Another reported theft at Spano

In what had to be the most bush league "stall tactic" that I ever witnessed. In our elim game on Sat nite, after coming from behind to take the lead in our game, the opposing team's pitcher took the game ball off the field, stuck it in her glove and proceeded to put it under the bench after the third out was recorded. This was after all your basics of calling timeouts and meeting on the mound(which I can deal with, its all part of the timed game play). All this was after the girls were told not to make any plays on the bunts I was trying to lay down, therefore having my girls swing to miss the ball for strikeouts(again, all part of timed game play) to get out of the inning. So after one strikeout, their pitcher intentionally hit my next batter,we have my runner leave base early for the third out. And "BINGO" thats when it happened. We took to the field, all players in postion and no game ball. My pitcher approached the other pitcher asking for the ball so we could play and she and another teammate got into her face. You might ask, "why not use the other game ball"? Well, that ball had been so badly used that it felt like an Incrediball and was not being used in game play. I kinda wonder, do you actually practice those kinda things in practice?

Gary Pierce
Valley Extreme

We were waiting for our game to start and I saw the above mentioned game. It was a sad, sad day in fastpitch. I couldn't believe they "plunked" a girl, and with 2 strikes. It was very obvious, you should've heard the people around me that were waiting for the next game...it was that obvious. It didn't waste much time either, the girl got up went to first, the pitcher got the ball, the girl left first and the umpire called her out...end of inning. I don't know the name of the team that did this, but it was absolutely horrible.

Is anyone taking notes on all the stall tactics or speed up tactics that have been talked about lately? We could publish a book, " Coach's bible for drop dead time limit games" ;D Never would I have thought of hiding the game ball on my own. Brilliant ! :

Hiding the ball - brilliant!
Plunking a 13/14 year old girl - pathetic!

that is pathetic :-?

Agree. Hitting a girl purposely-pathetic! That takes some thought. Throwing a bad pitch, girl would just swing anyway & miss. But throwing at the batter gives her no chance to swing. What coach would come up w/ this idea? Gary, how did you keep from losing it? I think I would have come unclued.

Gary did an excellent job of keeping his kool but our assistants might have lost a bolt or two. ?I have to say I left my seat when I saw two girls form the other team approach Gary's pitcher in an agressive way denying they had the game ball. ?Good thing one girl on their team had sense to speak up and tell them to hand over the ball. (at least one kid on the team was thinking what her parents taught her)

Just ridiculous that this crap is coming into play more and more in youth sports. ?What are the kids learning? Just remember (and you know who you are) it was a catcher you hit and a pitcher you threatened. As my mother always said pay backs are a ........... they might just be too ! Sorry just could not resist, I would never encourage that behavior, but I am so sure those girls will remember.

But great job by Gary's girls on recovering from a bad mistake and taking the lead back, unfortunately falling one out short of the revert rule. I think that umpire just wanted the heck out of there and who could have blamed him. (I wanted out of there)

"Just ridiculous that this crap is coming into play more and more in youth sports. What are the kids learning?"

unfortunatley... exactly what they are taught... to win at any cost.. that is why the game of softball/baseball is not a timed game.. they did have some clue when they made the rules up for innings!!!

"...therefore having my girls swing to miss the ball for strikeouts..."

"...we have my runner leave base early for the third out."

Here's a rule for you to ponder: "A forfeited game shall be declared by the umpire to the team not at fault...if a team employs tactics noticably designed to delay or hasten the game."

You can rationalize your own actions as "just part of timed game play", but there is no rule that makes these actions legal in "timed game play". In other words, the other team was guilty of cheating, you countered by cheating, then the other team found an even more creative way to cheat.

Somewhere in all this there's a moral about black pots and kettles casting the first stone in a glass house...or something like that...

Sorry to sound so hard on you, but the rules against stalling cut both ways- they also apply to purposely doing things to shorten the game or inning. Two wrongs don't make a right, and from your own words that is exactly what you were doing.

This is why I absolutely HATE drop-dead time limits. I'm not a particularly a fan of any time limits, but if you have to have them at least finish out the inning you're in. That can cut down on some of the bogus tactics, but depending on the game situation you can still get some of these weird happenings.

Introducing a clock into a game not designed to be timed bastardizes the strategy of the game and leads to farcical scenarios like the one described here. For every sport that uses a clock, the teams and coaches have developed strategies for clock management. That is an accepted part of those sports and each has rules designed to addess it.

The problem is that softball has no such rules to address clock management. What you're calling "part of the game" is, in fact, a willful violation of the rules- ie: cheating. When one team is allowed to flaunt the rules and make a mockery of the game, the other team has an incentive to retaliate. Nothing good can come of retaliation. You will almost always get an escalation of actions where one team tries to out-do the other. This can lead to bad blood, hit batters and dangerous play.

And, apparently, theft of the game ball!

So, they cheated, you cheated back, then they cheated to counter your cheating, then you cheated in reaction to their counter-measures, then, finally, the other team cheated in some new way- and that last one seems to have crossed some moral boundary with you.

I agree with everything you say Bretman, except the fact that one team chose to plunk a kid. That to me is crossing the line. Telling a kid to hide the ball in her glove is pretty tasteless as is telling a kid to go up an strike out...but when you're talking about potential injury, it's the next level. We saw stalling and hastening all weekend, guess it's part of what goes on up there, but only saw one team hit a kid, that looked intentional, to stall.

My girls were not told to strikeout on purpose until it was heard from the bench to not make a play at first.

Just to be clear, I would never condone intentionally hitting a batter with a pitch.

Out of curiousity, several have posted to say that the hit batter was "intentional".

What did you see that lets you know, beyond any doubt, that this batter was not hit by accident?

"My girls were not told to strikeout on purpose until it was heard from the bench to not make a play at first."

Like I said- escalation. You stooped to their level, then they tried to top that, then you tried to top that, then.....

You reacted to something you "heard from the bench"? So, did you start striking out on purpose before they actually had the chance to "not make the plays"?

Why not play the game like you're supposed to, then wait and see how they react with the play before instructing your own kids to willfully violate the rules. Put the ball in play, see what happens and if the other team is obviously delaying the game let the umpire deal with it.

If I see a team obviously not trying to make plays in a clock stalling situation, they will be warned to stop this tactic at the risk of forfeit.

(Why do I get the impression that if your own "game hastening" tactics had been successful, and allowed your team to pull out the victory, we wouldn't be reading any posts about that?)

Great way to teach the game coaches!!!! :-/

I see that next years coaches clinics will cover the subject of stalling and delays? Oh sorry thats stealing and delayed stealing of bases!!! ;D

Second time this came up in two weeks on this board of a pitcher taking the ball... Is it the same team? Perhaps there should be a rule "the last player of the inning shall turn the ball over to the ump at the conclusion of the inning" if this is happening more and more...

bizarre....

When will they ever figure out that they need to finish the inning at the Spano Dome?
Without going into details we had a game stolen 2 years ago with blatant stall tactics. Tournament officials stood right there and watched it and one even came to me and said how sorry he was and we were robbed!
You would think they would try to better their tournament, when you think of Spano you think of Drop Dead!

Other tournaments finish the inning and do not get seriously behind and it would add a little class to the tournament.

It sounds like some very bad examples were taught to some of the girls this weekend. Telling a batter to strike out on purpose is kind of like telling the pitcher to intentionally walk a batter. I consider both of those tactics to be part of the defense. The pros walk batters purposely often enough for that to seem okay. However, when they intentionally hit a batter that is always wrong. The dug outs have cleared and many brawls have ensued as a result. Sports in the major leagues have become a win at all costs game plan. Just look at all steroid use corked bats coachs, refs, betting on the games. It's no wonder this stuff goes on in the children's games. The question is who is man enough to stand up to this. Who will set the example for our children. If not our parents maybe the coaches or umpires. It takes a bold person to do the bullying, but a strong person to stand up to what is right. winning is great, but not at all costs!

looks like everyone went to the wrong "Dome"..we played at Ft. Wayne, didn't really see this problem...a TD that worked overtime to meet everyone's needs, from returning torn NSA sweatshirts to umpire complaints...the umpires let us finish every inning unless the home team was at bat and they were ahead...very classy, great facility (now we did play games at 2 in the morning, which was interesting but not necesserily a complaint)
coaches, stay away from DROP DEAD! it's like a bad John Carpenter movie, and come to think of it, most have been bad over the last 20 years, that only results in these "stall" tactics...

Statman Ray said:

.....?it's like a bad John Carpenter movie, and come to think of it, most have been bad over the last 20 years, that only results in these "stall" tactics...

Click to expand...

I loved "The Thing." was that more than 20 years ago.

Also, I have never met parrothead or played the Valley Extreme, but I would be more apt to give parrothead a pass on this one. Seems that his "tactics" are direct result of bush league tactics by the opposing team. He had a choice. Play the game as it should be - a la bretman, OR do something to try to make his girls hard work count. I would assume if he took the high road the opposing team would have won without any reservations OR interference from the umpires. The plain truth is that the majority of the umpires will not address stall tactics. I haven't seen one yet. What the other team did was premeditated and far worse than a reactionary tactic from parrothead, but that is JMHO, and we all know what they say about opinions.

yeah, ringer, and we all know what we think about YOUR opinions
(and statman retires to his life of teaching OAT!)