What is an outfielder/infielder?

[Dakota]

What Mike was talking about was giving people the expectation / belief that the grass has any part in the rules at all, especially regarding infielders and outfielders. Can anyone here actually say they have never heard a coach complain "that can't be an infield fly... it was caught on the grass"? Local rules like the one quoted reinforce that fallicy (and were perhaps written by someone who believes that fallicy - or, in other words, by someone who is ignorant regarding the rules).

[NCASAUmp]

Originally Posted by Dakota

What Mike was talking about was giving people the expectation / belief that the grass has any part in the rules at all, especially regarding infielders and outfielders. Can anyone here actually say they have never heard a coach complain "that can't be an infield fly... it was caught on the grass"? Local rules like the one quoted reinforce that fallicy (and were perhaps written by someone who believes that fallicy - or, in other words, by someone who is ignorant regarding the rules).

Oh, I certainly understand that it perpetuates myths. And if the player rises through the ranks, s/he will hopefully have a decent enough coach that these myths will be short-lived.

Okay, I know that last part is a tall order, but you get what I'm saying.

[robbie]

Originally Posted by Dakota

What Mike was talking about was giving people the expectation / belief that the grass has any part in the rules at all, especially regarding infielders and outfielders. Can anyone here actually say they have never heard a coach complain "that can't be an infield fly... it was caught on the grass"? Local rules like the one quoted reinforce that fallicy (and were perhaps written by someone who believes that fallicy - or, in other words, by someone who is ignorant regarding the rules).

I agree "on the grass" means nothing. That would also depend on how deep the dirt cut is.

In our 8U town ball, our local rule states that outfielders must be at least 10ft beyond the bases until ball is contacted.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by Tru_in_Blu

I didn't write this league's bylaw, but I'd hardly refer to it as "ignorant".

If you take away the bad connotation of that word, I'd say it is the very definition of ignorant. Almost 100% of the time, when a league writes a rule, the writers are ignorant of rules (you won't find umpires involved in this), so they write a rule that sounds good, yet is either undefined in many ways, incompletely explained, or contradictory to itself. Yours, as described, is a worthless addendum. Saying Outfielders must play on the grass is ignorant, as if one should wander in too close, they aren't outfielders anymore. I understand their intent - but perhaps a better rule would be, "A team may have no more than 6 infielders at the time of the pitch, including pitcher and catcher". Infielder is already defined by ASA, so you would have less issues with this than what they've written.

[Steve M]

Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA

Teaching players the game and providing bad references are two different things. I have encountered coaches at a 16U national which lived on misinformation he received at the local level

I think I met one of them. He got worked up enough about his misinformation that he said he wanted to see you - and I allowed him to go right then.