How We Play Wiffleball

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Some more about how we get our whiffle on!

1. A full team in the field may consist of 9 players max, including a maximum of 6 infielders. A full standard team has no more than 7 guys in the field, but if you’re short guys on a given day you play play additional girls in the field. There are no rules on who plays which positions.

2. All active players will be put into the batting order. If you will be playing in the field even for 1 inning, you will be batting all game. You can change fielding positions all you would like, but once the game starts, the batting order may not be altered for any reason. The batting order is at the discretion of the team, but it must be done where no more than 3 guys bat in a row, including bottom to top of the lineup.

3. Once the pitcher has the ball in their control, and is on the mound, “time” will be called and the play ends. Time may not always be necessarily called aloud, but play will be dead and no runners may advance. If a runner is a good distance ahead of the base when the pitcher has control on the mound, the runner may still advance, but the umps will call time if no aggressive move is made to advance. The pitcher having the ball on the mound doesn’t automatically send runners back to the base behind them, it’s just so people can’t keep messing around once the play is basically over.

4. We use an official plastic Wiffleball (see pic on previous page), so no players wear gloves as they are not needed! No metal spikes are allowed for safety.

5. All players start with a 1-1 count. A foul is a strike. You CAN get out on a foul. Only when a batter has 2 strikes, they will be granted 1 courtesy foul, but on the next foul ball the batter is out.

6. Strikes, Balls, Outs: Pitch and safe/out calls are up to the sole discretion of the game umpire. Don’t even try arguing with the ump. This is a social rec league so chill out dude

7. A good underhand pitch peaks at the height of the batter up to twice their height and LANDS ON home plate or the strike mat. Pitches outside these guidelines are balls. And don’t try to get walked. That’s lame. Hitting is way more fun! The pitchers are not professionals, so swing at a decent pitch.

8. On an overthrow to first or third, runners are only allowed to advance to the next base beyond where they were at the time the ball was overthrown. This base is not simply awarded, you must still reach it on your own effort. Overthrows to second base are considered live balls and does not apply to the overthrow rule.
9. We enforce an “Infield Fly Rule” only if a double play is turned on a dropped ball that flew up in the infield with an arc of 15-20+ feet. Therefore this will rarely be called, but if it is will be called after the play has ended. This is simply to prevent players from trying to pull a fast one (cheat?) and intentionally drop easy fly balls to turn a double play. Just play with integrity on this please. It is entirely the umps judgement call when to enforce this rule.
10. There are no lead-offs. If you lead off you will be called out. You may leave the base as soon as the ball is hit. You may tag up on all balls (including fouls) that are caught. If you don’t know what “tagging up” is, ask someone on your team!
11. The pitcher and fielders must stay behind the pitcher’s mound until the ball has been hit. Also, outfielders must remain in the dirt until the ball has been hit. If the fielding team does not abide by this, the batter may be given first base. Only 6 players may be in the infield dirt before a ball is hit.
12. Bunting is not allowed, whether on purpose or by accident. This will be called an ILLEGAL HIT at the ump’s discretion. Calling bunts is a tough thing to do, but just know that your league ump will be consistent on how they call em all season. The general rule about what is and isn’t a bunt has nothing to do with how hard you swing to hit the ball but everything to do with how the ball moves and where it goes after being hit. Basically the idea is that if the ball was hit in a way where it’s moving slowly or doesn’t go very far very fast in front of the plate, this will be considered an ILLEGAL HIT. Especially because the fielders need to stay behind the pitcher til it’s hit. There will be many close ones for sure because there is no exact science to this, SO JUST SWING THE BAT AND HIT THE BALL AS HARD AS YOU CAN! ILLEGAL HITS are counted as a foul ball and you CAN get out on an ILLEGAL HIT.
12.5. Intentional walks aren’t allowed! It’s ridiculous. Just don’t do it. If a guy is walked with 2 outs and there is a girl up next after him, the team may send up their next guy to bat, or they can send up the girl that was supposed to bat after the guy that got walked. This rule is mainly in place to prevent pitchers from “accidentally” walking a guy with 2 outs to get a girl up in a tight game which is kind of lame but some teams try to do that here and there. Again, this is to prevent you from trying to play unfun.
13. Games are 6 innings or 45 minutes from game start time, but no inning will begin with less than 5 minutes remaining. Ties are allowed if no time remains, but we’ll do everything in our power to break the tie. We have a good way to do this in an extra inning if there’s time. If 2 teams tie, the world is not going to end. Just hug it out and have a drink. There’s always playoffs redemption!
14. A game may be considered a complete game if 4 full innings have been completed. If a game is rained out and 4 full innings have been played, the game may be declared official and the score counted as complete. We’ll do our best to try to make up the game but we have limited field time for the season.
15. There is a 7 run slaughter rule for all innings except the final inning. There is no slaughter rule in the final inning. If a game is shortened due to time constraints and an inning is declared the final inning of the game, there is no slaughter rule in that inning. If your team is losing by 4 or more runs going into an inning, you are allowed to score up to as many runs as it takes to put your team up by 4 runs. There is no game slaughter rule. If your team just gets absolutely stomped, there are plenty of shots waiting for you at the bar.

SAFETY IS IMPORTANT: VERY IMPORTANT RULE!

16. There is a STRICT NO CONTACT RULE in effect that BOTH teams must be aware of. Runners must do everything they can to avoid contact, but fielders also must be aware of where they are positioned in relation to the runners and do everything in their power to avoid contact as well. FIELDERS, DO NOT BLOCK THE BASES. If you block the base or impede the runner from getting to the base, interference may be called and the runner called safe. If you take your last few steps while running home to go around a baseman that’s blocking the base so you don’t plow em over, we’ll likely call you safe. The ump will make the call as to who’s at fault with the contact and make the appropriate call as to whether it is safe or out. Situations that arise from contact may warrant a playing being ejected from the game at the ump’s discretion. It is the umpire’s judgment call as to what the call will be. Just remember that this is a fun league and we’re here to just have fun, so avoid contact AT ALL COSTS.

17. Your team forfeits if by 10 minutes after scheduled game start time, you do not have at least 5 players, including at least 1 of each gender. We always want to play games rather than forfeit cuz that’s just more fun, so the ump may decide to give a team a little additional time to get enough players so we can play a game. The score of a forfeit game will be 10-0. Tell your team as soon as you know if you can’t make a game!

Those are the rules! Just remember to play fair, have fun, and be safe.

Forfeits

Teams may use fill-in players during the season to field a full team, but only bring subs if you need them for a full team so those that paid to play don’t lose out on playing time. Also, subs are only allowed in playoffs if you email to get it approved in advance in certain situations.
If your team forfeits a match during the season, the following rules apply:

First Offense: 10-0 loss of game and warning issued.

Second Offense: 10-0 loss of second game and S3 reserves the right to remove team from the league or playoffs with no refund for games not played.

Third Offense: Automatic removal from the league with no refund for games not played.

The reason for the harshness of this is because we want all teams to be able to play. If your team is a no-show, then the other team also doesn’t get to play, and that’s not cool. So just get subs or at least let us know if you’re not going to make it!

If you know in advance that your team will be forfeiting a match, you are required to email us at teams@s3leagues.com so we can let your opponent know that you won’t be showing up or try to get others to attend in your time slot for us to do a pick up game!

Sportsmanship

The idea of this league is to have fun. We hope that all participants keep that in mind when becoming involved. Although the games may become intense, you still can be competitive while maintaining good sportsmanship. With this said, any behavior deemed unacceptable by staff may result in suspension and/or ejection from a game or the league. S3 reserves the right to remove a player from a game or a league if they are considered to be bringing down the quality of the league.

Playoffs

For playoffs in all of our leagues, teams are placed into multiple divisions based on regular season records where there is a winner of each division. Because these are super social rec leagues and many teams were made at random, some teams end up not as good at winning game as they are at just having fun being active outdoors. This method creates a more balanced playoffs system in a league where players and teams can range from professionals to those not quitting their day jobs. It allows similarly skilled teams to play each other in the end while still giving a first round benefit to those teams with a higher ranking, and makes it so that any team can throw a couple wins together and get one of the champion prizes!