02/25/20 – Safety Concerns and Baseball Requirements for 2020 season

February 25, 2020 Baseball Blog Updates

In 2017, the NFHS adopted a playing rule dealing with safety and ball manufacturing that beginning Jan. 1, 2020, all baseballs used for high school competition shall meet the NOCSAE (National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment) standard and include the certified mark. This information has been included in annual rules clinics since to notify coaches of the pending requirement.

Questions have been asked by umpires and coaches of what to do if there were no such balls provided at the game site, should the game be played?

Rule 1-3-1 in the NFHS Rules Book details the requirement and unless otherwise mutually agreed upon, the home team has the responsibility to provide the balls.

The KHSAA Board of Control has mandated that in games where umpires arrive on-site and no NOCSAE approved baseballs are available to begin a contest, the contest shall not be played and will be deemed a forfeit by the home team. The Board also confirmed that the forfeited game counts against both team’s 36-game limit and may not be replaced.

It should be noted that this applies to all levels of play – Freshmen, Junior Varsity and Varsity. This information is also included in the online rules clinic required by all coaches and licensed baseball umpires.

– KHSAA –

About the Kentucky High School Athletic Association
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association was organized in 1917 and is the agency designated by the Kentucky Department of Education to manage high school athletics in the Commonwealth. The Association is a voluntary nonprofit 501(c)3 organization made up of 280 member schools both public and non-public. The KHSAA awards 215 state championships to 51 teams and 164 individuals in 13 sports and 6 sport-activities, funds catastrophic insurance coverage for its more than 106,000 rostered member school student-athletes, provides coaching education and sports safety programs for more than 12,000 coaches, and licenses and facilitates the distribution of training material for over 4,000 contest officials.

The KHSAA staff routinely publishes blog posts to better communicate with its various constituencies and the public. For a list of those blogs, go to http://khsaa.org/news-stats-pubs/sports-blogs/