Loss feels all wrong to B'town softball team -- LL

[Pridefpsb17]

http://www.myjournalcourier.com/sports/league-23272-tournament-girls.html

August 01, 2009 12:31 AM
BY MATT WING
Journal-Courier

Imagine being three outs away from winning a state championship. Now imagine losing the title before another pitch is thrown.
Parents, players and coaches from the Beardstown Girls Junior League All-Stars are crying foul after Beardstown was ruled the loser in the championship game of the Girls Junior League Softball State Tournament in East Chicago, a tournament that feeds into the Little League World Series.
“They basically took a state title away from us, and I’m pretty upset about it,” said Craig Myers, who coaches the team of 13- and 14-year-olds.

Wednesday’s game was delayed in the seventh inning. A Beardstown player was called out after singling home two runs to tie the score at 6-6; an umpire ruled she had stepped out of the batter’s box. After an appeal by the Beardstown coaching staff, the call was overturned by assistant tournament director Sean Gibbons, who called the Little League Regional Office in Indianapolis for assistance.

That prompted the Burbank coach to argue the reversal. The game was delayed 45 minutes, and by then it was too dark to continue. The teams were told to return to the field the next day to finish the game.
But when Beardstown returned, the team got a different story.

This was just plain wrong!

[ManitouDan]

sounds like a cluster- you -know what ! MD

[SnocatzDad]

So the losing team was down 6-4, batter hits the ball and 2 runs come in, umpire says that batter stepped on plate while hitting ball and is out, runners can't advance. That's the correct call if that is what he saw.

The losing team argued and got the UIC to overturn the call (on what basis I can't imagine) so now the score was 6-6. The winning team protested the overturn at which point the UIC (let's call him Mr Waffle) sends the argument up to corporate who gets it right and sides with the winning team and the original umpire who got the call right. Even if this wasn't the third out of the inning, essentially dragging out the argument forced the game to be decided on who was ahead at the end of the game (or the previous completed inning) which was the winning team either way you look at it.

If the losing coach feels they should have gotten to complete the game, then he shouldn't have wasted everyone's time arguing incorrectly about a rule that the umpire got right.

If corporate would have backed the loser's argument then I would say resume the game at 6-6 and find a winner.