hitting pitched ball on ground

Question
Hi,

I coach an under 10 girl's modified fastpitch team and we use ASA rules.  We play against a team in our league that intentionally walks the 10 year old batters by rolling the ball to the catcher on the ground so they can pitch to the 7 and 8 year olds to get the out.  

My question is, since a pitched ball is live (and is it at this age level?) can my batters if they choose swing and hit the ball off the ground?  It's not a great solution, but the players and the parents are getting really upset because they never get a chance to hit when we play this team.  Even with bases loaded, they would rather walk a run in then risk one of the older girls hitting a home run.  

We also had a situation at our last game where the umpire told the other team's coach he could just declare his intention to walk our batters without pitching the balls.  I protested this ruling because it took away from us the chance to steal on these pitches (we are allowed to steal 3rd base in our league).  The ASA rulebook says that the pitcher must deliver legal pitches on an intentional walk, but the umpire said that it didn't apply at the under-10 level.  What is the correct ruling in this case?

Thanks,
Denise

Answer
Good morning Denise,
In the past few weeks I watched the college women's world series (I actually had a week of advanced training at the Hall of Fame stadium in 1995).  In all the games I watched the "class" of the players and the coaches was amazing.  It's too bad some coach in an U10 league has no "class".

That being said I don't understand why the pitcher is allowed to roll the ball.  In ASA that's an illegal pitch, if not hit (and now other rules come into play) it's ball on the batter and all runners advance 1 base . So if you have bases loaded all 3 runners would score before ball 4.  But we're probably not going to get to ball 4 that way, we have a rule "unsportsmanlike conduct (or making a travesity of the game)", a good umpire is not going to allow continued (1)illegal pitch, 2) illegal pitch warning to the pitcher and the coach, 3) illegal pitch, now I get to pick who) rolling the ball without somebody going.

Can you fill me why this rule is not enforced, I just don't understand.

In an intentional walk under ASA rules, all pitches are live and must be legally delivered to the batter. You may have a local rule to the opposite, check with your league rules on that one.

Mark