Section 5: Rules of Play
Game Length
- A regulation game is seven innings. The home team does not bat in the bottom of the seventh if it is already ahead.
- If the score is tied after seven innings, the game continues into extra innings.
Pitching
- The pitch is delivered underhand, typically with a windmill motion. The pitcher must begin with the required contact with the pitcher's plate and deliver in one continuous motion to the batter.
- The rules govern the legal start position, the step, and the permitted drag of the pivot foot; a delivery that does not meet these requirements is an illegal pitch.
- The pitcher is allowed a set number of warm-up pitches between innings and when entering as a substitute.
- Pace-of-play provisions limit the time the pitcher and batter may take between pitches.
Base Running
- No leadoffs: A base runner may not leave the base until the pitch is released by the pitcher. Leaving early is an out (or the play is otherwise penalized as provided in the rules).
- Stealing: Once the pitch is released, runners may attempt to steal.
- Look-back rule: When the pitcher has possession of the ball within the pitcher's circle, a runner off a base must immediately and continuously move to a base; failing to commit results in the runner being declared out.
- Collision / must-avoid contact: A runner must avoid malicious or deliberate contact with a fielder; the rules require the runner to slide or seek to avoid a fielder making a play, and flagrant contact results in the runner being declared out and possibly ejected.
Batting
- Batters hit in the order listed on the lineup card. A strikeout, a fly ball caught, or being thrown or tagged out retires the batter; reaching base safely keeps the inning alive.
- Bunting and slap hitting are legal offensive techniques and are common in the college game.
- A batter must remain within the batter's box as defined by the rules while hitting.
Conferences
- The rules limit the number of charged conferences — both defensive (coach visits to the pitcher) and offensive — a team may take in a game. Exceeding the defensive-conference limit requires the pitcher to be removed from the pitching position.
Run-Ahead Rule and Extra Innings
- Run-ahead ("mercy") rule: If one team is ahead by the rule's margin after the prescribed number of innings — commonly 8 or more runs after 5 innings — the game is ended.
- Extra-innings tiebreaker: Beginning in the prescribed extra inning, each half-inning starts with a base runner placed on second base (the player who made the last out of the previous inning, or a substitute), to speed the resolution of tied games.