Little League walk off walk or HBP

[beerguy55]

4 minutes ago, Jimurray said:

OBR uses "fails" and "refuses" in their rules. In the other cases of the use of "refuses" in the rules it seems obvious that a request was made by the umpire and was "refused" by the offender. Why would the OBR rule writers not use "fail" as opposed to "refuse" in the winning run rule?

"(c) If a manager leaves the field, he shall designate a player or
coach as his substitute, and such substitute manager shall have
the duties, rights and responsibilities of the manager. If the
manager fails or refuses to designate his substitute before leaving,
the umpire-in-chief shall designate a team member as substitute
manager.
(3) If the batter refuses to take his position in the batter’s box
during his time at bat, the umpire shall call a strike on the
batter. The ball is dead, and no runners may advance.
After the penalty, the batter may take his proper position
and the regular ball and strike count shall continue
7.03 Forfeited Games
(a) A game may be forfeited to the opposing team when a team:
(1) Fails to appear upon the field, or being upon the field,
refuses to start play within five minutes after the....
(3) Refuses to continue play during a game unless the game
has been suspended or terminated by the umpire-inchief;
(4) Fails to resume play, after a suspension, within one
minute after the umpire-in-chief has called “Play;”

Failure can occur without intent nor negligence, due to actions outside your control.  Refusal requires either intent, or negligence, and implies you were capable to complete the requirement.  And, within reason, knew you had that requirement.   The rules appear to differentiate, or acknowledge, where there is a choice, and where it doesn't matter if there is a choice. 

A batter is given a strike if he refuses to enter the box...but an umpire is not required to tell the batter to get in the box before calling a strike, or a second strike, or a third strike, for example....it may be a courtesy, and good game management, but to my knowledge it is not required....any more than he is required to tell a pitcher to pitch within 20 seconds with no runners on base.

A team can fail to appear on the field because their bus broke down...they're not refusing to show up on time, but the rules don't care - they failed to appear...if you're late, you're late.

A team can fail to resume play after a suspension if the entire team hasn't returned to the field in time, because some of the parents thought it was a good idea to run to McDonald's with half the players and got stuck in traffic...

A batter may refuse to enter the box when he has every opportunity to do so...or extenuating circumstances may result in a batter to fail to enter the box, but excuse him from having a strike called, because he was attacked by swarm of hornets.

[Aging_Arbiter]