Don't like the 10 run rule. We were up by 10 after 6, due mostly to a 6-run 5th inning. Both teams wanted to play the 7th inning, but the ump said his hands were tied. We are paying good money for the opportunity to play, and if both sides are willing, play should continue. Many players can recall comebacks from double digit deficits, so let's keep this chance alive. I hope the board will change this rule. Jim Porter-Manager-WhizKids-55+ Division
The rule sucks - this should not be an "umpire" driven league (as the reason given for this rule is because the umpires asked for consistency). If we hit the 10 run / 5 inning threshold, it should then come down to whether there is a following game, if daylight is waning or if both teams want to quit. But just to stop there when there aren't any other factors driving it is foolish. Again - players are missing out on the game time that they have paid for.
May I venture here for the opposing point of view. umpires aside . the ten runs @ 5 at bats is fairly arbitrary to define a game no longer reasonably compettive and within reach with 6 more outs. but several leagues use ten and 5. can we use more and satisfy opponents of this rule? is it 12, 15, 20? Or is the opposition standing to the purest sense of the game to be played to its natural 39-42 outs.
I think as old guys we just want to play ball........even if the game is out of reach a great hit, defensive play, double play etc is reason enough to play.
What was bothersome is that there was only 30 minutes of real good daylight left. What's another half hour? Plus, it was not a slopy game. It was well-played and both teams really wanted to continue playing. Just another stupid rule that I keep fighting against on the board level. We PAY TO PLAY, guys. Stop the BS and let us play and get what we pay for. Umps are paid for 7 innings of work. And I don't give a rats butt if other leagues have a mercy rule. The majority of our players don't want it. Restore the Poll of the Week question and find out. JimK
How about if the league strived for more of a competitive balance and helped to ensure that the mercy rule would only take effect a few times per year instead of four or five times per week?
I can def. see the arguments for both sides. My question is this..........from one of the last posts about making the league more equal. Do guys come to the game just wanting to hang out with there BFF's or are they coming to try and win and play baseball? I know its a rec. league but when I come to the field not to win then I need to hang up my cliets because I do not play half ass and not giving 100 percent on every at bat or play in the field would be terrible and I would be disgracing the game of baseball.
Its all about recruiting non league members. I started the 25 rockies this year. I had 3 guys who played in the league before but I had to go out and get 17 other guys and fill my roster. Its a headache and a real pain in the rear but its worth it and I would never want to ask for help in recruiting guys because that would mean I was not doing my job as a manager.
I don't enjoy blow- outs on either side. I thought no one did. I wonder how many games are really "ten runned" . I wonder like Rob if the real problem is the parity issue. i also wonder how many players would like to have games run their natural course of 39-42 outs whatever the score. I owdner how mnay of those are pitchers and catchers. I wonder how much more we pay umps to work under those conditions since this works into our prices. I really wonder if we are hitting the mark on our products and have a league for all comers or really one for just the more competitive . some teams cut players and recruit only talent, others have to take on the less talented just to field a team and pay the fees. the game where these varying and opposed team cultures meet is run rule territory. do we lessen the amount of teams and get more compettive ones or try to lessen the meeting of these two cultures. you tell me.
I think that we are trying to rehaul something that just needs to be tweaked. Why don't we just make it a 15-run rule, instead of the 10-run rule. That should be good enough for the umpires. If you can't keep the score within 15 runs in 5 to 7 innings, then you don't deserve to keep playing. Don't put pitchers on the mound that don't belong there and we should have very few games that fall into the 15-run category. John, you have created a wonderful league where the "just happy to be playing" guys can co-exist with the "win at all cost" guys. Don't try to fix something that isn't broken for the extremists on either side. We can't make everybody happy all the time. We shouldn't try. Just keep going with your gut feeling. It has been solid for many years.
jreel wrote:
I don't enjoy blow- outs on either side. I thought no one did. I wonder how many games are really "ten runned" . I wonder like Rob if the real problem is the parity issue. i also wonder how many players would like to have games run their natural course of 39-42 outs whatever the score. I owdner how mnay of those are pitchers and catchers. I wonder how much more we pay umps to work under those conditions since this works into our prices. I really wonder if we are hitting the mark on our products and have a league for all comers or really one for just the more competitive . some teams cut players and recruit only talent, others have to take on the less talented just to field a team and pay the fees. the game where these varying and opposed team cultures meet is run rule territory. do we lessen the amount of teams and get more compettive ones or try to lessen the meeting of these two cultures. you tell me.
I really wonder if we are hitting the mark on our products and have a league for all comers or really one for just the more competitive . some teams cut players and recruit only talent, others have to take on the less talented just to field a team and pay the fees. the game where these varying and opposed team cultures meet is run rule territory. do we lessen the amount of teams and get more compettive ones or try to lessen the meeting of these two cultures. you tell me.
Well thought out John. I have toiled over this for many years. I have many, many ideas regarding this but I have heard that some of the ideas brought up in league off-season meetings get shot down.
I would be willing to make some proposals but I would warn that they would be far from the status quo and would require some open minds thinking outside the box.
- "Why don't we just make it a 15-run rule, instead of the 10-run rule. That should be good enough for the umpires." - mgirard
Honestly? Whats the difference between 15 runs and 10 runs? Both games that end like that suck for both teams. The losing team hates getting beat like that and the winning team always walks away feeling like they've wasted their time.
- "If you can't keep the score within 15 runs in 5 to 7 innings, then you don't deserve to keep playing. Don't put pitchers on the mound that don't belong there and we should have very few games that fall into the 15-run category." - mgirard
Frankly: that attitude sucks. Rather than try to fix something that isnt working for ANYONE, why not just call out the crappy players and blame them? Its all their fault.
- "John, you have created a wonderful league where the 'just happy to be playing' guys can co-exist with the 'win at all cost' guys." - mgirard
But you just said you dont deserve playing and players who dont belong, so either John HASNT done a good job or youre talking out of both sides of your mouth. The ten run rule sucks for part of your argument and it works just fine for other parts. It sounds to me like you either dont know what you want, or youre too afraid to call out particular people. So which is it?
- "Don't try to fix something that isn't broken for the extremists on either side. We can't make everybody happy all the time. We shouldn't try. Just keep going with your gut feeling. It has been solid for many years." - mgirard
Yeah John. Dont fix anything. Ignore the fact that this thread has more posts than any other thread and has sparked some serious discussion. Clearly the 10-run rule is perfectly fine and the people in the majority here are just extremists doing nothing but complaining.
Rather than address the rule, why not address THE PROBLEM? The league has a serious DIS-parity issue and every year suggestions are made to make the league more balanced in terms of talent. The one valid point Mike made was that there are clearly two differing cultures out there: There are the win at all costs teams and the just kinda happy to be playing teams. Why then, I ask, are these teams forced to play each other more than one time per season? Couldnt you eliminate the alarming regularity of 10-run rule games by not having the not-so-good teams play the powerhouses more than once per season? What would be so bad about two divisions? One division with all the powerhouses and one division with the not-so-much-a-powerhouses? What would be so bad? You play everyone in your division three times and everyone in the other division one time. Youll get about 20 games that way and everyones on a fairly level playing field. Each division gets its own playoffs and the winners of each playoff dont even necessarily HAVE to play for an ultimate champion unless they want to?
Every year the parity issue is brought up and nobody can solve it because the good teams will always recruit the good players and the bad teams just get the scraps. Thats the way its always been. Why not acknowledge that and play it as a strength and not as a weakness?
The 10-run rule is a symptom and by addressing the rule only youre only treating a symptom and not the illness. You wont have to change the rule if you just fix the problem.
-- Edited by The_Hurricane on Wednesday 22nd of July 2009 01:49:51 PM
-- Edited by The_Hurricane on Wednesday 22nd of July 2009 01:51:23 PM
I can def. see the arguments for both sides. My question is this..........from one of the last posts about making the league more equal. Do guys come to the game just wanting to hang out with there BFF's or are they coming to try and win and play baseball? I know its a rec. league but when I come to the field not to win then I need to hang up my cliets because I do not play half ass and not giving 100 percent on every at bat or play in the field would be terrible and I would be disgracing the game of baseball.
Its all about recruiting non league members. I started the 25 rockies this year. I had 3 guys who played in the league before but I had to go out and get 17 other guys and fill my roster. Its a headache and a real pain in the rear but its worth it and I would never want to ask for help in recruiting guys because that would mean I was not doing my job as a manager.
Quite honestly I can't think of one person who comes to the field wanting to lose. I am on a team that is 1-13 and has been mercy-ruled at least four times. It's not fun to lose. I don't enjoy it, my team doesn't enjoy it. But we don't go home and kick our dog when it happens. Some of us have a bit of perspective and we realize that Major League scouts aren't coming to watch our games. Some of us have lives outside of AMATUER baseball and treat this as a means to satisfy our competitive apetite while enjoying being outdoors and playing baseball.
It's not all about recruiting non-league members. It is for you; it isn't necessarily about that for everyone. Some of us like the guys we're playing with. Sure, we'd love to win some ball games - we'd love to win them all - but we aren't willing to sacrifice what we have in the dugout for a few extra wins.
Why can't the league provide an environment for those teams too? There certainly seems to be enough of them.
If we are not willing to go to a draft to equalize the competitive balance, then we shouldn't enforce mecy rules because we are doing nothing to alleviate the problem.
Then we also allow lower teams' best players to leave and go to a better team, then tell that lower team it can't play 7 innings because it is not good enough to stay within 10 runs in a game against that same team the player went to? You've got to be kidding! We allow a team to lose its best player, then penalize it as well! I don't get it. Change the rules. Create balance. And with a particular vote the board just took, players will soon see that there will be no chance in hell parity will ever exist. We created this mess, so the least we can do is follow the rule and let the trailing team decide if the game should continue. According to what we have now, if a team trailing by 10 or more after 5 wants to quit, it can. Period.
YES, many of you are right! It's an AMATEUR league, RECREATION baseball. OK, so strong teams don't like playing weaker teams or batting against pitchers that don't belong out there. But hell, guys, you've already had to play 5 innings, so what's another two? And in most cases, those games only go 6 innings anyway because they run into darkness.
THIS IS A LEAGUE FOR PAYING PLAYERS who want to play baseball. It's not a league for the board or league officers. If you want a competitive league, then reduce the divisions in half. That won't happen because no one on the board or any league officers want to sacrifice the money we generate from team fees. And Steve Sigler in NYC would have a fit if we did that.
So, take the money, but don't take away the game as it was intended by rule: 7 innings of baseball.
If we are not willing to go to a draft to equalize the competitive balance, then we shouldn't enforce mecy rules because we are doing nothing to alleviate the problem.
Then we also allow lower teams' best players to leave and go to a better team, then tell that lower team it can't play 7 innings because it is not good enough to stay within 10 runs in a game against that same team the player went to? You've got to be kidding! We allow a team to lose its best player, then penalize it as well! I don't get it. Change the rules. Create balance. And with a particular vote the board just took, players will soon see that there will be no chance in hell parity will ever exist. We created this mess, so the least we can do is follow the rule and let the trailing team decide if the game should continue. According to what we have now, if a team trailing by 10 or more after 5 wants to quit, it can. Period.
YES, many of you are right! It's an AMATEUR league, RECREATION baseball. OK, so strong teams don't like playing weaker teams or batting against pitchers that don't belong out there. But hell, guys, you've already had to play 5 innings, so what's another two? And in most cases, those games only go 6 innings anyway because they run into darkness.
THIS IS A LEAGUE FOR PAYING PLAYERS who want to play baseball. It's not a league for the board or league officers. If you want a competitive league, then reduce the divisions in half. That won't happen because no one on the board or any league officers want to sacrifice the money we generate from team fees. And Steve Sigler in NYC would have a fit if we did that.
So, take the money, but don't take away the game as it was intended by rule: 7 innings of baseball.
