Cold and windy

[Andy]

I worked a large ASA JO FP tournament in Las Vegas this past weekend.

Unseasonably cold for Vegas this time of year - between 25 - 50 degrees both days, but the worst part was the wind...anywhere between 10 - 40 mph - made it feel much colder.

I live in the desert, so I don't have a lot of cold weather gear, but I wore everything I had...pretty miserable to work in that kind of weather.

I ended up having to facilitate the ejection of a coach over warming of bats, of all things. Teams were observed early in the tournament keeping all of their bats near the portable heaters in the dugouts early in the tournament and were told not to do that. In my last game of the tournament on Sunday evening, I oserved one player standing in front of the heater with her bat and turning the bat in front of the heating element. She immediately ran right out on deck with the bat, then up to bat. I was the BU, so I told my partner what I saw and we enforced the altered bat rule since we had already issued enough "warnings" to this team and all of the teams regarding this issue. The resulting out was the third out of the inning, so the coach comes out from the dugout with all of the standard lines...."these are composite bats, they have to be kept warm or they will break!"..."You need to show me where in the rules it says you can't warm the bats!"..."I'm never coming back to this tournament again!"...blah...blah..blah....

We let him go for a bit, then I am escorting him back to his dugout, telling him that he has had his say, it's time to play ball. We get back to the dugout and I turn to go to my position and he yells at me to "shut my mouth!", so I inform him that he has chosen to leave....big stink as he leaves yelling at the UIC and anybody else that will listen.....not a good ending to a fun tournament despite the weather....Oh well......

[AtlUmpSteve]

I hate to tell you, but the coach was technically right. 2010 rule change (look at notes Page 21 of 2010 book), ASA removed "heating" as part of the altered bat definition, and approved warming sleeves, etc.

Per the experts, the bats cannot be warmed sufficiently to affect or modify their physical characteristics. Whatever warmth was attained was lost by the time the bat made it to home plate. Now, the ball, that's a different story.

NCAA and NFHS still say they cannot warm the bats, but not ASA.

[Andy]

I thought there was something recent about bat warming and/or heating, but couldn't quickly find anything in the book. Since I was not in my local area, I didn't want to make waves with the tournament UIC over this issue, I just followed his directive to not allow teams to warm or heat their bats.

[NCASAUmp]

Originally Posted by Andy

I thought there was something recent about bat warming and/or heating, but couldn't quickly find anything in the book. Since I was not in my local area, I didn't want to make waves with the tournament UIC over this issue, I just followed his directive to not allow teams to warm or heat their bats.

That directive was given before the tourney?

Ouch!

[Skahtboi]

Yet another reason to stay on top of rule changes...etc.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by NCASAUmp

That directive was given before the tourney?

Ouch!

A question was asked of a site UIC when a portable heater was observed near one team's bats, it was escalated to the tournament UIC, he issued the directive early in the tournament.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by Andy

A question was asked of a site UIC when a portable heater was observed near one team's bats, it was escalated to the tournament UIC, he issued the directive early in the tournament.

Wonder if s/he was ever corrected or bothered to look it up.