With playoffs starting on August 19, 2018 we wanted to remind all of you of a couple important rules:

1) Team rosters will be locked as of August 19, 2018. All players must appear on their respective team’s SPN roster for insurance and registration purposes. Players can only play on ONE team with no exceptions. If you know you’ll need substitute players, make sure they’re on your roster by Sunday and NOT registered with another team. No playing up, no playing down, no playing on other teams within your respective division. 
2) We’ll be going back to two time slots due to diminishing daylight (6:15 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.). This gives teams almost two hours to complete a game but please be respectful of these start times. Games cannot start more than 10 minutes after their scheduled starts and innings cannot start less than 10 minutes before games are supposed to end. Teams that are unable to field a team by these deadlines risk forfeiture. 
3) Teams are still allowed to play with a BARE MINIMUM of nine players provided they have at least three women or three men (same as regular season rules). If at any point – due to injury or otherwise – a team is unable to field nine players, they risk forfeiture. 
4) The team with the higher seed gets to choose if they want to bat first or second. 
5) Batters are allowed to take a step out of the batter’s box so long as their other foot remains. If however, they step in front of home plate, they will be called out. 
6) Teams must alternate sexes in their batting orders (male-female-male etc.)
7) A game shall be called on account of the mercy rule if the home team is ahead by 15 runs or more after four and a half complete innings, or if the visiting team is ahead by 15 runs or more after five complete innings.
8) The mat does form part of home plate. In other words, if a catcher is standing on the mat when they catch a ball, an out will be applied if the throw beats the runner. Together, the plate and the mat make up the entirety of the strike zone. 
9) Any lead-off before contact is an out, but if there is no contact or no swing and a player leaves the bag after the ball lands on the ground (in front, on, or behind the plate/mat) they can return to the bag and won’t be called out. 
10) All playoff games will be called by a neutral, third party umpire. Please be respectful of their decisions throughout the course of each game. 
11) You can find a full list of our House Rules here: https://yellowknifeslopitch.com/rec-rules/. Otherwise, we will defer to official SPN rules.