What rule is being broken??

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watching a 12U game last weekend...

team has 10 girls. his pitcher gets a hit to lead off the inning, he courtesy runs with his one girl on the bench (his tenth girl). a few batters later, with said courtesy runner still on base, his catcher gets on. now, coach wants to run for his catcher as well but has no subs left. he reverts to using the last out as a courtesy runner.

the umpire and the other team allowed it but man did it smell funny. my conclusion was that everyone, including him, knew he was breaking the rules, but no one could point to what rule he was breaking.

thoughts?

 

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Depends on the sanction and also what the tourney allows for courtesy runners.
It varies widely.
Some use last possible out, last batted out, anyone off the bench, etc.
Also you can get into the situation where you want a runner for your catcher and its the pitcher, with some rules you can go back to yet an earlier batter.
So not necessarily breaking the rules.

 

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"Varies widely" is probably an understatement!

Just going by the standard rules in the rule book alone, I can think of about a half-dozen variations to courtesy runner rules, depending on the sanctioning body.

Then, throw in the fact that many tournaments and leagues add their own special rules for courtesy runners on top of that. So, there isn't really any one standard rule that fits every possible scenario. You need to know the specific rule that applies for your association/league/tournament.

 

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The Fastptich Showdowns rules for example allow for courtesy runner to be someone from the bench or last batted out. In one of those tournaments, the scenario you applied would be no problem at all.

 

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I think the "spirit" of the rule was followed in that he didn't get to choose who he wanted to run. Subs, last out, last batted out, whats the dif?

 

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Typically you either have standard Bat 9 rules, which means a courtesy runner has to be a sub who has not yet entered the game, or you have bat the entire roster rules where you use the last out. If it is 1st inning and there are no outs yet then the last kid listed on the batting order would be the first courtesy runner and the second to last would be the second courtesy runner (assuming no outs and pitcher and catcher both reach base).