And so it was I was in a close game and the bases were loaded and our head coach was going out to the mound to talk to the pitcher about calming down and throwing strikes and that was all fine. Then we yelled out to the first baseman to be ready for a home to first double play if the ball came straight back to the pitcher. He looked confused, so i asked our bench coach to go talk him through it as we haven’t practiced a home to first double play. So our assistant went out to talk to our first baseman and alas, the umpire decided it was a MOUND VISIT on top of our just completed MOUND VISIT and we thusly had to change pitchers.
If one looks the rule up, one sees that a MOUND VISIT is all about visiting with the PITCHER, but alas it is sort of common practice that if you cross the white foul line and head in the general direction of the mound you are implementing a MOUND VISIT. So I can see why the ump decided this was the case, but it was painful and I just had to share. So I guess the moral is remember common practices in addition to the rules, and don’t forget to work on the home to first double play. Also keep the rule book handy, it might have saved us — the new app enables rapid search, but alas sometimes you have to download the thing to get updates and of course that was the situation when the moment of truth arrived. So remember to download the rules app too. Not like there isn’t enough to keep track of as it is.
