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Little League Pitch Limit Overage


KrazyRay
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Here's a situation that happened recently in 12u Little League. The HT ace pitcher reaches 87 pitches and pitches to another batter and retires the batter for the 3rd out to end the inning. The HT asks pitch count to the PU previous to reaching the max 85 and the PU asks the official score keeper from the HT and is given 82 pitches. The problem is that the VT has the official pitch count which is at 87 pitches. How do you move forward? It seems like the HT did the right thing by asking the PU, but the PU did not know that the VT has the official pitch count. Thanks

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Here's a situation that happened recently in 12u Little League. The HT ace pitcher reaches 87 pitches and pitches to another batter and retires the batter for the 3rd out to end the inning. The HT asks pitch count to the PU previous to reaching the max 85 and the PU asks the official score keeper from the HT and is given 82 pitches. The problem is that the VT has the official pitch count which is at 87 pitches. How do you move forward? It seems like the HT did the right thing by asking the PU, but the PU did not know that the VT has the official pitch count. Thanks

Home team is the official book. Both teams should have been checking pitch counts every inning so it did not come to this. Umpire is not in charge of pitch counts. Unless it was agreed upon before game started so the “books do not get cooked”, home team is official books.


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I find this a bit hard to believe, why you ask? well if the HT's ace is really an ace, the VT will be jumping up and down at the 85th pitch and be sure to clarify the count prior to the next batter.

I've been there many times as a coach, you watch that count like a hawk once it gets over 70-75, also typically, one would look to verify the count prior to the half inning.  So if the count is 5 apart, typically, without an official scorer (as with most league games) PU would likely split the difference and call the count 84-85, likely letting the ace pitch to the next batter.

agreed with JP /\ HTC's responsibility. 

 

 

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One of the biggest problems youth baseball has is that HT and VT scorekeepers do not sit together anymore. We even provide a table but nope. We have had a ton of problems with this over the years where VT cries batting out of order and HT book has different batting order or different pitch count etc. I announce home team is the official book at plate meetings now just so when it is an issue they have been warned.

I think these tournaments should charge a few more dollars and have a umpire do one book and track pitch count. They do this for basketball so why not 

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for LL tournaments that I've been involved with, the TDs usually keep a book as well and the teams have to compare pitch counts each half inning. 

 

for regular season, it's usually not that rigorous in my experience 

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26 minutes ago, KCKUMP said:

One of the biggest problems youth baseball has is that HT and VT scorekeepers do not sit together anymore. We even provide a table but nope. We have had a ton of problems with this over the years where VT cries batting out of order and HT book has different batting order or different pitch count etc. I announce home team is the official book at plate meetings now just so when it is an issue they have been warned.

I think these tournaments should charge a few more dollars and have a umpire do one book and track pitch count. They do this for basketball so why not 

I got to UIC a world series a number of years ago. I took my rookie (15-16 year old )Umpires and used them as scorekeepers. For 10 bucks a game and a tournament T-shirt, they got to sit in the shade, and watch a game. (They also got to watch more experienced Umpires work the game and answer questions afterward). 

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3 hours ago, KCKUMP said:

One of the biggest problems youth baseball has is that HT and VT scorekeepers do not sit together anymore. We even provide a table but nope. We have had a ton of problems with this over the years where VT cries batting out of order and HT book has different batting order or different pitch count etc. I announce home team is the official book at plate meetings now just so when it is an issue they have been warned.

I think these tournaments should charge a few more dollars and have a umpire do one book and track pitch count. They do this for basketball so why not 

Thankfully in our league, this is not the case. Both teams SC's sit directly behind the plate at the scorers table. Have had basically zero issues like what is described for many years....

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15 hours ago, MRG9999 said:


Home team is the official book. Both teams should have been checking pitch counts every inning so it did not come to this. Umpire is not in charge of pitch counts. Unless it was agreed upon before game started so the “books do not get cooked”, home team is official books.


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Official book is up to the league. There is no rule. The rest of what you said is good advice.

There IS a rule that an official pitch counter be in place.

 

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District 47 is very strict on managers, coaches, and players not talking to anyone off the field probably to be ready for tournament games.  The managers are NOT allowed to talk to the score keeper. All questions go through the PU. The 2 problems here is that the official pitch counter sat on the visiting side and the umpires did not know that the VT has the official pitch count in district 47. It should be a requirement to check counts and books every 1/2 inning.

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3 hours ago, Aging_Arbiter said:

Protest.  I've got enough to worry about on the field, I'm not keeping pitch count.

I've got enough trouble counting to four; you want me to count to 65?

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On 5/21/2018 at 11:44 AM, KCKUMP said:

I think these tournaments should charge a few more dollars and have a umpire do one book and track pitch count.

Nooooooooooope. If these tournaments are shelling out for another "umpire", then I'm grabbing that umpire, making sure he's in a matching shirt / uniform, and pressing him into service on the field. He/she is not going to be solely reserved or tasked with pitch counts and scorekeeping. If the TD wants to place a Field Marshal (FM) on each field, doing those two tasks, then they do so from behind the backstop – they have zero bearing on rulings and judgements within the fence / upon the field.

Thing is, @KCKUMP, it's not tournaments that are the angst of this ongoing argument; instead, it's Little League. Pitch counts are being kept so fervently not because the kids (might) have to pitch tomorrow (or later in a tournament). Instead, it's the game at present, because one team is getting overwhelmed by that one more mature / better pitcher, and the team getting thumped is hoping for a pitching change so their "kids have a chance". Parents aren't concerned about little Billy Wagner and the health of his arm; they want little Billy Wagner to be off the bump so their kids can finally put a bat on a ball. These are the same parents that whine and b!tch and cry foul when little Billy Wagner finishes 3-4 innings of dominance and then puts the catcher gear on, because their hopes of "having a chance" evaporate because that Wagner kid (I'm sure his birth certificate is forged) will throw out any would-be base stealers. 

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1 hour ago, Rich Ives said:

So no one else uses pitch counts?

No no, several tournament series do. I’ve called games for nearly every national tournament organization, and none of them require the umpire(s) to keep pitch counts. As far as I recall, USSSA directs us to keep record of innings pitched (with a pitch qualifying as a whole inning). In the other series, pitch counts are kept by a FM or ATD, or mutually by both teams.

In most cases, exceeding a pitch count limit doesn’t invalidate any plays or actions in the game at present. It simply disqualifies the pitcher from pitching in the next inning, game, or day. If – and this is rare – it is grounds for a harsher penalty, such as a forfeit, then it is the TD’s staff who imposes that, not the umpires.

With the thousands of games I’ve done, I’ve never seen a team actively pursue pitch count enforcement because they are simply overmatched by a pitcher, and adamantly want him off the bump... outside of Little League.

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39 minutes ago, MadMax said:

No no, several tournament series do. I’ve called games for nearly every national tournament organization, and none of them require the umpire(s) to keep pitch counts.  Neither does Little League.  If the local league you encountered did it's on them, not on Little League.

I’ve never seen a team actively pursue pitch count enforcement because they are simply overmatched by a pitcher, and adamantly want him off the bump... outside of Little League.  I find this very hard to believe.  No sane manager wants to let the other team keep their super pitcher in the game. 

.                           .

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Our little league is very adamant about keeping pitch counts, but the pressure is on the coaches. 

When I'm coaching, I know who is eligible to pitch, how many they threw each inning, # of visits, pitcher to catcher and catcher to pitcher counts, etc. I have a little notebook that I keep pitching stats in. I'll sometime check with the other teams scorekeeper to verify. I had a coach say one of their guys was eligible, when I checked with their scorekeeper, he was not. 1 pitch over means an extra day of rest. 

Our system allows us to see pitch counts for previous games, so I try to do my homework. It's the pitchers on the threshold that I verify with the scorekeeper. I use a counter in the dugout and we can talk to scorekeepers, so I verify my numbers. A couple coaches, keep their own scorebook in the dugout. It's easier than training a new scorekeeper for every season to keep the book the way you want them to. 

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2 hours ago, Rich Ives said:

I find this very hard to believe.  No sane manager wants to let the other team keep their super pitcher in the game. 

There's a difference between wanting a super pitcher out of the game, and actively adamantly pursuing league/tournament bureaucracy to ensure it gets done to the letter of the law, immediately.

My observed experience is very close to Madmax's - I would just change "never" to "very very rarely".

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23 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

There's a difference between wanting a super pitcher out of the game, and actively adamantly pursuing league/tournament bureaucracy to ensure it gets done to the letter of the law, immediately.

My observed experience is very close to Madmax's - I would just change "never" to "very very rarely".

In LL tournament rules protests have to be made and resolved immediately. As in before the next pitch. You can't wait. You wait - too bad - sorry Charlie..  That's why.

In the International Tournament  (LLWS) you can keep protesting up the ladder to TD, DA, Region, Williamsport. Nothing can continue until it's resolved.

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