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LL Rules Changes


mstaylor
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Fresh off the presses:

The exact wording of the Rules and Regulations noted will be provided in the coming weeks. It is expected that rule books will be available soon as well.

(Note: Unless noted otherwise, these changes apply to all divisions)

REGULATIONS

Regulation I © 8 - Note 1: Added a sentence stating that if a league elects to operate a Tee Ball baseball program only, it must use the league age determination date that is noted in the regulation. (Baseball only.)

Regulation IV (a) - Junior League: Added language making it clear that when a 12-year-old player is found to be ineligible under this regulation, that player and/or his/her team are subject to removal from the International Tournament by action of the Tournament Committee.

Regulation VI - Note 4: Added language making it clear that a resumed game or contest decided by forfeit does not constitute a "game" for the purpose of this regulation, unless one completed inning was played before the game ended or the game was forfeited.

Regulation XIV (e): Added language making it clear that alcohol is prohibited at the game site.

PLAYING RULES

Rule 1.10: Added language making it clear that any bat that has been altered must be removed from play.

Rule 1.11 (h): Added language making it acceptable for Junior, Senior and Big League players to wear metal spikes or cleats. (Added for softball only. This rule already applies to these divisions in baseball.)

Rule 1.11 (k): Added language making it clear that casts may not be worn by players and umpires during the game, and that persons wearing casts, including managers and coaches, must remain in the dugout during the game.

Rule 1.14: Standardized the limits on the size of fielders' gloves.

Rule 2.00 Definition of Pitch: Added language making it clear that a balk or illegal pitch, whether or not a pitch is actually delivered to a batter, counts as a pitch in determining the pitch count for that pitcher. (Baseball only.)

Rule 3.03 - No. 6: Added language making it clear defensive substitutions must be made while the team is on defense, and offensive substitutions must be made at the time the offensive player has her/his turn at bat or is on base. (Also added to Rule 3.03 for Big League.)

Rule 5.07, Minor League: Added language providing that the five-run rule may be suspended in the last half inning for either team, by option of the local league.

TOURNAMENT RULES AND GUIDELINES

Responsibility and Chain of Command: Added language making it clear that the Tournament Committee may impose penalties it deems appropriate, or may take action to correct a situation, regardless of the source of information.

Conditions of Tournament Play - Protests - C. Use of an ineligible player: Added language making it clear that any violation of Regulations may result in a team having an ineligible player.

SAFETY

Appendix A: Added Lightning Safety Guidelines.

Appendix D: Added Bat Modifications and Alterations Policy.

NOTES

Various Regulations, Regular Season Rules, and Tournament Rules: The deadline for submitting forms that deal with Tournament Eligibility - i.e., regular season player roster forms, Regulation II (d) and Regulation IV (h) forms, waiver requests, chartering, fee payments, combined teams and interleague play forms, etc. - is June 8, 2010.

Adults and Minors in Positions of Authority: Changes were made to Rule 2.00, Rule 4.1, Rule 9.01, Rule 9.03, Rule 9.04, and the Tournament Rules and Guidelines, making it clear that Minors may serve as coach or umpire under specific and limited circumstances as noted in each rule. (Summary: A coach who is 16 or 17 may only serve as a coach if the adult manager and another adult coach are appointed. A person who is not an adult may serve in a game as an umpire, including as plate umpire, provided one or more other adults are also umpires for that game. However, that non-adult umpire cannot be designated as umpire-in-chief for that game. The umpire-in-chief is not required to be the plate umpire.)

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A person who is not an adult may serve in a game as an umpire, including as plate umpire, provided one or more other adults are also umpires for that game. However, that non-adult umpire cannot be designated as umpire-in-chief for that game. The umpire-in-chief is not required to be the plate umpire.)

Hopefully there will be exemptions for "non-adult" umpires capable of performing at an "adult" umpire's level :WTF. This is a step in the wrong direction for the whole junior umpire program in Little League.

This just makes everything harder for junior umpires. I am 15 and perfectly capable of handling the UIC position.

I am just not quite sure where this came from. I don't have to much to say becuase I am very disappionted in Little League Baseball...:confused:

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Hopefully there will be exemptions for "non-adult" umpires capable of performing at an "adult" umpire's level :WTF. This is a step in the wrong direction for the whole junior umpire program in Little League.

This just makes everything harder for junior umpires. I am 15 and perfectly capable of handling the UIC position.

I am just not quite sure where this came from. I don't have to much to say becuase I am very disappionted in Little League Baseball...:confused:

it came from the fact that LL feels that too many youth umpires get abused by adult coaches.....this regulation that an adult be in the mix they feel will keep that from happening.....

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Little League International Statement: Children as Managers, Coaches and Umpires

Steve Barr, Director of Media Relations

Some leagues that have requested to use child umpires, managers or coaches, in order to develop them as volunteers, and to augment the volunteer base at the local league.

It has always been the policy of Little League that managers, coaches and umpires should be adults, because it is unwise to put children in charge of other children in a competitive activity such as baseball and softball. The reasons for that policy should be obvious to anyone.

A person designated as a manager, coach or umpire is, in fact, acting as a parent of sorts on a baseball or softball field. In that capacity, the manager, coach or umpire has certain leadership as well as legal responsibilities for the safety and well-being of the children in his/her care.

Placing a child in charge of other children in that capacity, without the benefit of an adult present and in the same capacity, is grossly unfair to the child, and to the children and adults they are supervising. Also, it places the adults – who would allow such a situation to occur – in a potentially dangerous position legally.

With respect to allowing only children to umpire a game, it means they are responsible, by rule, for maintaining the discipline of the adult managers and coaches. Regardless of a league’s opinion of its current adult managers and coaches, anyone can see that such a situation also is grossly unfair to the child umpires in such a game.

Little League International has developed new rules allowing child coaches (age 16 or 17 only), provided an adult manager is present at the game or other activity, and provided another adult coach is on the roster.

We also have developed new rules for 2010 that provide for a child umpire (of any age), but only if an adult umpire is present on the field for that game, in the capacity of umpire-in-chief.

These changes in the rules still permit the development of children as volunteers, but require adult support for the obvious reasons noted above.

Also, while the umpire-in-chief is usually the home plate umpire, we are allowing the designated umpire-in-chief to be a base umpire, if the league wishes to do so. That would allow a child to be the plate umpire in a game, provided an adult who is a base umpire is designated as the umpire-in-chief for that game.

These new rules allow children to gain the experience of being a volunteer coach or umpire, while not putting those children or the children in their care, in legal danger.

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Frenchblue:

You have to remember you have the advantage of having attended a JUTS program. The majority of U18 umpires do not have that background. Not many adults have the amount of training you have. Unfortunately I fear it will make the youth umpire less respected instead of being protected.

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Frenchblue:

You have to remember you have the advantage of having attended a JUTS program. The majority of U18 umpires do not have that background. Not many adults have the amount of training you have. Unfortunately I fear it will make the youth umpire less respected instead of being protected.

MST, all of what you said is true. Like I said, hopefully there can be exemptions and waivers passed that allow a certain number of qualified junior umpires to handle the postion of UIC.

There is a distict in Nevada that has only two adult umpires. All of the other games are worked by junior umpires alone or with another junior umpire. This new rule now makes it very difficult for that district to work and cover all the games that need to be covered....

Of course, when you sit down and think about it, the "UIC" position is IMHO, just merely a figurehead. But, at the same time, junior umpires all over LL now have a much tougher time gaining respect from coaches, parents, and anyone else at the game.

And we have decided to change JUTS to JUTA (Junior Umpire Training Acadamy) because it is modeled directly after Jim Evan's Acadamy. :confused:

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Like I said, hopefully there can be exemptions and waivers passed that allow a certain number of qualified junior umpires to handle the postion of UIC.

I have 10 guys in my league that have gone through JUTS, and everyone of them can handle a game without an adult babysitter. This new mandate is an insult to you guys, and brought on by fear of more lawsuits by Williamsport.

Rumor is that a Junior Umpire made a decision on the field conditions, let a game either start or continue, and someone got hurt. So now WP wants to "protect" the "children" umpires from litigation. It's all about liability, and I doubt WP will back down from it.

Frenchy, here's what I need you to do. Get your local league to apply for waiver ASAP. We all need to send word to our Regional that this is no right. Email Jim Gerstenslager, and his staff www.eteamz.com/llbwest/board/, and make your voice heard. Tell them about your training, experience, and how you don't need adult supervision on a game.

I have worked too hard, as a local UIC, to see this huge step backwards like this. One of my goals is get my Junior Umpires working by themselves. My programs is all about giving guys like you the responsibility to handle working alone, making decisions, and not needing our direct supervision. We can't let WP roll over you guys like this, without a fight.

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I agree completely. If they want to do something for junior umppires, and all LL umpires, is look at penalties for coaches acting improperly. I don't think we really need more rules but we certainly need the local leagues to step up and take care of bad behavior.

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I agree completely. If they want to do something for junior umpires, and all LL umpires, is look at penalties for coaches acting improperly. I don't think we really need more rules but we certainly need the local leagues to step up and take care of bad behavior.

Naw. The locals have all the power they need to put the hammer on any coach. My local banned a guy from the property this season for bad conduct toward a Junior umpire. No, there's plenty of power at the local level, you just need adults, with a pair, to deal it out. Luckily, I work in such a league.

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Full Disclosure Notice: we don’t have LL here, and I’ve got no dog in this hunt.

However, I’ve been reading the responses from everybody on this and other Boards. And this is what occurs to me:

When an Organization confronts a problem, it’s very easy for them to snap to a knee-jerk response to make the problem “go away.” In the case of Youth Baseball, it’s usually in the form of a rule change. From what I can see, this is what happened at WP. Something happened somewhere, and they decided to “fix the problem” for everybody. But now they’re stuck with all the Unintended Consequences of the Rule. They’re trying to use one wrench to fit all bolts, and it just doesn’t work that way. You’ve got Leagues who need this rule (because they let the coaches run amuck over the kids), Leagues who don’t need this rule, (because they both train and back up their kids), and everybody in between.

So now you’ve got all these local leagues scratching their collective heads, and trying to figure out how to fit this rule into their program, and WP has to figure out how (or even whether or not) to enforce it. Some groups will apply for a waiver- essentially adding the phrase “unless you don’t want to” to the rule, and wasting everybody’s time. Some will try and make it work, even if it hurts their program. We scheduled kids (under 18) to work over 1200 games this Spring, and I can’t tell you where I’d get the adults to work them: they’ve got their own games to work. And some organizations will simply ignore the rule, dumping the question of Enforcement into WP’s lap. Lots of luck with that…

Look, IMHO, WP really hasn’t solved anything by making this rule. If they were just trying to cover their Corporate Asses by putting this rule in, it may well turn out to be counter-productive: leagues will work around it, or just say (as we did 10 years ago) “screw it, let’s play something else.

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Naw. The locals have all the power they need to put the hammer on any coach. My local banned a guy from the property this season for bad conduct toward a Junior umpire. No, there's plenty of power at the local level, you just need adults, with a pair, to deal it out. Luckily, I work in such a league.

I agree completely, if local BODs took care of business this wouldn't be a issue. I mearly meant if they wanted to try and fix a couple of leagues they could look at that. I feel there are enough rules in place to handle the situation. You are preaching to the choir.:fuel:

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Rule 2.00 Definition of Pitch: Added language making it clear that a balk or illegal pitch, whether or not a pitch is actually delivered to a batter, counts as a pitch in determining the pitch count for that pitcher. (Baseball only.)

That's funny. I had a post on here back in the summer where I was doing a Majors allstar game and had an illegal pitch and the pitcher did not deliver the ball. I said it didn't count but was over ruled ( actually just took his word ) by a senior umpire. I believe it was his last pitch and he had to come out.

Anyway, I posted it on here and the majority response I recieved was that a pitch is a ball delivered to the batter by the pitcher and that since there was no delivery there was no pitch. I also e-mailed the UIC. for my region and he gave me the exact same answer. Now they came out with this.

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I have 10 guys in my league that have gone through JUTS, and everyone of them can handle a game without an adult babysitter. This new mandate is an insult to you guys, and brought on by fear of more lawsuits by Williamsport.

Rumor is that a Junior Umpire made a decision on the field conditions, let a game either start or continue, and someone got hurt. So now WP wants to "protect" the "children" umpires from litigation. It's all about liability, and I doubt WP will back down from it.

Frenchy, here's what I need you to do. Get your local league to apply for waiver ASAP. We all need to send word to our Regional that this is no right. Email Jim Gerstenslager, and his staff www.eteamz.com/llbwest/board/, and make your voice heard. Tell them about your training, experience, and how you don't need adult supervision on a game.

I have worked too hard, as a local UIC, to see this huge step backwards like this. One of my goals is get my Junior Umpires working by themselves. My programs is all about giving guys like you the responsibility to handle working alone, making decisions, and not needing our direct supervision. We can't let WP roll over you guys like this, without a fight.

I actually sent out the waiver request to my local leaguespresident as soon as I heard about the change. I also copied my district UIC and district administrator, both of whom support the whole Junior Umpire program.

My District UIC assured me that this new rule will not affect the highly trained and qualified junior umpires. Definently good news. He is going up to talk with Dugout (Bill Carter) this weekend and possibly Gerstenslager if he is there.

Kyle, are you up on WRLL Umpires on Yahoo?

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I actually sent out the waiver request to my local leaguespresident as soon as I heard about the change. I also copied my district UIC and district administrator, both of whom support the whole Junior Umpire program.

My District UIC assured me that this new rule will not affect the highly trained and qualified junior umpires. Definently good news. He is going up to talk with Dugout (Bill Carter) this weekend and possibly Gerstenslager if he is there.

Kyle, are you up on WRLL Umpires on Yahoo?

I've been on the group for some time now.

I've traded emails with Gerstenslager for the past week or so. He's not budging on the requirement on having an adult on every field with a non-adult umpire. Carter has been cc'ed on our conversations.

Here is his last reply:

"I am aware of the great job you guys are doing but this decision was based on liability rather than the abilities of young umpires. As you state and I would agree, I too would pit many of the younger umpires I see against the 18 year old and over crowd but in the current aggressive society we have today and given the win at all cost attitude of many manager and coaches, we just can’t run the risk of placing youngsters in this kind of environment and expect them to deal with adult problems. "

But if your DUIC can swing something, I'm all ears. Maybe he knows something that nobody else does.

Edited by kylejt
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  • 2 weeks later...

More LL changes:

http://www.littleleague.org/Assets/forms_pubs/media/PitchingRegulationChanges_BB_11-13-09.pdf

http://www.littleleague.org/Assets/forms_pubs/media/TournPitchingRuleChanges_BB_11-13-09.pdf

I received a call the other day asking if the pitcher not being able to return to the mound applies to all levels. I read it to be 60ft only. The rule change is 13 and up to be once a game instead of once an inning. Am I missing something?

Edited by mstaylor
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I received a call the other day asking if the pitcher not being able to return to the mound applies to all levels. I read it to be 60ft only. The rule change is 13 and up to be once a game instead of once an inning. Am I missing something?

You are correct. This part of the rule has not changed and reads pretty much the same as last year's. We will have to wait until they ship the 2009 books to see if 3.03 has changed the once per inning rule at the LL level.

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The guy that called was told he would no longer be able to move his pitcher on and off the mound and tat once removed he was done as a pitcher. He told them that he was calling me to find out the real ruling. :wow:

As far as I know it's still the same as before. For Junior & up only they can return to pitch when moved to another position once per game. And for majors and below once removed they're done.

So, I don't know what that once an inning stuff was about. I don't think that was ever the case. At least that's what my 2009 rulebook says and these rule change PDFs seem to say the same.

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As far as I know it's still the same as before. For Junior & up only they can return to pitch when moved to another position once per game. And for majors and below once removed they're done.

So, I don't know what that once an inning stuff was about. I don't think that was ever the case. At least that's what my 2009 rulebook says and these rule change PDFs seem to say the same.

The once an inning was for softball and applied to all levels. As far as I know, the only pitching rule changes were for baseball, so this should still be the same.

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  • 2 months later...

For anybody interested in a rules index for LL here the link. http://www.llumpires.com/rules/index.html

Kevin is a longtime LL umpire that has recently moved from FL to NJ. He has no problems with anybody copying the index, that's why he does it, but if it is posted to another site or is attached to a website he wants to link to him instead of just posting the text.

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