Jr Olympic Rules Questions. Help Rich!

Well folks, I'm back from Tucson and glad to be home! As you might guess, while I was there I ran afoul of a couple of the officials. Nothing real bad, and in fact there wasn't even any disagreement other than the way The Team USA officials decided they were going to interpret the rules.

To be honest, I was surprised that they were using NFHS Rules. It isn't that FED rules are bad, but they vary so much from state to state and association to association that I thought they would just use modified OBR and be done with it. Be that as it may, I thought I'd drop the few questions I had on the group. Hopefully, Rich who has far more expertise in rule interpretations that anyone else will be sure to respond.

The 1st strange thing was the courtesy runner rule. for those of you who aren't familiar with it, HS rules allow a "courtesy runner" to be used as a replacement for pitchers and catchers who reach base.

Our HS association is pretty loose in that they allow any player to act as a CR. However, normally, the player who made the last out is used as a CR if one is needed. The CR rule, as far as I can tell is not really a "rule" per se. it is "suggested" as a speed up rule and may or may not be used.

The CR rule used by Team USA went along the suggest rule's lines, but the way they scored the CR's activities bumfuzzeled me. The CR was credited with all base running, SB, PO, CS, etc., but the batter they ran for was credited with any run scored.

I took issue with them only because I couldn't see why some slow catcher who had a bullet running for him who stole 2nd, 3rd and home should be credited with a run scored. Clearly, in that instance, the original batter/runner would not have scored, but gets credit anyway and I don't see that as correct. But, that was the rule.

The next one that took me by surprise was the "dropped foul ball" rule. We had two instances where there was a foul pop up where a very ordinary play would have made the out, but the ball was dropped. When I checked with the official scorer, on each occasion he didn't charge an error.

In our last game, the official scorer was down on the field with us and I took that opportunity to talk to him in detail about it. He said they were instructed to not charge an error unless the batter subsequent to the dropped ball reached base on a hit. I'm assuming he meant reached base period, but at any rate, it seemed very strange to me.

I always interpreted 10.13, "An error shall be charged for each misplay (fumble, muff or wild throw) which prolongs the time at bat of a batter or which prolongs the life of a runner, or which permits a runner to advance one or more bases." to mean an error has been committed if a fielder gives the batter even one extra pitch to hit.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've been marking those things errors for a very long time now and would like to know if I'm doing it correctly or if there's some hidden clause in FED that makes it a "conditional" error.

This last one really floored me because I seen so many people over the years express their feelings that the batter is getting cheated on it. here's the situation this Team USA official scorer gave me.

Runner on 1st, batter hits a looping line drive over 2nd baseman's head. 2nd baseman picks up the ball with no chance to get the runner at 1st, but throws to shortstop at 2nd for a force. How would it be marked?

My answer was, batter reaches on a fielder's choice, runner is out 4-6. He told me "WRONG"! runner is out 4-6, batter reaches 1st on a single. Again, reverting back to my knowledge of the rules, I took issue with him because that had always been marked as a non-hit as far as I knew.

The official said there was no fielder's choice because there was no choice. I tried to tell him that a fielder's choice didn't always mean the fielder had a choice, but rather could be used as a scorer's tool to account for every base reached.

When I took the time to look at OBR, no matter how many times I read 10.6, I couldn't come to the same conclusion they had.

I suppose if someone read 10.05 and nothing else, they might come to the conclusion that it was a base hit, but the last sentence in 10.05 seems to make it clear that there is no base hit if a putout occurs. "A safe course to follow is to score a hit when exceptionally good fielding of a ball fails to result in a putout."

I'm not trying to say I'm right, but if I'm not, I've sure got to mend my ways! On the other hand, if I am right, these people need to know they are not scoring properly, and for such a prestigious event as choosing players to represent the USA in international competition, the scoring should be done correctly.

Any comments or clarifications are gratefully accepted.