Cheating or Aggressive Base Running?

[marriard]

We disagree and that’s ok with me.

Thank you for a well thought out reply.

NP - unfortunately it is a 'bigger picture' issue; and fortunately these situations come up really rarely when you consider how many games are players and now videoed.

 

[CoachJD]

Some bad examples. Fouls in the sports you mentioned happen in the normal course of play and aren't planned, practiced, and are rarely intended. None of those require the team that was affected to call it to the official's attention. Fouls do not produce a competitive advantage, and teams routinely lose because they commit too many of them. The more serious/repeated fouls produce ever-increasing penalties, including ejection, fine, and suspension. None of that requires any action by anyone but the officials on site and at the League office.

Framing a pitch? Lol...no.

This is closer to putting helium in a football, or electronically eavesdropping on play calling or pitch signals, or some cheap shot when the officials can't see it. It was planned and executed in a way that anticipated that all eyes would be on the ball, not the second player rounding third.

I think this is a good discussion because there is obviously a difference, but I don't think you've made a good argument for why it's different. It just feels different, right? I agree. But that's not good enough for me.

Fouls are absolutely planned, practiced, and intended. Players are coached on how to get away with fouls. This is literally the exact same thing, isn't it? Teaching a DB how to get away with little pulls and grabs? Teaching guys in the paint how to create technically illegal contact that is not likely to get called? Players are coached on how to get away with breaking the rules. That fits a strict definition of cheating, but I think the reason we don't consider it as such is because they can still get caught. The same thing applies here. The team that tries this garbage move can still get caught, and the penalty is great enough that it should discourage a team from doing it.

Framing a pitch is dishonest. I was just pointing out that "dishonest" is not a great standard to use.

It's nothing like your examples. Those are all ways of gaining an "unnatural" advantage off the field. Except the cheap shot, which is different because the play we're all discussing happened in the view of three umpires (one of whom was staring directly at the play).

This comes down to all of us not liking how it looks. It's poor sportsmanship. But it's not actually objectively worse than a whole bunch of other stuff. In fact, it's actually less bad in practice because it's very, very easy to stop it from happening. Just appeal the play. It's one of the dumbest "trick plays," or attempts to cheat or whatever. I'm still unclear how this actually worked.

 

[radness]

Have been trying to look up the rulebook definition of Unsportsmanlike Behavior if someone could post that would be helpful. Thnx

 

[Strike2]

Fouls are absolutely planned, practiced, and intended. Players are coached on how to get away with fouls. This is literally the exact same thing, isn't it?

Totally disagree with this premise. In sports such as football or basketball, players are coached on the limit of what they CAN do that won't draw a penalty/foul call. Big difference. From HS through the pros, officials are even brought to practices to discuss and demonstrate the types of things that cross the line. Playing up to the limit of the rules isn't at all the same thing as deliberately running through the middle of the infield in the hope that it won't get noticed. If a softball coach is teaching anything along those lines, they're teaching their players to blatantly cheat, and there's no way to rationalize that.

 

[PJR202]

Totally disagree with this premise. In sports such as football or basketball, players are coached on the limit of what they CAN do that won't draw a penalty/foul call. Big difference. From HS through the pros, officials are even brought to practices to discuss and demonstrate the types of things that cross the line. Playing up to the limit of the rules isn't at all the same thing as deliberately running through the middle of the infield in the hope that it won't get noticed. If a softball coach is teaching anything along those lines, they're teaching their players to blatantly cheat, and there's no way to rationalize that.

From a rules violation/penalty standpoint, it's not really any different, but stick and ball games aren't built to use rules violations for strategy. There's no "you get three leave base early attempts before bases are taken in reverse" kinds of things. And I think all of us (but one!) can agree that morally, what's seen in the video is just plain sh***y.

I could probably deal with my kid playing for a coach that utilizes shoe tying and pitching changes to run out the clock on a hard stop game, but not a coach who teaches missing bases. Honestly, being a coach myself, I wouldn't allow my kid to even play for a coach that teaches the kids to leave early.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

From HS through the pros, officials are even brought to practices to discuss and demonstrate the types of things that cross the line.

Even amongst a group of forward-thinking softball enthusiasts, you have differing opinions on where that line is. While I can appreciate the absolutists with regard to the written and unwritten rules of softball I find that it's more of a gray area in practice.

 

[MoJo]

Not the umpires role to decide it was intentional or make up a rule or even to be the person who decides whether tactics (bush league or otherwise) are OK or not OK.

I also can't read minds so I don't know what the runner was thinking or have any knowledge at the time of what the coaches did or didn't direct her to do. It looks terrible but there is no need to make up some special rule - the rule exists and it says I need an appeal. It doesn't stipulate by how far the runner misses the base, just that it is missed.

If they want to change the rule; then great. It is easy enough - make missing a base a delayed call and I can call it without an appeal after the play is over. Same as if someone just doesn't tag up and just continues on - I can't call that out without an appeal either no matter how flagrant or obvious it is and we have all seen the runner who realizes they have gone way to far and there is no tagging up.

I want to highlight that - because there is a rule in the book that says the umpire can make a call on something that isn't covered in the rules. But this is not the case - this is covered.

And yes it is a slippery slope - because the next call is some umpire deciding to make up a rule about stalling for time or disallowing a conference or whatever else the crowd is yelling out.

Sooooo, what avenue of DISIPLINE will you doing post event?

 

[radness]

... if I may add to the Gray Line comments,

While I know missing running by a base is an appeal play situation. Generally Runners are at least near the base.
Gray line appears because~
This situation clearly is not anywhere near the base.

That said,
unsportsmanlike behavior is part of the rule book.
(imo)This video defines where that line is.
___________________________

As to the appeal...

Maybe it was such an absurd thing to see happen in a game the opposing coach was sort of shocked and waited for the umpires to say something because it was so clearly and blatantly done.

 

[GIMNEPIWO]

Cheating ? = Yes.
Aggressive base running ? = No - bad base running.
Heads up use of the rules ? = No - flagrant display of what cheating looks like.

Many years ago while practicing with a travel team a member of a local college team ( Jerry Jerry Hallelujah ) stopped by and asked if she could help ... She was a slapper and worked with our youngsters on that ... During that afternoon she told us about a similar play that was being taught to them by their coach ( no longer there ) ... It involved missing second base intentionally. We had to explain afterwards to our young group of sponges all the reasons why this was wrong.

 

[MightyMO]

I also can't read minds so I don't know what the runner was thinking or have any knowledge at the time of what the coaches did or didn't direct her to do. It looks terrible but there is no need to make up some special rule - the rule exists and it says I need an appeal. It doesn't stipulate by how far the runner misses the base, just that it is missed.

If they want to change the rule; then great. It is easy enough - make missing a base a delayed call and I can call it without an appeal after the play is over. Same as if someone just doesn't tag up and just continues on - I can't call that out without an appeal either no matter how flagrant or obvious it is and we have all seen the runner who realizes they have gone way to far and there is no tagging up.

I think the first paragraph here speaks to the biggest assumption people are making in this thread. An ump has absolutely no idea if the coach told the player to do this. Everyone may look at it and say "You can tell that's planned", but it could be the player doing it on purpose or just completely losing her mind and cutting the base short. There's no way of knowing unless the ump heard the coach tell the player to miss the base on purpose. At that point, I would assume the ump could take action.

To the second paragraph here. I have a legitimate question. Why is missing a base (or not tagging on a fly ball) an appeal call? Does anyone know? Is it so that the umpire isn't required to be watching that while having other responsibilities in the game?