Coaches Please take a moment to read! All games for this tournament will be played 6 full innings except the standard run rules apply. The concept for this is for the players and coaches to experience play similar to what your players will see a couple of years from now when they reach High School play Showcase events or play on College Prep teams. To that end the following guidelines will be strictly enforced; 1) No team huddles coming on or off the field. Players should run on & off the field. Umpires will be asked not to give more than a couple of minutes from the 3rd out to batter up. If you haven't warmed up you should've moved a little quicker. 2) No more than 1 offensive timeout per half inning 3) Batters will be required to keep one foot in the batter's box after each pitch. 4) On deck batters will be required to retrieve balls fouled back wild pitches or pass balls when the ball is not still live. The umpires will simply hand another ball to the catcher while the on deck batter is retrieving the dead ball. 5) Teach your guys in the dugout to "pick up" your offensive player that made the 3rd out and/or base runners after the 3rd out by bringing out their cap & glove when the inning ends. Base runners should never have to step foot into the dugout after the 3rd out unless they will not be playing the field. 6) Except for the 8am game each day teams must be ready to take the field 20 minutes prior to their scheduled game time. We have not tried this at the younger age groups. It is our desire to complete every game to 6 innings and have limited the number of teams to try to accomodate this. Timed games will only be imposed if we fall too far behind. Many teams and coaches are simply not aware of and/or do not teach these simple baseball protocols. It is our hope that by running a couple of tournaments such as this one each year it will raise awareness amongst the teams that will improve your tournament experience in timed games while teaching good baseball etiquette prior to the players moving to the next level. If this format creates any issue at all for you or your team please let me know before I release the schedule Wednesday night so I can issue your team a full refund. Thanks Houston USSSA Baseball