5 Ways Youth Baseball Teams Cheat, and How to Respond

Don’t let youth baseball cheating go unchecked.

As the recent Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal shows, baseball teams cheat. Yet, that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate cheating at the youth level. When coaching a baseball team, or even when attending a game as a spectator, keep your eyes open for common signs of cheating (as detailed below) and be prepared to speak up.

1. Using Illegal Bats Is a Common Baseball Cheating Tactic

Little League and other youth baseball organizations changed over to the USA bat standard in 2018, and ever since some parents have been trying to give their kids an advantage by having them bat with the more powerful (and now illegal) USSSA bats.

Our first season with the USA standard, my son’s coach actually had his son swing an illegal bat. When an opposing coach rightly called him out on it during a game, our coach played stupid and acted like he had no idea it was illegal. Our very next game, however, his son was still using the same illegal bat, but the coach had covered over the markings on the bat with bat grip tape.

I’ve also heard of people actually shaving down an illegal bat (in “chop shop” fashion) to remove all markings and distinguishing color schemes, and then decalling on the required USA bat stamp.

No matter what the bat looks like, though, illegal bats give themselves away, because they have so much more pop, and balls just don’t sound the same coming off illegal bats. Also, most obsessive bat purchasers (a group to which I proudly belong) know all the legal bat models out there and what they look like. So it’s not too hard to spot a loaded bat.

What to Do if You Spot an Illegal Bat

You should definitely take action if you see a kid swinging an illegal bat. But there is some strategy here. Some coaches keep that information in their back pocket, and only tell the umpire if the kid later gets a hit in the game (since, in that situation, the hit should be disallowed because of the bat and the kid declared out).

If you encounter a situation where a kid is swinging a doctored illegal bat with a phony USA stamp (see above), you should bring it to the ump. Bats are not permitted to be adulterated in any way, and they can be ruled out on that fact alone. You won’t find it difficult to get an umpire to throw out a bat that looks fishy.

2. Baseball Teams Cheat by Having Their Pitchers Throw Rubber Balls or “Watered Down” Balls

We came across this “rubber ball” trick in a game this spring season. Our batters looked to be making solid contact at the plate, but most balls were dying in the infield. Also, the ball was making a dull thud when hit, and you didn’t hear the familiar “crack” sound. After one inning, our coach asked the opposing pitcher to see the ball, and he reluctantly threw it over.

It turned out the kid had been throwing a hard rubber ball instead of a regulation one.

“Watered Down” Balls

We all know balls left out in the rain don’t perform like normal ones. Teams can try to saturate game balls with enough water so that it deadens the flight of balls in play. Obviously, the trick to doing this well is to limit the amount of water absorbed by the ball so that:

• It’s not too heavy for their pitchers to throw -and-
• The ball doesn’t get discolored or show other signs of tampering that will be spotted by the umpire and other team

How to Stop a Team From Using a Rubber or Watered Down Ball

You should make sure your umpire is stocked with regulation balls. This will limit the times the opposing coach can toss a ball out directly to his pitcher when one goes out of play.

You should also pay attention to what ball the opposing pitcher is throwing; watch for the “chain of custody” of the ball. For example, if their pitcher takes his own ball out to the field at the start of an inning, instead of using the ball that your pitcher left on the mound, that’s an obvious red flag.

Also, like with the illegal bat, a rubber ball or watered down balls doesn’t perform like a regulation one. If something about the ball doesn’t seem right, stop the game and ask the umpire to examine the ball.

3. Baseball Teams Cheat by Playing Non-Roster Players in Tournaments and Playoff Games

You might think that teams bringing in new players is not a big deal, and they should be able to field the best teams they can. However, leagues and tournaments generally rate teams by skill level. Thus, by adding “ringers” to a lineup for tournaments or league playoffs, a team has an unfair advantage against its competition.

This practice also goes against traditional notions of fairness. For example, teams shouldn’t battle it out during the regular season only to have the playoffs decided by which team adds the most ringers to its lineup.

For tournaments, you’ll spot ringers aplenty. Our club recently played a tournament at Diamond Nation, and our coach brought in a couple kids to beef up our team. These kids had no previous affiliation to our club. One of the kids was amazing, probably the best youth hitter I’ve seen. In the two-day tournament, I don’t think he made one out.

What to Do if a Team is Using Non-Roster Players

For leagues, teams have to provide the names of all their players ahead of time, and there is usually a requirement regarding the number of games each kid must play in to qualify for the playoff. In our spring league, kids had to play in five out of the nine league games (slightly more than half) to be eligible for the playoffs.

Before you play a team in the playoffs, you can search for your opponent on GameChanger and other scoring apps. If the team is there, you can often drill down to their individual games and see which players attended. I’ve heard of a team being disqualified from the playoffs after winning the game with an ineligible player, so leagues take this very seriously.

With tournaments, you can also search GameChanger and other apps to see which of the kids on the tournament roster were not on their regular league roster. However, you’re not going to find many tournament rules officially forbidding this.

If a team is bringing in ringers for a tournament, you can try complaining to the organizers before the start of play and seeing if they’ll bump that team up to a more competitive division. However, if you’re playing in the top division, maybe you should start looking for your own ringers.

4. Baseball Teams Cheat by Blowing Past Pitch Count Rules

Everyone even remotely involved with youth baseball can tell stories of coaches grossly over-pitching their kids. You’ll hear of coaches throwing a kid for over 150 pitches in a two-day tournament. Often a coach will only do this with his own kid, but there are many coaches out there who will happily over-pitch your kid, too.

Not only does this raise a multitude of safety concerns, but pitching a kid beyond recognized pitch count rules is generally illegal under league and tournament rules.

What to Do if Your Opponent is Over-Pitching a Kid

To be able to call a team out on violating pitch count rules, you need to first make sure you accurately count the number of pitches each opposing pitcher tosses. Trust me, you can’t rely on the other coach to give you a reliable count of his player’s pitches. Often, the other team will just make up a number well below the limit, and it’s up to you to rebut that with your own count.

GameChanger has a pitch count function, but note that it only works if you identify the pitcher on the app by name or jersey number before he starts to throw. For more on how to do this, check out How to Scorekeep in GameChanger’s Team Manager App.

You can also just bring a manual pitcher counter to the game like this one on Amazon which allows you to count both your kid’s pitches and the opposing pitcher’s as well.

5. Baseball Teams Cheat with Biased Umpires

We’ve all been at games and complained that the other team seemed to be getting a giant strike zone while our kids were being squeezed. I once watched an umpire blow four straight calls at home plate, all going against our team. There is often an innocent explanation for these happenings, such as umpire ineptitude, coincidence, or our own biased views of the umpire’s actions. But we’d also be naive to think that “homer” umpires, who use their powers to tilt the scales in favor of one team, only existed in the movies.

But that said, I don’t think many umpires are being handed envelopes of cash to throw youth games Eight Man Out-style. Instead, umpires develop a favoritism for a particular team, because, for example, they’ve known the coaches for years and are drinking buddies. Also, an umpire might do a lot of games for a particular town and start to favor the local teams, either because he wants to continue doing games for that town or because he starts feeling a hometown connection to them.

The umpire might not even be aware of his bias, and the favoritism can all be happening on the unconscious level.

What to Do if Umpires Favor the Other Team

Try to reach out to other coaches and parents in your area to form a defacto network for local baseball information. This is good for many things, and it will help you find out if there are umpires out there who favor certain teams. With this information, you can try going to your league and requesting that those umpires not officiate your games.

If you suspect an umpire at your game is biased, there’s not much you can really do in the moment, other than keep your cool and hope your team blows out the other team and essentially takes it out of the umpire’s hands.

You can try videoing the game on your phone and later sending examples of the blown calls to the league employing the umpire. My son was once called out on strikes on a pitch so outside the catcher had to to dive to stop the ball. Luckily, one of the parents had taken amazing behind-the-plate video of the call, which we proceeded to forward to the league. The league never assigned that umpire to one of our games again.

DO YOU KNOW OF OTHER WAYS BASEBALL TEAMS CHEAT?

LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.

For more information about the emotional side of baseball, see:

• How to Manage Your Kid’s Baseball Tantrums and Meltdowns
• Anger Management and Youth Baseball: How to Calm Down
• How to Stop Being a Crazy Baseball Dad
• How to Be a Good Baseball Dad in the Backyard
• How to Deal with Umpires in Youth Baseball
• Is It Now Fashionable to Hate On Baseball Dads?

For information on hitting, see:

• How to Get Out of a Hitting Slump
• 4 Best Baseball Batting Aids (No. 3 is Free)
• 4 Hitting Drills You Need to Do Before Every Game
• 4 Old School Baseball Drills You Need to Be Using

For information on pitching, see:

• What You Need to Know About Little League Elbow
• 4 Ways To Increase Your Kid’s Pitching Velocity
• Why I Don’t Let My Son Pitch in Little League
• Pitching and Head Injuries: What You Need to Know
• How to Make Sure Your Kid Isn’t Overpitched in Baseball

For more content, see Why the Japanese Dominate Little League Baseball.