When NFHS made it mandatory the every state association had a pitching restriction policy it didn’t make sure there was a way to police it. For many years it’s been left to coaches to do the policing as to whether a pitcher has violated whatever pitching limitations there were. Unfortunately, unless a coach had direct knowledge about a pitcher’s time on the mound, the only way to police that time has been to gain access to the scorebook used for the last game the pitcher threw and hope the information could be gleaned from it. At best it’s been a poor way to police pitchers’ use.
Luckily technology has provided a “better” way, and now every HS baseball team has a place it can store game information. The largest organization of that type by far is MaxPreps, but there are many others as well. That makes it possible for anyone to find out when a pitcher can pitch again legally, i.e. IAW his state’s rules. The problem is how to make sure every pitcher and the information about every appearance he makes get tracked.
In general it’s been left to the coaches to put that information into whatever tracking system is used, and in some states it’s even mandatory. Unfortunately it’s still a hit and miss affair with some coaches either accidentally or purposely not entering the information. That’s been acceptable in the past but with more and more state associations moving toward pitch counts for health/safety reasons, a way of doing a better job of getting the information into the “system” has become something being discussed a lot.
The solution to the problem seems obvious to me. Every HS game played during the season has a paid umpire. Make it the responsibility of the umpire who calls the pitches to make sure the information on each pitcher for the game gets put into whatever system is used. Also make it mandatory that the home team’s HC provides the means to do that if needed. That way a trained and paid game official will do what’s necessary to get the information into the system. The mechanics of how that takes place can take place many different ways, none of which require more than a few minutes.
Why wouldn’t that be a reasonable solution to the problem?