I just want to qualify this by pointing out that in the first two innings, hitting long balls is a good way to spread out the outfield, leaving more room for those Texas-leaguers to drop.
The league I played in two summers ago, that played in parks with pretty small outfields, had a great rule: a team could only have one home run more than the other. If, for example, your team had two home runs in the game and the other team had only one, anything over the fence was an out - until, or unless, the other team hit another homer. It basically forced you to be a punch hitter.
Our league restricts each team to three homers per game. I can’t remember the rule ever needing to be enforced. The most homers i remember by any one team is 2 in a game.
This was our problem the other night when we lost. They were hitting low flys to short LF/LC all night and scoring runs while we were flying out inning after inning.
As far as taking a pitch goes alot of the teams in our league do it the first inning or so to rattle the pitcher, I just think we should be fighting fire with fire, though I can appreciate the spirit of hitting what you can. If everyone did that I would too. The pitches that should be avoided at all costs though are the ones that require you to step out of the batters box to swing at the thing. Our guys will swing at ANYTHING that CAN be hit, regardless of how ugly.
We don’t pay anything to play in our base leauge so I’m lucky here, but it’s barely organized though.
I used to play in a girl’s league in high school, and I still can’t believe I stuck with it until I was 16 (the cut-off for bantam).
My main issue was positions. Alright, I can see the logic behind having the better people playing infield and having them out of the field more often., but do you have to put them ALL infield EVERY inning, and leave the 5+ outfielders playing maybe 4 innings a game? I came here to have FUN, not spend half my time standing in right field (absolutely the most boring position to play) and the other half on the bench. If I wanted to spend my time sitting around I’d play more video games! Did I mention we had to pay to play in this league?
Then there was the one time we went to a provincial tournament. It was the first time we’d fielded a team, and we didn’t get a rulebook. We lost a game that we were doing well on due to a technicality that we didn’t know about. We still managed to make it to the finals, and ended up beating the team that we lost to before then (the only team we lost to–it was double elimination) later on, but still…
I preferred to bring them in over my first couple of at-bats and then drive it over their heads. It seems to take longer for them to adjust after they see you as one type of hitter.
I’m also trying to remember playing anywhere that the other team couldn’t get to a Texas leaguer. Those softballs seem to hang up there forever when you put them up in the air like that.
Id have to agree with taking the first pitch. I played back in the 80’s and early 90’s, Probably the heyday of slow pitch soft ball.
We played in fairly high level leagues in and around the houston area and tournaments accross the state.
Anyway I was a punch hitter. I could damn near hit a ball anywhere I wanted. Some of the better teams got to know my penchant for hitting to right that they would shift to the right as soon as the pitcher released the ball. So after the first pitch I knew if there was a play on. Then I could yank it to left side. (then we still played 3-4 or 2-3 with a foul on third strike still a strike rules so that might make a difference).
Jeez I wish I was 20 years younger! Sure do miss it!!
Actually, my real rec league softball gripe is that we don’t play it like this:
Umpire: Okay, let’s go over the ground rules.
You can’t leave first until you chug a beer.
Any man scoring has to chug a beer.
You have to chug a beer at the top of all odd-numbered innings.
Oh, and the fourth inning is the beer inning.
I resemble that remark!
Well, actually I don’t, at least not most of the time. I’m not a small guy, but I’ve found whenever I try to turn on the ball, I hit it directly to the left fielder, often so that s/he didn’t have to run. When I take a little off my swing, I could place the ball at the weakest fielder. I could pop singles over the second baseman and into right field with amazing regularity. But some of my teammates would grouse that I wasn’t ‘hitting’ the ball, and sometimes ego would get the better of me. Ego = out.
I’m just pissed that I can’t find a damn team to play on :mad: .
I need to get to know more people around here.
Not sure where you are, but when my rec league team needed an extra couple of players last year, we advertised on the internet. There are a couple of sites devoted specifically to helping ballplayers and team find one another, and Craigslist has also worked for us.
Really? I never thought about checking the internet - I’ll do some searching. I’ve really been wanting to play on a team, and a girlfriend is on a rec team, but they’re up in Akron, which is a bit of a trek on a work night.
Thanks! I’m probably a little late for this year, but that’ll be something to keep in mind for next year.
We’ll have to try that, too, mhendo. My husband likes to play softball, and I like to keep score.
Our gripes with the teams we’ve been with:
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We don’t have any first pitch rules like starting at 1-1; if first pitch is a strike, you get called for a strike. You only get three and you aren’t Barry Bonds, so swing away at anything that looks good, first, second, or last pitch.
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People who won’t run full out after they hit a ball. The fielders on these teams aren’t very good; they will often drop easy outs. RUN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!
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Guys with big egos who won’t take walks (but will take the strike-out as they swing at something at their eyebrows).
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We self-ump in the leagues we’re in; some are definitely better than others. My least favourite is the umps who keep the calls to themselves - if it’s a borderline fair ball, call it out, brother! Our team needs to know what you’ve decided! And, you know, put your beer down while umping and try to pay attention to the plays. As the scorekeeper, I’m often paying a helluva lot more attention than the umps.
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Pitchers who act like spectators. Every time we miss an easy out at first because the pitcher didn’t move his ass over there to cover like he’s supposed to drives me crazy.
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I know these teams are just for fun, but we also keep score. If you say you’ll be on the team, and we play the same days every week, there isn’t much excuse for you making one game all year. And yes, it is a rec league, but a practice once in awhile won’t kill anyone. My husband is a certified coach; if he’s willing to put in his time to give people pointers a couple times per season, take the opportunity, people. We might actually stop sucking so badly then, and that would make the games more fun.
We’re looking for a team that takes softball as seriously as we do, which is more seriously than guys who play with a beer in one hand, but not deadly serious.
I had the same problem when I was in school. Only rec league ANYTHING I ever played. The school made rules so ghetto for “safety” it was ridiculous.
The worst rule (I’m not sure if anyone else has heard about this) was a “commit line” 2/3 of the way from 3rd to Home. Once you hit that line you HAD to go home and as such could be put out via “force.” The fielder never even had to make the tag even if you were the only person on base. Run the guy pass the “commit line” then gently lob to the catcher for the “force.” It made trying to score a joke.
Rules can be made “ghetto” for safety? That’s an…odd…turn of a phrase. Having played in some in my youth, the main rule I remember was “no autopsy, no foul”[sup]1[/sup]
[sup]1[/sup]Shamelessly stolen from Billy Crystal in Running Scared
Comedian Tim Wilson does a song called Church League Softball Fistfight.
Had to mention it.
Even more annoying than when your own players don’t turn up is when the other team doesn’t turn up, and fails to give you sufficient warning, so you stand around on the field with no-one to play.
My less-serious league is a grad student intramural league, and this has happened to us twice. On one occasion, the captain of the other team emailed about an hour before the start of the game (not enough notice; i usually arrive at the ground at least 40 minutes early) and told us that, because a lot of her team members work in DC, they wouldn’t be able to make the game and would have to forfeit.
Now, call me crazy, but you’ve known since the beginning of the season that today’s game was at 5.30. You’ve also known since the beginning of the season that you work in DC, and have no chance of making it back to Baltimore by 5.30. So why the fuck do you inform us of the fact one hour before the game is due to start?
And why the fuck would you sign up for a league in which at least half your players will be absent for every single game???
By the way, on the issue of long baseball-style pants: i agree that they can look pretty bad if they’re too tight, and that a few people who wear them take the whole thing way too seriously. But, that said, i’ve contemplated buying myself a pair, because i get a bit tired of my legs and knees being all skinned up for the duration of the season.
I hacked up my right knee sliding into third on the first game of the season, and it wasn’t completely healed for about 6 weeks, because every time i fell or dived or slid, it would open up again. Painful and annoying.
My biggest gripe is pussies who play with that little ball and use gloves, and claim they are playing softball! If it ain’t 16", it’s kittenball! (Someone had to say it!) 
Other than that, inigo pegged it for me. Used to drive me crazy when you’d have 14 guys for the Tuesday night game, everyone would say they’d be there Friday, and then come Friday you’re trying to talk some guy’s girlfriend into catching so you don’t forfeit.
As far as coaches stopping runners, not me. I used to love coaching 3d, when one of our older or more out-of-shape guys would come lumbering around from 1st, with the old piano on his back. You could tell he was just begging you to hold hime up. No way! I’d be likely to wave him on in just for grins!
I never played in a rec league, but I played several seasons of church league softball. I finally got fed up with it and quit.
Some general gripes:
No umpires provided: Teams had to provide their own umps. I got so freakin’ tired of games where there was no official, league-designated rules arbiter. By “rules”, I mean the rules added on by the league, not the official slow-pitch softball rules. This leads to people making up rules on the spot, usually something they’re pretty sure they read in the rule handout that was given to coaches at the start of the season (the handout that somehow is never brought to an actual game, by anybody).
True story: Our team managed to bat around in one inning, and in the process opened up a pretty good lead over the other team. As our first batter of the inning was stepping to the plate for the second time, somebody on the other team piped up about a “rule” that says if a team bats around before making three outs, their half of the inning ends and they have to take the field and give the other team a turn at bat.
There was some argument, as nobody on our team had ever heard of this “rule”. However, it was pretty clear that the woman who quoted the “rule” was going to argue all night if she had to. Our coach decided that a) we had a pretty good lead, and b) it’s more fun to play ball than to stand around arguing, so he told our players to grab their gloves and take the field, and let the other team have their way. Okay, cool. No biggie.
It would have been no biggie had it ended there.
A couple innings later the other team came up to bat, and thanks to the strong wind that had come up our pitcher suddenly couldn’t throw a strike. As a result, between walks and hits, the other team batted all the way through their order. Their final batter is at the plate. Our pitcher, still fighting the wind, threw four consecutive balls, walking the batter.
At this point, the same woman who had brought up the “rule” earlier started sputtering. “Wait, you can’t walk him!” Say what? “Since he’s the last batter, all you have to do is walk him and the inning is over! You have to let him hit!”
Ohfortheloveofgod! Pretty obvious, huh? Maybe that’s why there was no such rule in the first place?
But instead of arguing, our coach told the pitcher to keep pitching. Of course, the wind hadn’t died down, so he still couldn’t throw a strike. Twenty-eight pitches later, the batter is still standing at the plate, without ever taking the bat off his shoulder. Most of our team had at some point decided to sit down on the field, because we were getting tired of standing around and it was clear this guy wasn’t going to swing at anything less than a perfect pitch, which he wasn’t going to see because of the freakin’ wind.
Finally, our coach had had enough and told the other team that “The object of the game is to put the ball into play. If he doesn’t swing the bat, we’re going home.” I think he may have also pointed out that, according to the bogus “rule”, the inning was going to be over anyway regardless of whether the batter got on base via hit or walk, so the guy might as well swing because it was going to get dark pretty soon.
Sigh.
Stupid Rules that Really Did Exist:
There was one really stupid rule that was instituted because it was a Jack & Jill league: If an adult male hitter was walked, and the hitter following him in the order was female or under 14 years old, the female or under-14 hitter had the option of taking first base without facing the pitcher.
The rule was implemented with good intentions: it was designed to prevent a pitcher from intentionally walking a good (read: big and male) hitter in order to pitch to a much weaker hitter who is almost guaranteed to hit into a double play. Good intentions, but poorly thought out.
Some teams quickly figured out how to exploit this rule. These teams would show up for games with a ridiculous number of players (all of whom could bat, as there was no limit on the number of people in the lineup). They would stack their batting orders like so:
1 - Weak adult male hitter (often wearing very thick glasses, or disabled in some way, or otherwise obviously un-athletic) who would step to the plate with no intention of swinging the bat. He would stand there until he drew a walk.
2 - Female or under-14 hitter would elect to take first base, resulting in runners on 1st and 2nd.
3 - Big, athletic, male hitter clubs home run.
4 - Repeat.
As I understand it, the league did finally do away with this rule once enough teams complained about the way it was being exploited.
Got tired of my coach:
Our coach was very athletic, and a very good ballplayer, and yet he still made boneheaded decisions. The one we complained most about was the way he would put all of our power hitters at the top of the order. His premise was that we could psych the other team out by hitting back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs in the first inning. Of course, these were all solo home runs. These guys would be followed in the order by the speedy get-on-base types, who would then never score because they were followed by the can’t-hit-to-save-their-life players. Then it would be back to the top of the order, and back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs.
Our coach believed (correctly) that church league ball was primarily “for fun”. It wasn’t to be taken too seriously. Although he was naturally very competitive, he kept himself from getting out of hand by ceding every dispute to the other team. “Let 'em have their way. It’s all for fun, anyway.” This meant that, if there was a close call and the other team argued about it, he’d let them have it, rather than argue about it himself.
Because it was “all for fun”, he had a policy of allowing everybody who showed up to play in the game. This actually worked fairly well. We had a good solid core of players(enough to field a complete team) that showed up for every game, and a handful of people who showed up maybe half the time. The part-timers still got to play when they showed up, but they knew the regulars had priority and didn’t complain about how much they got to play. This worked well enough that one season we managed to go undefeated during the regular season.
Our pastor announced that we had finished the season undefeated, and encouraged the congregation to show up and cheer us on in the postseason tournament.
On the first night of the tournament, all of the regular players and part-time players showed up. Also, everybody who showed up at the first practice at the beginning of the season, but who never showed up for a single game during the season, showed up with their gloves and bats. And our stupid coach allowed them to play. Did I mention that the tournament was single-elimination? And that we suffered our first loss of the season in the first round of the tournament, because our lineup was so long that none of our good hitters got more than two at-bats. The leadoff hitter shouldn’t be getting his second at-bat in the 6th inning.
After that, I gave up.
That’s an official slo-pitch rule, right out of the rulebook. It’s used in every reputable league.
I can’t think of any good reason to have full on contact at the plate in recreational softball. Maybe in high level competitive play, but in a co ed league do you really want a collision between a 240-pound guy barrelling in from third and a 115-pound girl who’s trying to make the out?