where I play.

ASA basic rule set with a bunch of league modifications. You can bat the roster, remove injured players without penalty and even use four outfielders (10 players in the field) since the fields we use are unfenced. All well and good enough, as these modifications are generally aimed at giving players more playing time.

They also allow a courtesy runner for any runner, once per inning, using the last batted out as the CR. During one game a team took full advantage of that rule and (legally) used a CR everytime one of the slower/older players got on base.

The team that lost that game felt that they got shafted by the CR rule- even though this was perfectly allowable. Their coach just happened to be on the league board of directors and raised a stink about this. Lord only knows how he got this idiotic rule pushed through, but the next season their CR rule was modified with the following addition:

Any courtesy runner used may not be a faster runner than the player he is replacing.

Talk about unenforcable! How in the world would an umpire possibly know if one runner was faster than another? What he's going to do- line them up and run a race before accepting the CR? Have a printout of all player's forty yard dash times in his ball bag?

It only took few games for them to realize the futility of this rule and eliminate it.