Ohio MSBL Rules

Forty thousand words, and most of them earn their place

The distinctive rule is line sharing: two or more players may occupy one slot in the batting order and are treated as a single player there, either free to hit and either free to run for the other. It is declared when lineups are exchanged or any time after, and once declared it holds for the game. It exists so that a manager with fifteen men can play all of them, which the league backs with a rule that every player who turns up should get two consecutive innings in the field and one at bat unless he says otherwise.

Games are nine innings, seven in the 70+ division and seven in doubleheaders, and no new inning starts after two hours forty-five or two hours fifteen respectively. Nothing ends in a tie: extras are played as normal innings while time remains, and when it runs out the next inning is a shootout, with the previous inning's last out placed on second base and every batter starting at 2-2. There is a ten-run mercy after seven, none at all in the 70+, and a rule that lets a team down ten or more after five choose to end it, which the league specifies is not a forfeit and may not be protested by the team ahead.

There is a decoy rule -- faking a tag with no strategic purpose means the runner is safe, everyone advances a base, and the fielder is ejected -- and a bench restriction that lets an umpire cost a player one at bat or two innings in the field instead of throwing him out. Bats are wood or wood composite with no metal anywhere, composites needing a BBCOR .50 label, a maximum -3 drop and the shape of a real bat, and the league names models on both sides of the line rather than leaving it to argument.

A rulebook this careful is worth reading at the field on a phone, not printing. On a High Cheese league page it sits at the league's own address beside the game it governs, current version only, so nobody argues from a copy that was superseded in April.