High school softball rules question

30 years in this racket and never saw this until today, and I'm not even sure it's legal:

Springfield had just 10 girls available for game vs. Shelbyville. Springfield pitcher gets rocked and coach replaces her with right fielder. Pitcher grabs some pine and new outfielder comes in. Next inning, Springfield SS is injured in a collision with runner and can't continue. Obviously, original pitcher cannot reenter game in SS's spot in the order, so Springfield finished the game with 8 players, conceding the out every time SS's spot came up.

Oh, and Springfield won 10-8 in a battle of cellar dwellers.

 

When I last covered prep sports a few years ago, the rule was you had to have nine in the field, or the game was over. In one case, a team had nine players, but one was late to a state playoff game. She arrived in time for the bottom of the first when her team took to the field. Her spot in the batting order in the top of the first was an automatic out.

In a regular season tournament all-city tournament game sponsored by our paper, a different team had to forfeit because its left fielder looked like she was about to faint, so the coach had to take her out and had no subs. The girl was standing there, weaving back and forth.

 

I always thought the automatic out was accepted. Sure, it makes it tough to win, but you can still play on.

You can too few on the court or field in almost every sport, right?

 

This is legal.

 

It's wrong.

Because of injury or illness, the original pitcher can come back into the game at the shortstops spot in the batting order, but she cannot pitch.

 

Hmm, I saw a basketball team finish a game with four players on the court because of injuries and foul outs, but never saw it in baseball or softball before. Don't see any reason it wouldn't be legal.

Hell, hockey teams play short-handed all the time. Soccer teams, too, if someone gets a red card.

 

That's what one fan was telling me, an injury replacement was allowed. And I'll take the word of the fan, since not only was he keeping score, he asked me how to score the skipped spot (2 unassisted, right?).

It makes sense in high school, rather than sending the team back home with a forfeit loss, short of instantly promoting a JV kid.

The winning team went with a two-person outfield. If I'm the coach of the losing team, I wonder why my hitters didn't swing for the empty field every time, but that's another thread ...

 

I think the only rule is you have to have nine players to start the game. And if the coach had decided to use the 10th girl as the designated player, he might have been able to avoid the problem. At least he might have had some flexibility.

 

I thought there were fairly liberal re-entry rules these days?

 

Fairly liberal but you still can't move players up and down in the order unless you're taking advantage of the designated player rule. If you don't use one, then each player who returns has to go back to where they were originally batting. With the DP, I think you can move it around in the order if you sub the right way.