Game Day

Game Balls

The game balls to be provided by the home team. It is advisable to use “Safety” i.e. soft baseballs or if you don’t have baseballs, “Safety (soft)” softballs.

Umpires

Umpires are to be provided by the home team.  If an umpire is not available, the schools can assign a coach from one of the teams to act as the umpire.

Scores

Each team is responsible to keep a record of the scores of games they are involved in.

Weather

The home team will monitor the weather and ground conditions and will inform the visiting team if the game has to be cancelled.   

 

League Rules

The following rules shall apply to this league competition:

 

Resolving Ties in League Standings. 

In the event of two or more teams finishing in a tie, either by virtue of identical won-lost records or where teams have played an unequal number of games but the “Games Behind” difference between them is zero, the tie would be broken by using the following criteria in the order given:

·         The head-to-head results between the tied teams should be used to establish placings;

·         If still level, then the team that has conceded the fewest runs per game in games between or among the tied teams is placed first, the team that has conceded the next fewest number of runs per game in those games is placed second, and so on;

·         If still level, then the number of runs per game conceded by the tied teams across the whole of the competition should be used to determine placings.

·         If still level, the tie would be broken by a toss of a coin.

 

 

Main Rules of the Game.

You can view the video shown on the right and some of the main points below for a quick introduction to the rules of the game.

 

1.       The strike zone is between knee and chest height of the batter over the width of the home plate.

2.       A pitch that passes through the strike zone without the batter swinging, or is swung at and missed or swung at and hit into foul territory is a strike. A pitch that misses this area without being swung at is a ball.

3.       3 strikes and the batter is out.

4.       A batter cannot strikeout on a foul ball i.e. If with 2 strikes the batter makes contact with the ball and it goes into foul territory, he/she is not out (unless caught in the air by a fielder).

5.       If the pitcher throws 4 balls (i.e. pitches thrown outside the strike zone) the batter advances to 1st base automatically.

6.       If the pitcher throws a pitch and the ball hits the batter, the batter advances to 1st base automatically.

7.       The batter’s objective is to hit the ball into fair territory.  Fair territory is the area between the two foul lines.

8.       If batters hit the ball into fair territory they have to run towards 1st base.

9.       A run is scored when the batter touches bases 1, 2, 3 and 4 consecutively – not necessarily all in one go.

10.   Runners must step on each base as they advance from one base to the next. They cannot go around the base.

11.   A runner can stop at a base if they feel that they risk being tagged out between bases if they try to advance to the next base. However, two runners cannot stand on the same base i.e. one of them needs to advance to the next base or return to the previous base if it is empty.

12.   The fielding team needs to get three outs to end the inning.

13.   To get outs, a batter can be:

a.       caught out (ball caught by a fielder in the air before it hits the ground)

b.      struck out (3 strikes against the batter)

c.       tagged out (base-runner not standing on a base and touched by a fielder who is holding the ball)

d.      forced out (ball beats the runner to a base, in which case the fielder can just step on the base while holding the ball). No need to tag the runner in a force out play.  A force out can occur only on first base or on the other three bases but only if all previous bases are occupied.

14.   Runners who are already on base can advance when the ball is hit into fair territory, however if the ball is caught in the air the runner must return to their original base otherwise they can be “forced out” if a fielder steps on that base while holding the ball before the runner returns to the base.

 

Modification of rules for different age groups. 

The following are the recommended simplified game rules for the respective age group.  Teams have the flexibility to agree modified rules before the start of the game, provided that both teams agree the proposed modification. If the two teams fail to agree on a specific rule modification, the following table will apply.