Posted July 14, 2009 02:57 PM Hide Post
I had issue with this durring this past weekends tournament in 11,12,13 year old league. During the first inning i observed every batter on the opposing team was taking initial position with their feet clearly closer than 6 inches and some as close as 1 inch to the plate. between innings I requested that the umpire look at the foot position and or make a ruleing. I do not teach my boys to stand any closer than the front line of the box, leaving a minimun of 6 inches clear in front of the foot to the plate. the umpire did not / would not make the other teams batters start with both feet within the box. middle of the second inning I asked about this again, at this point she stated that she was about sick of this and told me that if any part of the foot was touching the line that it was a legal starting position and that i needed to be quiet about it. she then went and asked another (official) about her ruleing. I commented about this fact that she made a ruleing without knowing the rules, this I should have kept to myself 20-20.....
when she stated that this was the rule i agreed to play by the ruleing, our head coach then had another question about late roster additions for a youth that had arrived late to the game, the other team, he was allowed to join the game at the end of the lineup and that is ok with me everybody plays rule.
he then asked me what my question was and i told him it didn't matter that i had been ruled wrong, this is when i was ejected from the game. I began to walk quietly to the dougout with out arguement or speaking to her at all. as i reached our dougout I informed our players and coaches that as long as the feet were touching the line we could also stand as close to the plate as we wanted.... this is when she ejected me from the grounds.
I contacted our towns local official and asked about this rule and to my shegrin was informed that this was the interpritation of the rule for the whole league. I can not agree
11, 12, 13 year old pitchers cannot comand their pitches to retake the inside of the plate when the batter is this close. they do not want to hit anyone with a pitch thus effectivly shrinking the strike zone by 6 inches..... after getting behind in the count the pitcher in order to throw a strike takes a little something off the pitch and bam a line drive hit.... I know that this was taught by the coaching staff certianly after having another team do the same to them....and getting the ruleing of our officials. I would like to after the season is over, maybe tonight, get with the officials and clarify this rule for next year. where do i find the documentation that will show the clarified rule.
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