HAVE MERCY

Since time immemorial, umpires have started baseball games with the words, “Play ball!”

But frequently at high school games these days, umpires are saying, “Stop playing ball!”

A 10-run mercy rule implemented nationally this season has many City Section and Southern Section coaches fuming about administrators tinkering with the sport.

The rule is a sore subject with tradition-minded coaches, who consider it an intrusion worth fighting.

“This is not just going to sit [unchallenged],” said Manny Alvarado, longtime coach at Kennedy High. “A lot of coaches are looking for the right forum to take their complaints to.”

Said Bill Sizemore, coach at Thousand Oaks: “It’s brutal. It’s the worst rule in the 20 years I’ve been coaching high school baseball . . . Some moron who doesn’t play the game wrote the rule.”

The rule, used in Southern Section softball for more than 10 years but not in the City Section, was implemented in baseball by the rules committee of the National Federation of High School Athletic Assns. in Kansas City, Mo.

It calls for a game to be stopped when the losing team is behind by 10 or more runs and has had at least five turns at bat. High school games are seven innings.

“The committee’s feeling was that after five innings and 10 runs, there wasn’t much chance of a comeback,” said Dick Termeer, chairman of the federation’s rules committee.

Termeer said the rule was adopted after coaches and officials responded favorably to a nationwide questionnaire distributed in May 1997. He said 78% of respondents were in favor of the rule. The number was 93% among umpires and 66% among coaches.

Termeer said about 70 questionnaires were sent to the California Interscholastic Federation State office in San Rafael for distribution to member schools. However, the national office did not receive any responses from California.

Ana Morrison, administrative assistant for the CIF, said she could not find a record of the office receiving questionnaires and whether they were sent randomly to California coaches and umpires.

“Whenever we get a questionnaire from the national federation, we send them to schools,” Morrison said.

Bill Clark, Southern Section assistant commissioner, said he was positive the questionnaires were not disseminated by the state office.

“It’s frustrating to us because we didn’t have a chance to have input,” Clark said. “When the season is over, we’re going to be developing a position paper to send to the national federation and ask that they revisit this rule.”

None of the coaches from the region interviewed for this story said they were consulted about the rule or knew of anyone who was.

“I wasn’t [polled] on it,” Hart Coach Bud Murray said. “The administrators should be asking their coaches.”

Had they been asked, many of the region’s coaches would have been against implementing the rule. Their reasons vary, but a common concern is decreased playing time for reserves.

“The kids pay their dues and they deserve to get playing time,” Crespi Coach Scott Muckey said. “At least you can give some courtesy time for how hard they’ve worked, and now your ability to do that is diminished.”

Chatsworth Coach Tom Muesborn said some of the newer rules in high school baseball, from penalties for stepping out of the batter’s box to a 2 1/2-hour time limit for junior varsity games, clash with tradition.

“Everything is [being done] to speed up the game and to shorten the game,” he said.

The 10-run rule had an immediate impact on baseball in the region.

In March, more than 60 games were stopped early because of the rule. Several teams--Calabasas, North Hollywood and Canoga Park--were on the losing side more than once. Others--Hart, Notre Dame, Kennedy--benefited more than once. Yet others--Sylmar, Santa Paula, Granada Hills--were on both sides.

That’s about 120 innings not played, a wasted chance for backup players to participate, critics contend.

“That’s what we’ve heard for years about reasons for not having [the rule], but we’ve seen for years that the substitutions weren’t happening,” Termeer said. “With the [reentry] rules being what they are, they can make substitutions early in the game and bring back their starters if the other team starts to catch up.”

Which, Sizemore said, doesn’t accomplish much.

“That means your starters play three innings and your reserves play two,” he said.

Another point of contention for the coaches is why baseball was singled out. Sylmar Coach Gary Donatella notes that other sports don’t have mercy rules.

“One of the big beefs I have is, if a [baseball] score is 17-7 or 18-8, the [losing] team has proven it can score, so who’s to say [what could happen]?” Donatella said.

“When it’s football and it’s 60-0, they don’t stop the game . . . One of their rationale is that a team being beaten badly can cause bad blood. I think a closely contested game, there’s more bad blood at that time. It depends on how the coaches allow their players to behave.”

Coaches overwhelmingly said close games rather than blowouts can cause more friction between teams. They also noted that, although some coaches might not follow baseball etiquette by trying to gain a 10-run margin by any means, they don’t believe poor sportsmanship is a problem.

But misunderstandings can happen. Alvarado, whose Kennedy team defeated Taft, 12-3, on March 19, was involved in one.

“I put my hand up and the kid ran [through the stop sign at third base],” Alvarado said. “The Taft coaches were a little upset about it. But then I thought, ‘This is only the fourth inning. Are we supposed to stop the game after four innings?’ ”

“I’ve been a part of high school baseball for over 20 years now. You got 10 runs, a lot of time the game is not in the bag.”

Maybe not in the fourth inning, but Hart’s Murray warns that common sense should be practiced in mismatches.

“If coaches are trying to go out there and benefit from the mercy rule, yes, you might have a problem,” Murray said. “I would be [upset] if someone is running on me with a nine-run lead.”

Then there’s El Nino to consider.

“If you’re playing three games in a week and you want to save some pitching and you have a nine-run lead, I’m sure you’re going to try and score that 10th run,” said Mike Maio, coach of defending City 4-A Division champion El Camino Real.

Still, coaches would prefer to deal with those situations instead of playing by a new rule.

“My experience with the lopsided scores is the subs get in and the scores don’t get much worse,” Muckey said.

Calabasas Coach Rick Nathanson, who watched his team lose its first three games this season after the 10-run rule was enacted, doesn’t care for the rule.

“It’s a bad rule . . . because it takes away from the purity of the game,” Nathanson said. “The logic in baseball is that anything can happen.”