About that Pitching Rule . . .

[Central Region Tom]

"Was Great Bridge High's baseball team beaten Sunday for the Group AAA state title by an illegal pitcher?" begins this piece over at HamptonRoads.com.

The bottom line, as we discussed here last week at length, is that the VHSL rule was written with a gap - a situation that wasn't addressed by the rule, as written. So, the answer to the above question is "No, because it's not illegal if the VHSL says it isn't."

I can understand the frustration on both sides with trying to parse the rule, but, to the credit of both Great Bridge's Coach Sean Townsend and Hanover's Coach Charlie Dragum, they were both very careful to make sure they knew what the rule was before Sunday.

I have little doubt that the rule will be modified before next year to make it clear that pitching one inning on what would be the third or fourth rest day will not constitute a non-rest day (or words to that effect).

 

[Midlo Dad]

I don't think there was a gap at all. The rule says that a long outing requires four days of rest before a guy can go past 3 innings. A day when a guy pitches is not a day of rest. I honestly don't know how anyone who passed high school English could misunderstand it.

The Pilot article says that there was a preseason meeting that essentially told everyone that they would apply the rule as it was applied this week. So no one got ambushed and they handled it as apparently had been done all year. The outcome is therefore fair and just.

So the confusion lies not in how the rule was written, but in having written a rule differently from what they intended. How it was written is common to all rules -- there are multiple tests for eligibility, and you have to check them all because you have to comply with them all. If one rule is permissive and another is prohibitive, you can't do it. Everyone knows this. There are similar rules in Little League, for example, so baseball people all have ample experience in how to read and apply these rules.

VHSL now has 8 months to decide if it wants to enforce the rule as written, or to rewrite it to conform to what it really meant to say. I just hope they don't leave it as is and then keep the same interpretation. It would be quite ironic for an organization built around student athletes to insist stubbornly on abusing the English language.

 

[Central Region Tom]

I think it's not as clear-cut as you're making it out to be, as we discussed at length last week. Having said that, I agree that the most logical reading (e.g. if we were before a judge) would be that a day in which a pitcher pitches cannot be a "rest" day.

To play devil's advocate, though, I would argue that the rule basically has three different kinds of days: Days in which a pitcher does not pitch, days in which a pitcher pitches to an extent that triggers mandatory rest, and days in which a pitcher pitches to an extent that does not trigger mandatory rest.

My argument would have been that the latter category would not "reset" the rest clock for someone who had already had three rest days.

While your argument may prevail more often than not, I bet I could find a few judges who would have bought what I was selling, even as you protested that I was clearly destroying the English language with my reading.

This post was edited on 6/11 7:06 PM by Central Region Tom

 

[Midlo Dad]

True. Judges do what they can but then, they are sometimes in error. That's why we have courts of appeal!

What I would say is, the one-inning day doesn't have to "reset" the clock, in the sense that you don't have to now start over to accumulate 4 days of rest. But somewhere in there he still has to have that 4th day of rest. So to my reading, he would've been eligible for 6 on Monday. If you had to "reset" the clock, that would mean he wouldn't have been eligible for more than 3 innings until Thursday (tomorrow). Though by then he would've been eligible for up to the daily max of 9 innings, as that would be the "limit of the rule" by that time. (Of course that would be irrelevant at this point, as the season ended Sunday, but if we were talking about this in April you'd be rolling into the next week of the season.)

To fix the rule to say what they now say they meant it to say, they need to add a clause that defines a "day of rest" to include BOTH (a) a calendar day when the player does not pitch, AND (b) a calendar day when a player, otherwise eligible, pitches not more than one inning.

One concern I have is that rules of this nature are typically adopted by vote of a governing board. The fact that an administrative person interpreted the rule this way, even if he did it that way all year long, would be troubling if that one guy were essentially trying to win an argument he lost back when the governing board voted. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at the next VHSL meeting, to see if someone on the board is hot under the collar when they find out a staff person took it upon himself to, in effect, change the rule.

In other words, one of you erstwhile reporters should ask, "Was this really what the board wanted? Or did the staff person screw this up?"

 

[Central Region Tom]

Honestly, I think they should have gotten someone involved in the process who has some background in legislative writing. That wouldn't have been a guarantee, but at least the rule would have been drafted without any ambiguity or an application contrary to what is suggested by the text.

My bigger concern, which I've referenced before, is how all the new realignment and playoff procedures (most of which aren't even codified at all at this point) could potentially run into a similar problem this coming school year.

 

[Midlo Dad]

Yeah, they messed up the pitching rule, and that is a tiny matter compared to the mess they've made out of realignment. Once they get into the details of that, no telling how bad it'll get.

 

[facts17]

There should be no doubt about the pitching rule. VHSL has been training at NCAA Headquarters.

 

[wgarlick]

I believe Connor Jones of Great Bridge threw 27 pitches in two innings the day before the championship while Derek Casey tossed 18 pitches in one inning. Connor also had more "rest" with the game finishing around 6PM compared to 9PM for Hanover. However, if the coaches knew what the rule meant, regardless of how it was stated, then everything was on fair.

The rule would have been a non-factor if not for the rain. If the rules could have been changed to allow a high school game on Sunday then they could have been modified to allow a Jones vs Casey final since it was the last game AAA game of the year.

 

[Hampton Roads 6]

If a pitcher pitches an inning on any given day, it is not a day of rest. I say if a pitcher came into a game and threw one pitch, then that day is not a day of rest.

A day of rest is one in which a pitcher does not pitch in a game.


VHSL needs to tweak the rule to make it easier to understand, and they need to "cover all the bases", and leave nothing open to discussion.

 

[GoMBKMonarchs]

Actually, it should be a pitch count rule

Innings shouldn't determine rest and availability- pitch count should. I'm not familiar with the rule. But, from the posts, it would seem the VHSL is stuck in a time gone by. Even Little League uses pitch count now.

 

[Hampton Roads 6]

Good article in RTD


Richmond paper had a good article in yesterday's paper on the VHSL rule. It appears to me, that even though one of the pitcher's pitched in a game Saturday, that day was counted as a day of rest. that is impossible. if he pitched, it was not a day of rest.