Two very poorly thought out local league rules

[beerguy55]

16 hours ago, LouisB said:

Horrible example.  What OBR rule does that over-ride?  That's a ground rule.

Ground Rule, Local Rule - same same.  I hear the same argument every time.  Whether it's a rule specific to a ball park, or a region, or a league, the ongoing rebuke is they can't override the rulebook, blah blah blah.   It's a blind platitude and I'd venture to guess 90% of the people who say this don't even realize what they're claiming.

There are many leagues that have local rules where the batter is out when they throw the bat.  That is an example of a common practice league/tourney rule that overrides the rule book.  It's their prerogative, no matter how much you disagree with it.  There are local rules where certain ages don't have outfielders.  Where there's no U3K.  Or no IFF.  Or limits to the number of HR's a team can hit (and varying penalties for doing so).  Regions, leagues, tournaments do this all the time.

They effectively create their own rule book.  And if that's the case, the statement has no meaning.

As far as a ground rule that overrides OBR...

The OBR rule

5.09(a)(1)

A batter is out when: (1)  His fair or foul fly ball (other than a foul tip) is legally caught by a fielder; A catch is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it

The OBR Definitions:

A CATCH is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it;

IN FLIGHT describes a batted, thrown, or pitched ball which has not yet touched the ground or some object other than a fielder

 

Tropicana Field Ground Rule:

Batted ball that strikes either of the upper catwalks (known as the 'A-Ring' and the 'B-Ring'), including the masts that support each of those catwalks as well as any angled support rods that connect the 'B-Ring' to the masts that support the 'C-Ring' in fair territory: In Play. If caught by fielder, batter is out and runners advance at own risk.

 

16 hours ago, LouisB said:

That doesn't change the fact that the umpire is the only person allowed to suspend play due to the weather/field conditions.

That's fine - I'm not disputing the existence of said rule...I'm disputing your position that any local rule modifying that was written by a fool - that is unreasonable and without merit.

So, no, I'm not going to get into a pissing match because the umpire doesn't believe me when I say there's lightning.  I support the notion that a coach can make this call too and have that authority...specifically to lightning...or tornados...or baseball-sized hail, etc.  You know, SH*# that can kill you.  Whether it's an ego-centric/stubborn umpire...or, frankly, in a situation where you have a 14-year-old ump, who may or may not have seen the lightning, or may not be fully confident to make this call, I'd rather the adults be able to make that kind of decision and take culpability.   

Likewise, I'm thrilled if that 14-year-old ump suspends the game over an ego-centric coach.

[MadMax]

23 hours ago, LouisB said:

That doesn't change the fact that the umpire is the only person allowed to suspend play due to the weather/field conditions.

And I will reiterate – that should never be the burden of a sub-18 yr old umpire. Yes, we have an umpire shortage; yes, we need more umpires; yes, we need to develop umpires under the age of 18. I am not invoking that umpires should have less responsibility or authority. I am simply stating, that if-and-when using sub-18 yr old umpires, then an adult, whether that be an umpire on an adjacent field, or a UIC out-of-uniform, or the field custodian, or a member of the league – who is not a coach of the game underway – has to be the one to suspend/end play. 

This ain't college baseball, and this ain't professional baseball. 

23 hours ago, LouisB said:

It's a moot point around here because every LL park/field has lightning detectors installed on them.  Alarm goes off clear the fields until the all clear sounds.

Brilliant. Bravo for Florida. 

[The Man in Blue]

@Slippery Fish is correct about the BU being in better "position" to make the call on that out-of-the-box call.  You know how I know that?

I know that because the Cal Ripken league in question apparently adopted an NCAA Softball rule.

[beerguy55]

17 hours ago, MadMax said:

I am simply stating, that if-and-when using sub-18 yr old umpires, then an adult, whether that be an umpire on an adjacent field, or a UIC out-of-uniform, or the field custodian, or a member of the league – who is not a coach of the game underway – has to be the one to suspend/end play. 

I'll simply add...we have to be able to trust the coaches/managers in these scenarios too - even if it's as a last resort.  I'm not sure where you always/mostly ump, or under what settings/facilities, but I have coached dozens upon dozens of games where there is no one else there...you have the two teams, their fans/parents, and one or two umpires.  That's it.  I suppose in some cases you could resort to a phone call/text message, but that might not always be practical, or timely. 

As I said previously, I won't think twice about making the call myself and dealing with any consequences later.  It'd be nice if I didn't have to go into a full inquiry to explain myself, simply because I took the burden of responsibility from the teenager. 

[LouisB]

I agree that a youth umpire should not be making that decision which is why I like the LL Requirement of an Adult Game Coordinator for games where there are no adult umpires.  Maybe other leagues/organizations should consider something similar.

Another important job of the GC is to ensure the Adult Managers don't "bully" the youth umpires (not that that would ever happen).

[BrainFreeze]

My grandson played in a tournament where there was lightning in the distance.  The youth umpires saw the lightning and wanted to stop play.

The "adult" coordinating the games said, "Keep going, it's too far away."

This wasn't Texas, and it wasn't heat lightning, it was lightning from an active weather system.  In other words, the exact type of lightning that is supposed to cause a suspension of play. 

Best part... the tournament was a memorial tournament honoring a LL umpire who dedicated 40 years of volunteer work to the local league and who also would have suspended all the games on all the fields at the first flash of lightning.

 

[BrainFreeze]

On 4/16/2025 at 10:51 AM, LouisB said:

I agree that a youth umpire should not be making that decision...
 

Honestly?  I would prefer that the youth umpires receive the proper training and empowerment to make that decision.  It's a good thing when young umpires understand that they're in control of the game without interference from non-umpires.

Another important job of the GC is to ensure the Adult Managers don't "bully" the youth umpires (not that that would ever happen).

Which lines up very well with my first point.  Games improve substantially when leagues stand behind their youth umpires 100%

An adult Safety Officer who's on field could always sound a siren that stops play on all fields immediately, but an umpire should always be able to do the same for lightning absent a siren from the Safety Officer.

[rcjhyman]

The NWS (National Weather Service) specifies the same as NFHS: See lightning or hear thunder, go to safe place for 30 minutes - repeat as necessary. If NWS specifies it, I'm doing it. I can only imagine the lawsuit if an umpire or local rule runs counter to NWS recommendation.

[beerguy55]

On 4/25/2025 at 9:44 AM, BrainFreeze said:

My grandson played in a tournament where there was lightning in the distance.  The youth umpires saw the lightning and wanted to stop play.

The "adult" coordinating the games said, "Keep going, it's too far away."

This wasn't Texas, and it wasn't heat lightning, it was lightning from an active weather system.  In other words, the exact type of lightning that is supposed to cause a suspension of play. 

Best part... the tournament was a memorial tournament honoring a LL umpire who dedicated 40 years of volunteer work to the local league and who also would have suspended all the games on all the fields at the first flash of lightning.

 

Was at a tournament last September, where a storm rolled in, you could see a funnel cloud forming in the distance, and there was lightning.

One umpire suspended play for his game...another did not for his game.   The one who suspended play got rebuked by the umpire association "leadership".

The best part of this - this all occurred in the same town where a Little League player was killed by lightning 30 years ago, and was being played in a ball park named in his honor.

[SeeingEyeDog]

On 4/15/2025 at 5:22 PM, MadMax said:

And I will reiterate – that should never be the burden of a sub-18 yr old umpire. Yes, we have an umpire shortage; yes, we need more umpires; yes, we need to develop umpires under the age of 18. I am not invoking that umpires should have less responsibility or authority. I am simply stating, that if-and-when using sub-18 yr old umpires, then an adult, whether that be an umpire on an adjacent field, or a UIC out-of-uniform, or the field custodian, or a member of the league – who is not a coach of the game underway – has to be the one to suspend/end play. 

This ain't college baseball, and this ain't professional baseball. 

Brilliant. Bravo for Florida. 

I like this technology, too. We have it in one county in my market but, it only operates during the school year when a school team is practicing or playing a game.

At the same time, as umpires and human beings...we should NOT SOLELY RELY ON TECHNOLOGY. If you "experience" game suspending or game cancelling weather (whatever that means in YOUR market) and it doesn't trigger the technology? You should still take the appropriate action!

And under no circumstances should we be working games on fields "covered by weather warning technology" with that technology being the ONLY and SOLE "voice" on matters of field and environmental safety. What if someone trips over the plug? What if someone forgets to pay the monitoring fee? Again, I and we like this technology. This technology also has many fail points so, know your local and league policies and procedures and use the technology as a tool not as final decision maker.

~Dawg

[The Man in Blue]

22 hours ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

What if someone trips over the plug?

 

What if someone unplugs it on purpose?  Had that with the first group I worked for in Mississippi . . . we could all see it piling up and headed for us.  My game got done early, and I went up to the tower to see what the word was. I looked at the screen, pointed to the distance, and said, "This doesn't match what's over there." 

The guy in the tower said, "Yeah, it wasn't working* earlier, so we unplugged it."

 

Translation: We knew it would go off automatically, and we didn't want to call games.  (This group was shady AF and I quit working for them pretty quickly.)

[SeeingEyeDog]

2 hours ago, The Man in Blue said:

 

What if someone unplugs it on purpose?  Had that with the first group I worked for in Mississippi . . . we could all see it piling up and headed for us.  My game got done early, and I went up to the tower to see what the word was. I looked at the screen, pointed to the distance, and said, "This doesn't match what's over there." 

The guy in the tower said, "Yeah, it wasn't working* earlier, so we unplugged it."

 

Translation: We knew it would go off automatically, and we didn't want to call games.  (This group was shady AF and I quit working for them pretty quickly.)

Assume an unknown gun is loaded. Assume an unknown weather warning system is non-operational...yep.

~Dawg

[The Man in Blue]

[FourthOut]

For the record, since people are talking about this topic again, we decided not to enforce either rules change at the umpires meeting. To my knowledge, the lightning rule never really came into play this season; our umpires, especially the younger guys, were pretty quick to suspend play. 

Of course, the league made two more rules changes, both for no apparent reason. First, they wrote their own definition of the infield fly rule so umpires can no longer rectify an uncalled infield fly. Second, they changed balks, including balk warnings, from a delayed to an immediate dead ball.

 

[The Man in Blue]

The balk move would follow along with NFHS, so that makes some sense. When I ran our local softball program, we used PONY rules because they were closest to NFHS (and we could get the rulebooks for $1.50 apiece vs. $6+ for the actual NFHS books).

The infield fly thing . . . What the frank, Frank?!  What are we doing here?

[Velho]

"Why make balks dead?"

"It's easier to officiate. Let's be honest, we don't have Professional umpires. We have a lot of dads and kids. They try hard and are good but let's uncomplicated things"

 

"Why are we removing the safety net on Infield Fly?"

"If we can't trust the umpires to officiate the situation then why do we have them?"

[jimurrayalterego]

1 hour ago, Velho said:

"Why make balks dead?"

"It's easier to officiate. Let's be honest, we don't have Professional umpires. 

 

Even Pros can mess up the more esoteric sits, as you do remember the ball 4 balk.