FED Rulebook Change

[kylehutson]

16 minutes ago, Thunderheads said:

Of course, the coach knew the rules, obviously!

He, naturally, lobbied for it. But considering how soon he dropped it, I'm sure he knew and was just was hoping I didn't.

[834k3r]

2 hours ago, Thunderheads said:

Yeah, maybe one too many .9's, but .....you get my drift.  I've been calling HS rulebook games since 2010, and I've never had a pitch delivered.

I had one last year. Summer travel ball 13U using OBR. I'm in C, call the balk. Pitcher delivers, and looks at me after delivering the pitch. Ball is hit back up the middle and hits the pitcher square in the ribs.

[lawump]

On 9/17/2023 at 10:42 AM, MadMax said:

Curious. You (Fed) accommodate multi-level umpires to change how a Balk is called… 🤔 

… but still don’t trust them enough to implement the penalty of a (Live) Balk (ie. OBR & NCAA). 

The NFHS Executive Committee (which has to approve all rule changes proposed by any sport's rules committee) doesn't really care about umpire mechanics.  (I don't mean that as a negative towards them.)  They just want them to be professional and universal.  

As a member of the umpire mechanics sub-committee in 2015 (which was comprised solely of the rules committee members who were also umpires)...the mechanic was changed by umpires for umpires to acknowledge the fact that NFHS is the only rulebook that makes a balk an immediate dead ball.  We (the sub-committee) recognized that most umpires work non-NFHS games, and these umpires were not going to change their mechanic to match FED's "unique" balk rule.  While we had to go back to the full rules committee and receive its official blessing to our proposed mechanic changes...the non-umpires on the committee were absolutely deferring to us on mechanics.  

The NFHS Executive Committee has made it very clear (twice, in fact) that they do not want the balk rule to change.  [You can go to the NFHS website and look up the Executive Committee and see who comprises that committee should you desire.]    At this point, it is so crystal clear that the Executive Committee is not going to allow the balk rule to change that I would place the odds of the NFHS balk rule ever being changed during my umpiring career at close to zero.  (And I haven't hit 50-years old, yet.  Getting close, though. LOL)

[The Man in Blue]

SO ... this "big change" y'all are talking about was the difference between calling "TIME!" and not calling "TIME!"?

All you need is one word: BALK!  By rule (in NFHS) a balk creates a dead ball.  No need to say anything else.

I know it is semantics, but I still contend there is a distinction between a dead ball and a need to call "time."  Calling "time" indicates the umpire is stopping live play for some reason.  A dead ball indicates the ball is the cause of stoppage.  You don't call "TIME!  FOUL BALL!"  

I get it that there is this attitude of mental stoppage that precludes baseball umpires from saying "dead ball" but it is stupid.  

 

[Jimurray]

9 hours ago, lawump said:

 

The NFHS Executive Committee has made it very clear (twice, in fact) that they do not want the balk rule to change.  [You can go to the NFHS website and look up the Executive Committee and see who comprises that committee should you desire.]  

That seems to be clear. What is not clear is the reason. My assumption and I would painfully agree with them is that too large a number of the NFHS umpire cohort does not have the reading comprehension or the motivation to challenge their comprehension of OBR rule and MLBUM interp of when to call time for that rule. What happened with preseason survey advocating coach choice to make a live ball balk simpler. I reluctantly voted to change to live ball coach choice on that survey, It was a step further even though I would have liked to think my cohorts could enforce the OBR rule but evidence has proven my thought in error.

[kylehutson]

On 9/14/2023 at 2:11 PM, kylehutson said:

I agree wholeheartedly with this. But...

AllAccess ain't it. I have it for volleyball rules and it sucks.

It's not an app, it's a website that uses what looks like(?) an embedded PDF viewer. Except the PDF viewer they use doesn't work on my phone screen because my phone screen is too small (note: my phone is not small). The DRM they use prevents me from copying to the clipboard. Just yesterday, I was trying to forward a rule reference and had to re-type it, despite being able to see it on my screen.

Searching - yes, it works for that, as long as you're on a desktop computer

Mobile - nope

Reading - It's slow and clunky. Possible, yes. Convenient, no.

An improvement over the "NFHS Rules" app - not even close.

I hope it gets better.

OK, I need to put in a partial retraction...

AllAccess is a site and an app. The site is useless on a mobile device. The app makes it at least usable. And from the app, I could, indeed copy-and-paste.

Is it now the greatest thing ever? Far from it. Is it at least functional? Yes