By Staff
Coaching Management, 13.2, February 2005, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm1302/bbgamemanager.htm
A game administrator to help umpires with off-field matters, and a specification regarding ejected players and coaches are among changes to NCAA baseball rules for 2005. But throwing out the head coach when a player violates the tobacco-use ban is not.
The NCAA Baseball Rules Committee added Rule 3-10, which recommends home teams designate a game administrator who is to make himself or herself known to the umpires and visiting coach before the game begins. The administrator is then to assist with crowd control, weather decisions, ejections, and similar issues. The host school is also asked to provide umpires with a dressing room and security before, during, and after the game.
The committee also changed its ejection policy to state that the ejected person must leave “sight and sound” of the contest. The committee was briefed on situations where ejected coaches still coached after leaving the field or dugout. The committee declined to provide illustrating examples, thinking the policy was clear enough, though Ty Halpin, NCAA staff liaison to the committee, says in many cases being out of “sight and sound” may mean going to the locker room, team bus, or somewhere clearly away from play.
One idea the Rules Committee raised as a point of emphasis for 2005 didn’t become a rules change. The committee proposed ejections for head coaches if one of their players violates the NCAA ban on tobacco use during a contest, but the NCAA Rules Oversight Panel, recently created to better coordinate playing rules, objected to the change. Some panel members had concerns over how fair and enforceable the change would be, according to Halpin.
The major on-field rule addressed for 2005 concerned the force-play slide rule. The Rules Committee added a diagram to more clearly explain the rule, which differs from that in professional baseball in that runners must slide in a straight line toward the base and not interfere with the infielder.
In other changes, the committee:
• Clarified what happens when a base coach assists a runner on a home run. Only the assisted runner will be called out. Other runners are allowed to score.
• Prohibited logos or insignias not related to college baseball on umpires’ uniforms, an issue mostly confined to early-season non-NCAA tournaments.
More information on playing rules is at: www.ncaa.org/news/ 2004/20040830/awide/ 4118n11.html.