Fastpitch question

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by Manny A

That was one of those things I noticed when I began umpiring softball here five or six years ago. I started my umpiring career in LL Baseball, and they preached to us that we HAD to put the ball in play after every dead ball situation. That's probably because everyone had to understand exactly when the ball was made live again so that pitchers could make pickoff attempts of runners, defense could make appeals, etc.

But when I started doing softball, my clinic instructors never put any emphasis on that requirement. And my seasoned veteran partners would never actively put the ball in play. Basically, when the PU put the mask on and got behind the catcher, everyone understood that the ball was live.

With no leadoffs, you've eliminated 99% of the cases where this matters.

For the other 1%, usually it's rather obvious. A ball goes out of play, someone misses a base and the defense sees it - the whole team is screaming for the appeal, and pitcher wants the ball. In THAT scenario, I will say play so they can make their appeal.

(And 1% is probably a high guestimate --- if this happens once a year, I'm surprised).