Countless times on television we
’ve witnessed umpires and managers getting into a rhubarb about
a call involving a close play or an interpretation of the rules.
Most of the time the disagreement results when an umpire sees a
play one way and the manager disagrees. Eventually things seem to
get sorted out and play resumes. In yo
uth baseball it’s important for the coaches, players and parents
to understand the rules. In the long run, it will diminish and
avoid confrontations in a game between a coach and umpire or a
player and an umpire. Youth players need to respect the game and
know the rules. If they do, they’ll bet
ter understand that umpires don’t win or lose ballgames – teams
do.
Countless times on television we’ve witnessed umpires and managers getting into a rhubarb about a call involving a close play or an interpretation of the rules. Most of the time the disagreement results when an umpire sees a play one way and the manager disagrees.
Eventually things seem to get sorted out and play resumes. In youth baseball it’s important for the coaches, players and parents to understand the rules. In the long run, it will diminish and avoid confrontations in a game between a coach and umpire or a player and an umpire.
Youth players need to respect the game and know the rules. If they do, they’ll better understand that umpires don’t win or lose ballgames – teams do.
While it doesn’t hold the attention of a Stephen King novel or Jose Canseco’s tell-all book, the baseball rule book is a good thing to read and polish up on your knowledge. By reading it, coaches and parents can translate the interpretations in a simpler form to the players.
They’ll also learn about a lot of rules they never knew. And believe me, when you think you’ve seen it all in this game, you haven’t.
Rules to get familiar with on the youth level include interference, balks, base running miscues, pitching dos and don’ts, overthrows and the dead ball.
Throughout the season these certain situations and others will arise and by knowing the rules you can smoothly get through a problem, or create one.
Actually, reading through the rule book is quite interesting. Do you know the dimensions of the fields or the distance between the mound and the plate for each level of youth play? Going to the rule book will provide you with diagrams for each.
Have you ever figured out the terms and definitions of the game? Flipping through that section of the rule book will let you understand the game a lot better. Explaining the game to the players will be easier, too.
When a batter is declared out, how many pitches does a pitcher get for warm-ups between innings, and how many runners can be on a base at the same time are all things you’ll find explained in the rule book.
Do you know the legal pitching delivery? What is the infield fly rule and how many runners are base when it’s called? Well, it’s all in the book and makes for some great late-night reading.
Sometimes youth coaches, parents and players tend to overlook or misinterpret the rules and then react to a game situation thinking they have a grasp of the rules.
Often times they don’t and blame the umpire. Granted, the umpire on the youth level might not know either but knowing the rules may alleviate a bitter standoff.
And, by the way, how many outs are there in an inning? If you said three, you better find that rulebook.
