Sitting on a Bucket-

[ErichKeane]

So story from a few weeks ago I was reminded about, so figured i'd share:)

 

OBR rules tourney (with some various modifications that are unimportant).  UIC/TDs have no problem with the coaches at the door on the bucket, so we allow it. I've never seen it come into play, every time it hits the bucket, it was going to go into the dugout anyway... until:

Weird shaped dugouts, they have only 1 entrance onto the field on the 'home plate' side, and are cut into the field.  You can see them here :

)

 

There are now roofs on the dugouts, but the only opening is the home-side.  There is also a concrete 'lip' now thanks to the dirt getting lower over time.

 

 

As I've said, I've never seen the bucket matter before, but did 2x in 1 game:

Top of ~2nd inning,  VT in the 3rd base dugout, 1st and 2nd.  Batter hits a ball to RF, RF sees R2 going around 3rd, and fires home.  AND hits the VT's coach's bucket and goes into the dugout.  I kill it, and leave the bases loaded.  Coach comes out and asks why there are no base awards, I explain that it hit the bucket, so its a dead ball, and I can't give him benefit for his bucket causing the problem.  He says 'well, it would have gone in the dugout anyway!', and I said that I don't really judge it that way, the concrete lip and the angle it came in makes that impossible to judge, so I just killed it.  He relents, and goes back onto his bucket.

BOTTOM of the same inning.  R2, grounder to F5 who throws it over the 1B head.  R2 is stopping at 3rd, but F3 gets a little excited and fires home.... and bonks right off the same bucket (though was clearly not going into the dugout).  I call time, award two bases to everyone.  Coach says from the dugout (not really a yell, since its like 15 feet, but loud enough I can hear):  "Award because it is my bucket?"  Me: "Yep".  Him: "Urgh.... *yells* Sorry guys, that one is on me!" and moves his bucket into the dugout with his head held in shame.

He came up to me after the game and said he'd never even heard of it happening before, and had discussed it with UIC during the game, and was amazed I 'got it right' despite being such an obscure rule.  I responded, "thats why they pay us the little bucks!", and he chuckled, said "see you later, have a good one!" and walked away. 

 

[SeeingEyeDog]

It's good to see there is still a coach out there who perhaps doesn't fully know the rule but, accepts the umpire's ruling even when it went against his team...

~Dawg

[ErichKeane]

40 minutes ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

It's good to see there is still a coach out there who perhaps doesn't fully know the rule but, accepts the umpire's ruling even when it went against his team...

~Dawg

Thats actually about 1/2 of why I posted it It was the one time I've had a coach come out, admit he didn't know the rule/understand the rule, and take blame for his actions.  Perhaps this is just 'the bar is how low?', but it impressed me at the time.

[eddieq]

It is a shame that stories like that are out of the norm.  I posted my own about someone coming over to the fence to tell me I got it right "after they looked it up".

I will say that this year has been, for me, low drama with the teams I'm seeing.  I'm a softball guy and have been doing a lot of community 10/12/15 fast pitch.  You see it all for sure.

Good job on pregaming an oddball thing and handling it well.

[ArchAngel72]

So umm which field is it?  All I see is softball fields..

 

[ErichKeane]

6 minutes ago, ArchAngel72 said:

So umm which field is it?  All I see is softball fields..

 

Yep 😕  We end up having a lot of our games on softball fields, particularly when it isn't 90 foot bases.  I hate the porta-mounds this results in. 

[ArchAngel72]

7 minutes ago, ErichKeane said:

Yep 😕  We end up having a lot of our games on softball fields, particularly when it isn't 90 foot bases.  I hate the porta-mounds this results in. 

 

Dang sorry man..

I had one field we split time with softball.  All the rest I do and do now are all baseball fields..

 

But trust me I talk to coaches constantly about staying IN the dugout as well as their buckets 

 

[The Man in Blue]

11 hours ago, ArchAngel72 said:

 

Dang sorry man..

I had one field we split time with softball.  All the rest I do and do now are all baseball fields..

 

But trust me I talk to coaches constantly about staying IN the dugout as well as their buckets 

 

 

You make them stay in the bucket?!

[SeeingEyeDog]

12 hours ago, ErichKeane said:

Yep 😕  We end up having a lot of our games on softball fields, particularly when it isn't 90 foot bases.  I hate the porta-mounds this results in. 

Agreed...I work a few turf fields with porta-mounds and the worst part about them is, all the ones I have seen have a terrible lip that frequently results in very un-baseball bounces (of course, both teams are playing on the same field so, not an advantage or disadvantage...) and in two cases, significant injuries to the pitchers. One of them to the teeth...

~Dawg

[ErichKeane]

10 minutes ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

Agreed...I work a few turf fields with porta-mounds and the worst part about them is, all the ones I have seen have a terrible lip that frequently results in very un-baseball bounces (of course, both teams are playing on the same field so, not an advantage or disadvantage...) and in two cases, significant injuries to the pitchers. One of them to the teeth...

~Dawg

The WORST part of porta-mounds is when they are either quickly sloped down the edge, or worse, just a wedge.  Even in leadoff leagues we're using wedges when that is all that is available, so a pickoff either has barely ANY step, or falls off the side.  My partners and I usually decide that the 'step to the base' rule all-but disappears because of it, and turns into 'steps not to a different base'.

Also, I cringe every time a player has to come off of one of those mounds to the side.