Legion, designated runner anyone?

[SeeingEyeDog]

Greetings brothers,

     [RANT ON] I would like to call a moratorium on the phrase, "We play pro rules." followed by your league's modifications. I haven't umpired every league out there but, I have yet to see a league "playing by pro rules" with no modifications other than...you know, MLB. [RANT OFF]

     Which brings me to my question...I occasionally get slotted for Legion games in my market. I don't work any of their tournaments nor do I aspire to. I work maybe a half dozen of their games annually. Last night, we discussed my local market's Legion mods to pro rules at the plate meeting. They use the NCAA FPSR, old pro mound visits, no new inning after 2.5 hours and a 10 after 5 mercy rule. This game went 11 innings. As I was driving home, I started kicking myself that we did not use the designated runner rule beginning in the 10th. Is that a Legion rule or is their modification like with no pitch clock and unlimited disengagements that they don't use the designated runner rule to start each half of each extra inning?

~Dawg

[The Man in Blue]

Designated runner?  I'm assuming you are referring to the runner starting the inning at second base?

(I've always heard it as "tie-breaker" or "international tie-breaker" -- thought nobody ever figured out what made it international.)

As for your opening rant about MLB not playing with modifications . . . are you sure about that?  The pitch clock rules were not in the book when they started using them.  The Scherzer Rule really was just a "Sure, here's a rule" reaction. 

[MadMax]

1 hour ago, The Man in Blue said:

though nobody ever figured out what made it international.

A constructed / arranged tiebreaker is foreign to baseball (as a concept). Thus, "foreign" ≈ "international". 

3 hours ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

designated runner rule

Ehhh... we can't really use the term "designated runner". In both bat sports that use "designated" (baseball - designated hitter; softball - designated player), that designation has to be made and determined at the plate meeting, ie. on the exchange of lineups. We could say "placed runner", and indeed, as much as I don't like it, some baseball pundits have called it "ghost runner", but that "designated" status implies that it was determined. In an extra innings rule like this, the player (or his substitute, or courtesy runner if his position qualifies for it, per rule set) in the lineup immediately before the player (now) at bat is placed at 2B. This Runner could be any of the 9 in the lineup (again, or his substitute, or his courtesy if he gets one), and will certainly change inning-to-extra-inning. 

3 hours ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

They use the NCAA FPSR

Oh joy. Does that ever open ol' Pandora's box of wriggly things! 

Well, if American Legion uses the NCAA FPSR, and NFHS is using something approximating NCAA's FPSR, then why the hell do we still have amateur umpires so... so... stubbornly refusing to call it???!! 🤨

[Velho]

27 minutes ago, MadMax said:

some baseball pundits have called it "ghost runner",

Whomever called it that either had 7+ siblings/cousins living under the same roof or [shudder] only played organized sports. They obviously never played game 7 of the World Series in the driveway with a total of 3 people.

[834k3r]

5 hours ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

Greetings brothers,

     [RANT ON] I would like to call a moratorium on the phrase, "We play pro rules." followed by your league's modifications. I haven't umpired every league out there but, I have yet to see a league "playing by pro rules" with no modifications other than...you know, MLB. [RANT OFF]

     Which brings me to my question...I occasionally get slotted for Legion games in my market. I don't work any of their tournaments nor do I aspire to. I work maybe a half dozen of their games annually. Last night, we discussed my local market's Legion mods to pro rules at the plate meeting. They use the NCAA FPSR, old pro mound visits, no new inning after 2.5 hours and a 10 after 5 mercy rule. This game went 11 innings. As I was driving home, I started kicking myself that we did not use the designated runner rule beginning in the 10th. Is that a Legion rule or is their modification like with no pitch clock and unlimited disengagements that they don't use the designated runner rule to start each half of each extra inning?

~Dawg

The 10 after 5 is codified for Legion (Senior Rules, page 15; Junior Rules, page 16).

The extra runner (ghost runner) in extra innings is not codified by the National ruleset.

Up here, I have Legion games playing in two different states' Legion leagues. One uses an Extra Hitter (in addition to a DH) in Juniors, but not in Senior; the other doesn't use an EH at all.

Why can't they all be standarized?!?

[SeeingEyeDog]

Ok then...like a long, high, fly, uncaught, foul ball with less than two strikes is often referred to as a "long strike"...I'm going to interpret that absent something contrary at the plate meeting (which I will specifically ask about next time...) Legion does NOT endorse the use of an automatic runner at 2B in extra innings.

~Dawg

[johnnyg08]

17 hours ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

Greetings brothers,

     [RANT ON] I would like to call a moratorium on the phrase, "We play pro rules."

This might be one of my biggest pet peeves of legion baseball. Nobody knows what rules we're playing. (Even when they tell me, they don't know what they're telling me) 

And I think the straight legion rule set is obsolete.