NCAA 1-16 Dugouts (Players’ Benches)

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NCAA 1-16 Dugouts (Players’ Benches)

Dugouts (Players’ Benches)

SECTION 16. Players’ benches for both teams must be furnished by the home team. It is recommended that these benches be enclosed at either end, at the rear and overhead, or that appropriate dugouts be a part of each new field, and that the center of each dugout be located on the sideline boundary at a point equal distance from home plate and first base and home plate and third base .

a. All personnel of both teams must be in their team’s dugout area or bullpen and remain there until the ball has been declared dead or the side has been retired. This excludes the batter, the on-deck batter, base runners, base coaches and the nine defensive players (see 5-2-c).

b. If a facility has limited dugout space and it is necessary for personnel to be outside of the dugout, a clearly visible out-of-bounds line should be added at both bench areas to identify the dead-ball area. All personnel shall remain in this area until the ball has been declared dead. No extensions to dugouts will be allowed on the home plate side of either dugout. Any dead-ball area on the home plate side of any dugout that is used for ball persons is not to be occupied by any uniformed player, coach or other team personnel during play.

c. During a game, no one except eligible players in uniform, coaches, managers, athletic trainers, physicians, scorekeepers and bat persons shall occupy a team’s dugout or bullpen. Any violation of this rule should be brought to the umpire’s attention and should be reported to the conference or proper disciplinary authority.

d. All loose equipment (e.g., bats, gloves, chairs, etc.) must be kept in the dugout or in a clearly marked dead-ball area. If a pitched, batted or thrown ball touches equipment that is in live-ball territory, the ball remains live.

April 18, 2020
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