Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Wednesday Rant

I went back and forth on the topic of today's rabble-rouser... and decided to choose one that currently impacts our games (instead of our community).  So today, I'm going to complain about the length of our kickball contests.

For 12 seasons, we've played 5-inning games in 50 minute time-slots.  This allowed a little buffer for games to run over, and in rare situations (ie: Beer Olympics) only 4 innings or so were played due to drinking events between innings.

This year, we were told to play 6-innings or one hour, whichever comes first. It's sold to us as an excellent deal, since more innings equates to more at-bats.  It also seems to be used as a smoke-screen, in the sense of: "Hey... you only get 8 games when you used to have 10... but check out that 6th inning! Woot! Oh shit... is that lightning?"

Jaime clarified WAKA's one hour policy in this weeks captains email: If your team finishes the 5th inning before the required 1 Hour stop time, you can continue on the the 6th inning. HOWEVER, if you do not finish the 6th inning in the allotted 1 hour time frame, the game concludes and you go back to the 5th inning score.

(Disclaimer for MLoop:  I'm not shooting the messenger and blaming Jaime for this rule.)

The problem with this ruling is lack of buffer (and common sense). Let's paint two possible scenarios that don't include the obvious concern of "slow play":
  1. Visitor Team leads Home Team 2-1 after 5 innings. There's 7 minutes on the clock so both teams hustle to play the sixth. Home Team gives up a few hits, but a two-out diving catch ends the inning without giving up a run. The right fielder who caught the ball also sprains his ankle making the web-gem.  Home Team now gets up to the plate for their final chance to tie/win. They load the bases with two outs... but time runs out.  Game over, Visitor Team wins 2-1.
  2. Home Team leads Visitor Team 2-1 after 5 innings. Again... 7 minutes left and both teams feel they can get in one more inning.  Visitor Team turns on "Tournament Mode" and scores 8 runs in the top of the sixth inning. Finally, Home Team gets to bat... but all the run scoring causes time to expire before they record three outs.  Game over, Home Team wins 2-1 (even though they were just losing 9-2).
There are probably a million examples of issues when you govern the games to the exact letter of the rule.  But even if the home plate ref allows the game to continue a few minutes beyond an hour, half the teams in Conference Boring (and the Shockers) would start shitting bricks if the rule would have helped their team win.

For fun... let's point out the issues with these scenarios:
  1. Home Team plays their ass off for a chance to win or tie the game.  A player actually risks life and limb for the glory of victory... and then they're told that all their efforts really didn't actually count.  What if Home Team ties before the time expires? Is the game called a tie, or does it still revert back to the 5th since it isn't officially over? This happened LAST WEEK in the Superbad game.  Thinking time was almost up, Yeagabombs (home team) had some reckless base running that helped them tie the game.  Souder rightfully let the game extend beyond an hour for a non-bullshit outcome, but Superbad has an argument that it should revert to the 5th.
  2. Knowing that if time expires Home Team gets the victory... couldn't they just allow a million runs, and make it look like errors? They'll say after the game: "Hey! We didn't get a chance to kick. Revert the game back to the 5th and we win!"  Tying shoes is an obvious form of slow-play... but a ref can't possibly say that they're tanking the inning to waste time.  Errors happen in kickball regularly.  Hell, THEE Beer Nuts look like they fuck up on purpose all the time (but we all know they're trying). This scenario is ridiculously unfair to the Visitor Team.
Basically, the current rule is the WORST possible way to govern the game.  PAL has already told us that they'll leave the lights on longer for no charge if we want. But I don't even think we need them to do that.  Just change the rule... when the hour expires, finish the current inning.

Simple... no arguments... and you're never going to have a game go past "stop time" by more than 7 minutes or so.

11 comments:

Florian said...

I totally agree. The rule should be as long as the inning starts before time expires, you have to finish it. Thats how it is in every other recreational sport that I've ever played.

Smithkey said...

I was just talking about that last week at the bar with someone and came up with the same arguments. The best being if the Home team was winning at the end of the 5th and the away team takes the lead in the top of the 6th, the home team would just be smart to let them run the rules up.

I know Superbad mentioned that they should have won if the rules were clearly followed because the game would have reverted back to the 5th inning. I am sure it was more in joke then in a serious manner and I surely hope that most teams are not that serious although I know some are. It sucks that teams are willing to take advantage of loopholes in the rules to gain an advantage but that is the kind of society we now live in filled with frivolous lawsuits.

The bottom line is teams need to be able to govern themselves much the way Brown Chicken Brown Cow and the ToeJammer's did last week when we decided to say fuck the rules and not play Balls and Strikes. Just because something is a rule/law doesn't make it right and does not mean we have to follow it. I can give two shits about paper forfeits as long as I get to enjoy a fun game of kickball, unfortunately it does not look as if that will be happening this week because my team will be playing the Shockers.

End of my Wednesday rant.

Nate Dawg said...

Once again WAKA sucks...love the people in this league but WAKA drags it down. If I am reffing a game I will let the teams play the 6th inning until they are done, stopping the game is completely ridiculous. Jaime can come over and stop the game if she see fits...will only hurt her status more. Doesnt matter if she is the messenger, MLoop is not out at the fields so who cares.

Geoff said...

If you start an inning you have to finish it... otherwise why start it? It's not rocket science here. And any game I'm playing in or reffing will play by that standard.

Rob said...

If PAL is leaving the lights on let's finish the inning if it gets started. Big deal if the 8 game doesn't start till 815 anyway so a 6th inning can be played. We're only playing 8 games so let's get our money worth and play 6. Forget the clock. Macdintons is open till 3 anyway.

bull said...

I see no reason for the sixth inning. For the last nine seasons I've played with five innings and never had a problem. We will be playing five innings in the end of season tournament and its five innings in the holy grail of kickball aka The Founder's Cup. If we have to do it in the tournaments, then we should be doing FIVE innings now.

bull said...

Get rid of the failed experiment that is the sixth innings and all the problems with time go right out the window.

Grifter said...

I am with Bull on this one... Play 5.

I don't understand how WAKA can come in and tell our league to play by different rules when they play their own tournament under the old rules...

Kickball Society.

Anonymous said...

Bull, don't you mean it's five innings in the holy grail of kickball aka the Kegger Cup?

bull said...

That too! You better be careful posting on here Josh. According to my sources (aka Shoutbox) your people are watching! haha

Alison said...

WAKA Rules State:

7.01 Regulation games last five (5) full innings.

I can see both sides of this--the desire for more playing time and the want for consistency. Seems like this would best be solved if all teams voted to abide by the same guideline throughout the season. One vote per team, electoral college style.