By Matt Tasler/sports@trcle.com
July 01, 2009 12:30 am
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One of the greatest things about youth baseball and softball is the mercy rule.
Depending on the league’s rules, mercy rules typically follow this pattern.
If a baseball team is ahead by 10 or more runs after five innings, the game is called.
In softball, the rule is stretched a bit to include the game’s cancelation if one team is ahead by 15 runs at the end of three frames.
The baseball rule of a 10-run lead after five innings also applies in softball.
While the rule was put into place with good intentions, there needs to be some leeway shown and league officials should be able to halt a game whenever they see that it has gotten out of hand.
On Monday night in Glen Rose, a Cleburne Pony League squad scored eight runs in the second inning to take a 9-2 lead against a team from Stephenville.
The advantage stretched to 15-2 at the end of the third inning and was 19-2 after four innings.
Yes, the Stephenville team didn’t quit and scored a pair of runs in the fifth on the way to a 19-4 loss, but I doubt even the coaches and players in that dugout felt they had a chance of pulling off the upset once Cleburne took the seemingly insurmountable lead.
At the Little League level it seems like once a team has clearly proven its dominance over another, the game should be called regardless of the score.
That rule should extend to high school games at the discretion of area districts, but I have seen high school teams rally from large deficits to win or at least make it interesting several times during my sports journalism career.
In 2003, when I was covering games for the Galveston County Daily News, I was assigned to cover a matchup of two Class 4A teams in our coverage area.
After the first inning, one of the teams held a 9-1 lead and I figured the game was over and I would have an early end to my night at the ballpark.
I called the sports editor and told him the game would probably end early via the mercy rule, but he said not to be so sure.
Was he ever right.
I don’t recall the final score, but the home team rallied and eventually lost 9-7 or 9-8 and the game didn’t end until 10:30 p.m. or so.
There went the early end to my night.
If only the mercy rule had included eight run leads after one inning.
Matt Tasler can be reached at 817-645-2441, Ext. 2334
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