Kevin Hunter's Little League Rule Index

The idea when I started this in 2002 was to create a simple keyword index into the Little League rules which would be a bit better than than the short one that is in the rulebooks themselves. The rulebook's organization leaves something to be desired (a matter of history and tradition) so people without an intimate knowledge of it can have difficulty locating the specific rule paragraph(s) relating to a situation. This was supposed to make that process somewhat easier.

I can't claim that I came up with the original concept - years ago a friend of mine showed me a copy of Jim Evans' index to the OBR, which was so obviously useful that it was the inspiration for this endeavor.

The project got more involved than I expected, but what in life doesn't? My "simple keyword index" has grown to over 60 pages, and, to some extent, has developed a life of its own. As a result, I've continued to update it from year to year. I'm flattered that it's gained some popularity, and has developed fans in a number of places all around the country.

For those of you who haven't seen this before, this doesn't replace the rulebooks - it's just an index. Sorry, you still have to go back to the book once you've found the rule number references. What this will do, I hope, is get you to those references faster, and also show you when there are multiple rules that cover a situation. Therefore, I strongly recommend you check ALL the paragraphs when more than one are listed, and also look things up a couple of different ways - I can't guarantee that I've indexed the rules every way that you might try to look them up. (Although I've tried.)

If you're a Little League umpire, you're welcome to this index for your own use.  If you're a league, and want to hand it out to your umpires, managers or coaches, please feel free.  For any other use, please ask me - you can use the contact form, or the email address in the index.  Particularly, please don't post copies of the index elsewhere - please link to this site instead.

There are three versions of the index. All three contain exactly the same information - they just differ in how the pages are laid out. Here's a sample page and a key to the abbreviations.

The "Booklet" form

This version is designed to be printed two-sided (flipped on the SHORT end), and then folded together into a 5.5" x 8.5" booklet. Because of this, the page ordering looks very funny when you just view it on the screen using Acrobat, but it works out OK once it's printed.

If you have a duplex-capable printer, I've found it usually works correctly if you tell Acrobat to print in Landscape mode. (If you don't do this, the backs of the pages sometimes come out upside down.) If you don't have a duplex printer, you can always print the even pages, put the paper back in your printer and then print the odd pages. (Or maybe it's odd, then even. Every printer is different. Experiment with the first couple of pages and you'll probably be able to figure it out.)

The "Full page" form

This version is designed to print on 8.5" x 11" pages in standard portrait format. It uses a larger font than the booklet format version, so it's easier to read, but it's more pages. You can print it one-sided or two-sided as you prefer.

The "Landscape" form

This version is printed using the same font and layout as the booklet version, but is designed to be printed on one-sided paper. It doesn't fold up neatly into a booklet, but it uses less paper than the full page version. The tradeoff is a smaller font, which makes it more difficult for some people to read.

The information in the index is Copyright (c) 2002-2011, Kevin D. Hunter.

If you have any suggestions to improve this index, or if you find an error in it, please don't hesitate to drop me a line at the email address on the inside of the front cover. Even if you don't have any suggestions, if you find it useful, I would really appreciate hearing from you, if for no other reason than to find out where it has traveled.