Injured batter on Swing

[playball13]

USSSA modified rules, team batting roster, no subs. 1 and 1 count. Batter swings at pitch, pitch strikes hands not the bat, ball rolls slowly to pitcher. Pitch is called dead ball, strike 2. Batter breaks finger and can not continue. Is batter now out? Does next batter in order continue that AB?

[playball13]

Batting 11, so no forfeit. Umpire allowed that batter to be skipped without penality the remainder of the game.

[shockcoach]

Depends. Most regular season tournaments are not by the book. Most will allow you to shrink the lineup when an injury occurs. However, I will agree that the batter is out if she cannot continue her at bat. Rule 5, Sect 2-A-1.

[Bretman]

I've posted about this before, so excuse me for repeating myself...

When you tinker with a single rule, it can often have unintended consequences for other rules. The continuous batting order rule (bat the roster) is a perfect example. It's a well-intentioned rule to promote player participation. But, it's not a standard rule in the rule book and, when it is used, entire sections of the rule book regarding substitutions, courtesy runners, the number of players in the line-up or playing short-handed are rendered moot! Unless the folks writing your rules have taken into account all of the other rules that can be affected, crafted a solution, put it in writing and distributed it to all of the coaches and umpires before the games are even played, you're bound to have some confusion when these situations pop up.

Standard rules would allow a sub to be put in for the injured batter. When you're "batting the roster" there aren't any subs because everybody is already in the game! Short-handed rules allow games to continue with a given number of players, but when everyone is batting there is no set number players required to start or finish the game.

If there's nothing in writing before hand about how these situations will be handled, then you're kind of at the mercy of what the individual umpire or league/tourney officials come up with on the spot. That can lead to an unexpected ruling that is sure to tick off one team or the other. It also means that whatever they come up with may not be uniformly applied by different umpires in subsequent games.

So, what's the right call on this one? Beats me! There is no standard rule in the rule book to cover it. The final call would be entirely up to the folks running your games.

[SnocatzDad]

When I've seen this situation occur most reasonable umpires will choose to not penalize the team as long as losing the batter does not lower the number of batters in the order below 9. Yes it would be great to have it all spelled out in black and white and have case studies, but there is an expectation that the intent of the modified rule (increased participation without penalty) will be upheld by reasonable adults. IME modified rules are used when the stakes are low (pool play, some weekend tourney's but not the majors)

I guess it comes down to whether you come to the field looking to win a game for your team by excercising a batting out of order rule that is the result of an injury (versus trying to cheat) or your reasonably willing to allow the game to be won or lost by the players on the field.

The fact that ASA is a recreational body and services teams with an average of 11-12 players and uses a standard rule set that IMO was designed to be used for teams of 14-20 (i.e. strict substitution makes sense only if you have a reasonable number of substitutes). At the highest level you see teams running with rosters of 16-18 players because that makes sense within the rule sets and with the number of games that may be played in a single day. But for every one of those there are hundreds of teams running with 10-12 players looking to maximize participation in the what is supposed to be a recreational activity.

[Bretman]

Whenever the interpretation of a rule is based on the "reasonable-ness" of one person's opinion, or on what one individual's expectations might be, you are setting yourself up for confusion, disappointed teams and having the rule not be applied uniformly throughout all games.

If there is no agreed upon way of handling this, the final ruling could be...anything. One person's reasonable expectations aren't always going the be the same as the next.

Flip this around a little bit. It's a tight game with the winning run at third base. The pitcher has managed to get two strikes on the batter. On the second strike, the batter twists her ankle on her swing and is unable to continue.

The defense probably wouldn't think it was "reasonable" to penalize them by negating the efforts of their pitcher and putting a new batter at the plate with a fresh count. Suppose that you allow a different batter to take her place and continue with the same count. What batter do you put in- anyone the offensive coach chooses to, the next batter, the one scheduled to bat last? What if that new batter is a significantly better hitter than the one she was replacing? Is that "fair" to the defense, or are they essentially being penailized through no fault of their own?

If none of this is agreed upon before the game, now you have a big problem. You have created a situation where no matter what you rule one team or the other is going to be ticked off. And, no matter what you rule, there's no guarantee that the umpire in your next game is going to rule the same way, because there simply isn't a rule to cover this. If it gets ruled one way in one game, then another in the next, the team disadvantged in the next game is really going to be ticked off!

Sort it all out before hand and you're really going to save yourself some headaches.

[MTR]

When I've seen this situation occur most reasonable umpires will choose to not penalize the team as long as losing the batter does not lower the number of batters in the order below 9. Yes it would be great to have it all spelled out in black and white and have case studies, but there is an expectation that the intent of the modified rule (increased participation without penalty) will be upheld by reasonable adults. IME modified rules are used when the stakes are low (pool play, some weekend tourney's but not the majors)

Actually, it is spelled out in black and white. However, if the org. which modified the rule wants to alter the effect, they are free to do so.

The fact that ASA is a recreational body and services teams with an average of 11-12 players and uses a standard rule set that IMO was designed to be used for teams of 14-20 (i.e. strict substitution makes sense only if you have a reasonable number of substitutes). At the highest level you see teams running with rosters of 16-18 players because that makes sense within the rule sets and with the number of games that may be played in a single day. But for every one of those there are hundreds of teams running with 10-12 players looking to maximize participation in the what is supposed to be a recreational activity.

You're making a helluva assumption. You can have 20 players and if you choose to carry less that is your prerogative and something you have elected to deal with. And if you have that few players, why would you bat more than necessary.