Cheating or Aggressive Base Running?

[marriard]

Two umpire system taken advantage of. With it being on video and the word that it was designed play, I would hope that this will be addressed by the AD with a stiff punishment or possible resignation by the coach. This will forever be this teams legacy attached to their time at state. You coach and play the game with integrity. But once again the adults ruin it for the kids.

There are three umpires in this game. U3 is watching this directly behind 3B... all they need is ANY player or coach to say 'she never touched 3rd' and they call it I am sure. Got to appeal.


And I agree. This SHOULD be the end of this coach... but it probably wont be. Some people will justify the whole thing.

 

[marriard]

At what point do you go over blatant cheating in practice, is that before or after infield work?

Last 15 minutes of every practice from what I have seen from similar A***h**es

 

[MoJo]

The OP situation is straightforward and easy to manage. The field umpire should be making the Unsportsmanlike call. This is followed up with the out call. With the conference of the Umps and the Field Manager the quick follow up is ejection of player and coach. With situations this egregious a forfeit is justified. After action reviews will be delivering suspensions to that team.

The Rules, Code of Conduct, Principles of Fair Play, making a travesty of the game in any league or organization these situations of blatant cheating are easy to articulate.

What this situation is NOT, is a missed base and appeal. Way way way way way beyond.

 

[Strike2]

As an umpire, this is still an appeal play. So I need SOMEONE - ANYONE - to make an appeal of ANY kind and I am ringing that out up. But I can't just call it.

In USSSA, there seems to be a catch-all in Rule 11 that allows umpires to deal with "unsporting acts" (Section 2T). While that doesn't appear to allow an umpire to ring up an out, it does give them the discretion to warn or even eject a player and/or coach. I'm not as familiar with NFHS...is there any equivalent there? At the very least, it would officially call out that conduct on the field during the game.

 

[mmeece]

In USSSA, there seems to be a catch-all in Rule 11 that allows umpires to deal with "unsporting acts" (Section 2T). While that doesn't appear to allow an umpire to ring up an out, it does give them the discretion to warn or even eject a player and/or coach. I'm not as familiar with NFHS...is there any equivalent there? At the very least, it would officially call out that conduct on the field during the game.

There are provisions for ejecting a coach or player due to unsporting acts or behavior, but not for calling an out (other than malicious contact).

 

[radness]

What's everyone's take on this sort of thing? Some think this is a heads up use of the rules. I think this is cheating and WILL NOT teach my girls to do this. I will, however, show them this video and teach them what to do about it.

I have no idea why the short stop wasn't screaming for the ball at third base.

Class C State Softball Game

Watch the runner that starts on second base. Rumor around here is, the coach told the original runner to do this and she refused so the coach subbed her out for one that would. I've coached against this coach for years with my older daughter's teams and this doesn't surprise me a bit.

The runner left early anyway so this should've been a dead ball with runner out at 2nd to begin with.

They lost the game, too!

When I watched this, thought any coach worth their salt would have seen the opposing team's runner not touching third. And appeal. Who knows maybe the entire opposing team was not watching the runners?
But heck who knows could that have gone unnoticed when it happened???

so I'm going to ask
Did coach speak up after the 2nd runner crossed home?

 

[The Man In Blue]

Two umpire system taken advantage of. With it being on video and the word that it was designed play, I would hope that this will be addressed by the AD with a stiff punishment or possible resignation by the coach. This will forever be this teams legacy attached to their time at state. You coach and play the game with integrity. But once again the adults ruin it for the kids.

It wasn't a two umpire system. U3 is standing right there. Like @marriard said though, a missed base is an appeal play. Technically the defense HAS to appeal it before the umpire can make the call.

That said, I have two "caveats" ... OK, maybe one caveat and one "I'm not sure."

There is a case to be made for NFHS 3-6-13c:

ART. 13 . . . Unsporting acts shall not be committed, including, but not limited to:

c. behavior in any manner not in accordance with the spirit of fair play.

PENALTY: (Arts. 11 through 16) The umpire shall eject the offender from the game, unless the offense is judged to be of a minor nature. If minor, the umpire may warn the offender and eject if the offense is repeated (Art. 13). For coaches who violate, the umpire may restrict the offender to bench/dugout for the remainder of the game, or eject the offender.

Here is the problem there ... calling the runner out or sending her back are not options. I suppose you could loudly make your warn/restrict/eject decision and then allow the appeal ... [evil laughter]

My "I'm not sure" ... I could be wrong, but I thought another forum I read had posted an NFHS baseball case play that specifically calls this out and calls for the ejection of the offender and the coach. I may be wrong because I don't have a current baseball case play book and my search skills over there are not helping.

Edit to add: Resignation of the coach ...

 

[The Man In Blue]

When I watched this, thought any coach worth their salt would have seen the opposing team's runner not touching third. And appeal. Who knows maybe the entire opposing team was not watching the runners?
But heck who knows could that have gone unnoticed when it happened???

so I'm going to ask
Did coach speak up after the 2nd runner crossed home?

Another sign of "good" coaching versus typical coaching (especially in travel ball) ... you have all those extra girls on the bench. Why have you not taught them and assigned each a job of watching touches on the bases?

 

[CrazyNani]

Two umpire system taken advantage of. With it being on video and the word that it was designed play, I would hope that this will be addressed by the AD with a stiff punishment or possible resignation by the coach. This will forever be this teams legacy attached to their time at state. You coach and play the game with integrity. But once again the adults ruin it for the kids.

What isn't on video these days. Surprised the coach thought they could get away with it, even though they did...

 

[Lemond]

Very hard to tell, but it looks like 3b coach is not directing the runner from 2nd at ALL (no hold up sign, no make the turn, etc.) That would tend to make me believe he called it. I would be interested in seeing the minute or so of the video prior to the play. Did they conference?

What I really don’t get is the SS just walking back dejectedly! No inclination to raise a flag whatsoever. Weird.

I truly hope that coach gets called on this. Bringing it to light will not likely get him fired, but having it out there that he does this may prevent at least this egregious a cheat from happening again. He will continue to cheat wherever he can, though. Disappointing on several levels!