FEAC meeting: Time to standardize Pacific softball game time limit
Published: April 19, 2012
DODDS Pacific should address the question of standardizing its various girls softball league’s bylaws to ensure everybody’s operating from the same sheet of music regarding game time limit: Should there be one or not be one?
And it should be discussed starting Monday at the next Far East Athletics Council meeting at Mendel Elementary School on Yokota Air Base, with all 12 DODDS Pacific athletics directors in attendance.
The issue was brought to light Wednesday in a DODDS Japan game at Yokota. With the host Panthers leading 12-9 and Nile C. Kinnick batting with one out in the top of the sixth, the home plate umpire called the game, saying the 90-minute time limit had expired.
Coach Katrina Kemper protested that the Red Devils’ half of the inning still had to be finished, but to no avail, then on Thursday filed a formal letter of protest to DODDS Pacific’s athletics coordinator Don Hobbs via e-mail.
In going around the room and discussing the issue with a few DODDS Japan athletics directors, there seems to be major disagreement over whether there is or is not a 90-minute time limit within DODDS Japan for regular-season games. “That’s a good question. I really couldn’t tell you,” one said.
Last month’s DODDS Japan tournament’s games at Yokota were played under a 90-minute limit, and perhaps the officials at Yokota were under the impression that was the case for regular-season games as well. Okinawa Activities Council’s game time limit is two hours, DODDS Korea’s limit is 90 minutes.
DODDS Pacific is an affiliate member of the National Federation of State High School Associations. Nowhere in the NFHS rulebook is there a time limit for girls softball games, though it’s permissible for individual states or leagues to incorporate a time limit into its bylaws, provided the coaches, ADs and officials associations agree.
And whether there is a time limit or not, Kemper has a very valid point: Once an inning starts and the losing team is at bat and/or the home team, the inning must be finished, regardless of whether time expires. The only exception to that is if weather conditions turn bad (lightning, flooding) or other extenuating factors, such as darkness or an earthquake.
My take: I’d love to be a fly on the wall when this gets discussed Monday at Yokota. We will see standardization in one form or another, and I suspect they’ll side with the 90-minute limit, at least until pitching across the board improves dramatically in all leagues. Right now, the base on balls is every team’s chief weapon.
