Wes Weddle tourney today in Overland Park, KS. We’re waiting to play the winner. Field 2. It’s a fi ld away from the main 4-plex where the tourney “director” was. Stl Shockers v KC Evolution. Top of 7th. Visiting Team (KC) leads 24-18 beginning the inning. They have a great open inning. Score is 37-14. Guy doubles in a run. Now 38-18. 2 outs/ runner on 2nd now. Umpire stops the game and says “you’re up 20, open inning over for you. The home team will now bat and if they catch up or go ahead we’ll then resume your at bat with the runner on 2nd with 2 outs.” Everyone puzzled. We ask from the stands, “what rule is that caise it isn’t a SSUSA rule. Is that some local league rule and you’re mistaken”. Umpire obviously defensive and says “it’s in Section 5.” (It’s not). Home team actually makes it interesting by scoring 10 in the bottom of the open. No harm no foul right?
It’s just frustrating umpires (with SSUSA shirts on) don’t know the basic rule. If I’m wrong I’ll gladly eat crow but this was pretty out there.
This is ridiculous, no such rule as to my knowledge,an open inning is an open inning no matter how many runs are scored and is not over until 3rd out is recorded,no mateer the number of runs scored
Bob21, my apology for the umpire's enforcement of something that is not part of SSUSA's "Section 5" rule.
The women's division was at a different park for the entire weekend (which is where I was), so I was not at Black Bob. Nonetheless, based on the information I was able to gather from the assistant director in charge of the 60's men's division at Black Bob Park, he was not asked, called, or informed of the action arbitrarily and erroneously implemented in that game. So I can only assume that even if I had been at Black Bob Park, I would have not been asked for any help either--unless "maybe" one of us had been physically watching that specific game.
Based on your report above, the game's end result does not appear to have been affected, BUT...that does not allow the umpire to make up and enforce his own rules.
So again, MY APOLOGY...thanks for making us aware.
This sounds a lot like Director anguish over schedule time slippage ... As a Director, I've seen it happen more than once! ... Simply, it's not a part of the SSUSA rules package ...
At the Brickyard Classic in Indy a LONG time ago, I asked the Visitor manager if he could help me out after his team had put up about three touchdowns in the top of the open to go up by 25± runs ... The Home team just couldn't buy an out no matter how hard they tried, and everyone was ready for this one to end ... The Visitor manager called time, went to the ump and informed him quietly that the next two batters were going to intentionally step on the strike mat and make contact with the ball ... He wanted to give the ump the heads-up so he didn't miss ringing them both up ... We got out of the game that way, and it helped that the home team went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the open ... It was a rare and classy move I'll never forget ...
Dowell you never cease to amaze me! Schedule slippage it was! Time was 30 minutes over (but only the championship game remaining).
Berger, thanks for the reply. Please educate that ump! He actually did a decent job other than this thing. It wasn't worth bringing up to the tournament guys down at the other fields (field 2 is the remote one on the hill). The other untold part of this was the ump asking if KC would flip flop during the middle of their 7th inning open rally after they got up by 10!!!
