| LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR CHANGE IN NSAA RULES AND REGULATIONS | ||||
| Title: | Baseball - End of Game | |||
| Author: | Dallas Sweet | |||
| School: | Malcolm | |||
| NSAA District: | 1 | |||
| Proposal for: | Activities Manual | |||
| Classes Affected: | Class A Class B Class C | |||
| Activities Affected: | Baseball | |||
| This proposal: | WILL NOT increase costs to the school WILL NOT increase costs to the NSAA WILL NOT increase travel for participating schools WILL NOT decrease a student's or coach's instruction time | |||
| Implementation date: | 2027-08-01 | |||
| Sections affected in Activities Manual: | Page 12 | Article | Section | |
| Summary: | Add to the baseball manual an End of Game (Run Rule) section: Baseball games are scheduled for seven innings. A game shall end after two and one-half innings or three innings when a team is 12 or more runs behind and has completed its turn at bat; or shall end after three and one-half or four innings, when a team is 10 or more runs behind and has completed its turn at bat; or shall end after four and one-half or five innings, when a team is 8 or more runs behind and has completed its turn at bat. These rules apply to regular season, Sub-District, District and State Championship play. | |||
| Rationale: | This makes the ending for baseball consistent with the ending of softball games in terms of run rule. Baseball is extremely difficult to play the game 'the right way' when you are having a much better day than your opponent, and to play the game out in a classy manor. If you don't run hard on the bases it looks bad, if you bunt and the opponent doesn't field the ball well it looks bad, and unlike softball you can't leave the base early in baseball and be called out. No coach wants to tell batters to swing at everything to get out of an inning. Putting a run rule in place can assist both teams in getting out of a game sooner that's become out of hand. | |||
| Pros: | Consistent with our NSAA Softball rules Allows teams to play the game 'the right way' and still have games not drag on for hours when one team is winning by a large margin. | |||
| Cons: | A team could potentially come back from an 8 run deficit, even if it doesn't happen very often. | |||