Report to Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Commission
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Consent
SUBJECT:
Title
2A DIVISION YOUTH BASEBALL AND SOFTBALL BATTING RULE CHANGE
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I. SUMMARY
During the 2022 Youth T-Ball/Baseball/Softball Season Recap Meeting attended by the Recreation Center Supervisors, Youth Sports Coordinator, and Recreation Program Manager supervising Youth Sports, a consensus was reached to apply the batting rule that currently exists for the 1A Baseball and Softball Divisions (all players bat) to the 2A Baseball and Softball Divisions. Specifically, 1A Divisions in baseball and softball will bat a lineup that includes all of a team’s players present at a game, as opposed to the 9 participants currently playing on defense, which is the standard rule for baseball and softball. By batting a lineup of all players present, there is a greater likelihood that every player will have the opportunity to bat once per game. Prior to this change, there could be several times a season when players would not have a chance to bat because their place in the batting order was never reached. II. RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
RECEIVE and FILE report.
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III. ALTERNATIVES
TAKE any other action the Commission deems appropriate.IV. BACKGROUND
All sports offered in the City of Carson’s Youth Sports Program have “minimum play” rules in place so that each participant will have the opportunity to play some portion of each game. For basketball and flag football, it is one complete quarter. For soccer it is one-half of each game, which can be split between the two halves. For baseball and softball, it is a minimum of 2 innings.
Basketball, flag football, and soccer have timed quarters/halves, so games will always be played to completion except in cases where a “mercy rule” (ending the game due to a large difference in the score) is invoked. However, baseball and softball innings are not timed, so almost every game is ended due to the time limit being reached and not because all the innings (5 for 1A, 6 for 2A, and 7 for 3A/4A) of a game have been played. Moreover, the other 3 sports have an almost continuous back-and-forth between playing offense and defense during quarters/halves, but baseball and softball can have long periods of time while one team is on offense and the other is on defense.
As a result of this circumstance, a rule change was made many years ago to have the 1A Divisions in baseball and softball bat a lineup that includes all a team’s players present at a game, as opposed to the 9 players currently playing on defense, which is the standard rule for baseball and softball. By batting a lineup of all players present, there is a greater likelihood that every player will have at least one opportunity to bat once per game. Prior to this change, there could be several times a season when players would not be able to bat because their place in the batting order never came up.
Beginning with the 2023 season, Division 2A will have this rule applied to its games. Thereafter, staff will evaluate the impact of this change, and perhaps extend this rule to 3A and 4A Divisions in 2024.V. FISCAL IMPACT
None.VI. EXHIBITS
None.
Prepared by: Scott Griffee, Recreation Program Manager