Out of play boundary line

[Justin]

Is an "out of play" line required under FED rules? My association works at a lot of fields where we play "see 4/all you can get" on catches and have a boundary line for overthrows. Never had an issue with this until Wednesday night, where a coach argued that a defined line is required under FED rules.

Keeping the specifics intentionally vague for now - I'd like to see where the general conversation goes first.

[Replacematt]

You mean you play some parts of the field live for batted balls and dead for thrown balls? Not allowable. There is dead-ball territory and live-ball territory, and that must be defined (if not physically, by ground rule.)

[maven]

A "defined line" is not required, since the outfield (fair territory) can extend indefinitely.

Where there is a "defined line," say, parallel to the foul lines, it doesn't have to be more than an "imaginary line" (doesn't have to be drawn on the field). It is better, and easier to officiate, and produces fewer arguments, if there's an actual line, but it's not required by rule.

In general, since different schools have such different resources (in general and for baseball), FED is pretty loose about restricting the field.