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There is a definite change in the air and I'm not talking about the weather. Umpires are actually calling illegal pitches this year. And they're doing it a lot. I'm not sure precisely why - probably an instruction from the NCAA or some such - but high school and youth umps are following suit. The issue and the new found frequent rate of calls brings up a number of questions that may have some folks fairly confused. I'd like to discuss some of these to help clarify things a bit.
I was going to list out issues and questions numerically but there are so many cross-related items that I find I must write this in my usual rambling way. I'm gonna throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks.
The first item on the agenda is: why am I writing this now? I am writing about illegal pitches because I have seen and heard more calls and more comments by umpires and coaches in the first few weeks of this year than I have in the several full years prior. I watched my first college game on TV a few weeks back and witnessed multiple illegal pitch calls against both pitchers of two top teams. Obviously the umps are calling it at the collegiate level. This may be an early season emphasis on pitching rules or it may continue throughout the season as the ruling bodies actually get serious about it.
I do believe that the illegal pitch call must start at the top and emanate downwards through youth play. If the college umps are not calling egregious infractions, why the heck should an ump at a 10U game care particularly much? I have seen much ado about illegal pitches at the high school level and so I assume that every umpire is hot on the trail. I expect to see more calls in travel ball this year than ever before. Therefore, we must all be concerned with it until that supposition is proven wrong.
So what is an illegal pitch? Aside from a pitcher going to her mouth while on the rubber, bringing her hands together twice, not bringing her hands together at all, etc., there are really two sorts of illegal pitches, one called a crow hop and the other a leap. This is important only in as much as it elaborates upon the rules. That is, an illegal pitch, whether crow hop or leap, is still an illegal pitch. But nobody seems to grasp the difference between the two and this leads to something of a misunderstanding.
The basic rules of windmill pitching require the pitcher to maintain contact with the pitcher's plate (rubber) until she releases the ball from her hand. Obviously, very few pitchers are actually in contact with the rubber when they release the pitch. That is because it is not physically possible to push off well and throw while maintaining contact. Therefore, the rules logically say that if the pitcher drags her push off (pivot) foot along the ground, she is deemed to have maintained contact with the rubber. In short, you don't have to maintain contact with the rubber until you let the ball go. You must be in contact initially and then drag away, not lose touch with the ground, before releasing the ball.
The infraction known as a "leap" involves the pitcher losing contact with the ground with her pivot foot. The pitcher pushes off, becomes air-born with both feet off the ground and then throws. It is not imperative that both feet be off the ground for a "leaping" infraction. All that must happen is for the foot pushing off the rubber to lose contact with it and the ground. You do not cure leaping by having a pitcher land with the other foot before losing contact with the pivot foot. Generally, "leapers" become completely air-born, if but only briefly.
The "crow hop" is related to the leap but, in this case, the would-be "leaper" lands her pivot foot anew before releasing the ball. She obtains what is called a "new point of impetus" before she completes her windmill. This has the effect of putting her much closer to home than she would otherwise be. That is, a pitcher throwing from 43 feet might leap to a new point of impetus several feet in front of the rubber and, in effect, be pitching from 40 feet or closer rather than the rulebook distance of 43.
Why do pitchers crow hop? Some folks claim that they do this in order to throw harder because throwing with a crow hop is faster than throwing legally. I very much doubt this is true. The fact is a proper pitching motion is more efficient than an improper one. The crow hop is not a faster method. It does shorten the distance and thereby make it seem as if the pitcher is throwing harder but it does not make her faster. I say this because I've heard claims that it actually adds mph on the radar gun. There's just no way that is true. Those who make the claim are just not thinking the thing through.
Still, a crow hop does provide an advantage to the pitch because it brings her closer to the batter and shortens the time, however slightly, that the batter has to decide and swing. It provides an unfair advantage, one contemplated by the rule makers and is specifically prohibited. The leap is also prohibited but I doubt it gives any real advantage to the pitcher.
When an illegal pitch is called, the batter gets a ball and any runners on base are moved forward one base. Some folks confuse this with a balk in baseball because that is close to what results with a baseball balk. But the two are really completely unrelated. A baseball balk has nothing to do with a pitcher getting an unfair advantage over a batter. Rather it is the baserunner(s) over whom an unfair advantage has been obtained. Obviously baserunning rules in the two sports are very different. Since there is no leading before the pitch in fastpitch softball, the baseball balk is completely irrelevant to softball.
There are generally two types of baseball balks, a procedural balk and a punitive balk. The punitive balk happens when there are runners on base. A delayed dead ball is theoretically called and runners advance a base. I say "theoretically" because in practice, everything stops on a balk call. There's no delay about it though that is what the rules call for.
When there are no runners on base, the only sort of balk that can happen is a procedural one. Because the balk rule specifically contemplates baserunners being deceived, there is no penalty unless the umpires believe the pitcher was doing something illegal in order to fool the batter in which case they may award a ball. When a softball illegal pitch is called, the batter is always awarded a ball and any baserunners awarded the next base. There is no distinction between a procedural or punitive illegal pitch.
Baseball pitchers do not crow hop because this provides a disadvantage to them. Every baseball pitcher knows that they need to keep their pivot foot on the rubber as they push off and come forward to the release point. There is nothing to be gained from bringing the pivot foot forward on the mound, obtaining a new point of impetus and then throwing because they lose some of the downward trajectory advantage they have and because they cannot get as strong a push off. This brings up a point relevant to windmill pitching but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Baseball pitchers' pivot feet frequently do not drag away from the rubber, however, because, I suppose, the mechanics of baseball pitching are different - they are overhand. Any overhand throw ends with either a foot dragging or not. It is about 50/50. There doesn't seem to be much particular reason to do either. Neither is markedly more powerful than the other - it is more a question of style or habit. Some pitchers do drag, some do not. It depends on the style of pitching they are performing. Some pitchers have their pivot foot fly away after push off and before release. Some pitchers drag. But it ain't covered in the baseball rulebook and absolutely nobody cares.
Regardless of what is covered in the baseball rulebook and regardless of whether baseball pitchers do or do not crow hop or leap, the fact is these are both illegal in windmill pitching. So, why do girls do it? There are several reasons but, again, I do not believe anyone is trying to learn to do it in order to gain an advantage.
Windmill pitchers, unlike their brothers in baseball, must train by performing actual pitches throughout much of the year. In youth and high school ball, many baseball pitchers take much more of the year off than windmillers do. The windmill is just that much harder. But in most places, one cannot practice pitching outside on an actual pitching surface.
Most pitchers do their "winter work" on a flat surface, without a rubber, or on some type of artificial surface with a rubber but no actual dirt around it. The gymnasium floor is often a place where pitchers work. It is very difficult to drag away from a point of impetus (rubber or not) on gym floor surfaces because they are made for NOT SLIPPING.
If you get yourself one of those mats with a rubber on it, you can drag away more easily than on a gym floor but it is still far more difficult than real dirt. So, regardless of where they perform their winter workouts, many softball pitcher's get out of the habit of dragging away.
Sometimes, they actually develop crow hops while throwing on these indoor surfaces. I'm not sure why this is but perhaps it could have something to do with trying to develop more speed. Again, the crow hop is not a faster method of pitching but when a girl is pitching on a difficult surface to push and drag, she may do things in order to gain leverage so as tyo throw hard and not put too much stress on her shoulder. Since she doesn't lose anything in the gym because she has no rubber, perhaps she can be prone to crow hopping. I really do not know but I have seen many gymnasium pitchers who were legal outside develop crow hops during the winter.
A larger reason why pitchers develop crow hops has to do with the windmill learning process. The motion is, in my humble opinion, one of the most complicated moves in all of athletics. There is so much to learn separately with the upper and lower body, not to mention the core muscles, that it has to be taught in pieces. A girl learns to snap the ball out of her hand, then bring her arm down and snap, and then a full rotation followed by a snap. After the basic arm rotation is taught, then and only then, the twisting of the core is taught. Only after these two pieces are learned fairly well is she taught about pushing off. Thereafter, drills and warm up routines are established which break the motion down into pieces and ultimately bring them together. It is very complicated and many girls struggle along the way.
I have watched several girls who have been trained to pitch for several years have difficulty maintaining a reasonable circle throughout their rotation. I have seen many who do not fully open and thereby reduce the quality and length of their circle from which much of the power is gained. I have seen many other girls who, despite fully opening and maintaining pretty good arm circles, have difficulty with the end of the motion or simply get into the habit of forgetting to snap the ball. It is not easy.
In order to fix broken parts, many coaches go back to the drawing board and build up from the bottom again. Then, after the broken piece is mended, girls sometimes have trouble bringing the thing back together again. Or, and this is really frustrating, the girl fixes the broken piece and then something else is out of alignment. Windmill pitching can very much be "Humpty-Dumpty."
Sometimes girls learn to pitch while making the mistake of crow hopping or leaping and these aren't fixed by their coaches for a couple reasons. First of all, if a coach is working on 50 different little pieces that need tweaking, probably the last thing he or she is concerned with is a tiny leap. Secondly, because the leap is very hard to fix on a poor surface for pitching, why bother? Heck, she'll fix that when she gets back outside and we have so much else to do!
Another reason why pitching coaches do not or have not in the past bothered to fix little leaps and hops is because nobody has been calling them for years. There has been a lot of talk about the subject but nobody has done anything about it for a long time. Now, all of a sudden, the talk has caught the attention of the governing bodies and they are trying to fix what they allowed to break in the first place. So, at the last Olympics, illegal pitches were actually called. Also, last year the NCAA got slightly tougher on pitchers' feet. Then the high school umps applied it a bit more than they had in the past. This year seems to be the water shed. Umps are calling it left and right.
Why was the illegal pitch almost never called before last year and this one? I can't really say for sure but I assume that 1) nobody saw a real advantage gained by pitchers and 2) the rule has one major defect.
In baseball, as I said, the pitcher who commits a balk is trying to get, or in effect getting, an advantage over the baserunner. In softball, that's not the case. In baseball, the rules very sanely say, if you're trying to get an illegal advantage over the baserunner, then not only will we not allow it but we will give the baserunner an advantage by moving him up one base very time you do it.
In softball, where the pitcher is trying to get, or in effect deemed to be getting, an advantage over the batter. We sanely penalize her by awarding a ball. But, we then turnaround and also award baserunners a free advance to the next base. We penalize the pitcher once by awarding a ball to the batter and that should be about right. That should be it.
Umpires are often gifted with a good amount of common game sense, whether they know the rulebook precisely as written or not. Many I have encountered over the years have taken time to explain not only to pitchers but also to coaches precisely what it is they think she is doing wrong. I have even seen umps take the additional step of explaining the problem to parents of pitchers between innings. They seldom make the illegal pitch call, or have historically done it seldom, because it changes the game, slows it down and basically destroys much of the good.
If you walk up to a random field and observe a pitcher at 10U through 18U, chances are probably 50/50 or better that you will see a pitcher make at least one illegal pitch during any inning. Most likely, if you stay for both innings, you will see both pitchers make multiple illegal pitches. Can you imagine going to a softball game, expecting it to be a low scoring, hour and a half affair but when you get there, the first pitch is called illegal, then the second, and so on? That nice pure game will end up taking more than the 4 hours many baseball games take. The score will be something like 50-49. And both pitcher will have thrown no hitters! VERY BORING!
Many umps recognize this and call illegal pitches infrequently unless the game is an important one. The last thing they want to do is make the game a huge bore for all involved.
Another reason umps have often ignored illegal pitches is because when you take some 11, 12, 16 year-old pitcher and tell her to change her motion in the middle of a game, two things can happen. One is she is going to throw so badly that the ball is going to be hit all over the place. It is not because she has lost that wonderful advantage she illegally gained over the prior hitters. It is because she is now out of sync and unable to pitch the way she has thrown the last forty thousand practice pitches.  -; She doesn't know what to do.
More importantly, when a pitcher changes her motion in the second inning of some game and then continues to throw another 100 pitches in a failed attempt to correct the mistake she has been making without correction over the past 3 or 5 years, she is going to put far too much stress on her shoulder, her back or some part of her body. She is going to end up injured. And that is a really bad outcome of trying to correct something like this during a game.
Do you think I am overstating reality by claiming that most pitchers throw illegally and can be called multiple times each inning? Take a look at the top names in our game and show me five pitcher who do not throw illegally! Jennie Finch? Sorry, almost every pitch she throws involves a slight step forward off the rubber onto the ground in front of it. Monica Abbott? Cat? Ditto, ditto. Keep going. I guarantee you that almost every pitcher in the top 50 or even 150 in the world, some of the greatest pitchers of all time, has some sort of routine flaw with her feet that should, if the letter of the rules are followed, result in a call at least some of the time.
Now, there are crow hops and there are crow hops. There are leaps and there are leaps. Jennie Finch gains nothing worth noting with her "step" which is technically a crow hop. I'm not sure that any of the top pitchers really do gain from their hops or leaps. It is just hard to be athletic with one very important foot nailed to the ground.
Further, even the game surface is somewhat imperfect. Have you ever taken a good look at the dirt in the circle during a tournament game when 5 games have already been played on this field and the only repair work is by some guy like me who is absolutely clueless and even if he had a clue, doesn't have the proper materials or equipment to fix holes in the surface?
I have watched games on occasion where a pitcher was called for leaping because she lost contact with the ground after push off. But the area in front of the rubber had a one foot drop and it is getting worse each and every pitch! That is certainly not true of international or NCAA level games but in everything from high school on down, there are some pretty bad field conditions. And even with state of the art equipment and materials applied by a real ground crew, during play, there are going to be holes dug.
How about this resolution to the illegal pitch? Let's get a guy with clay at the ready and a tamper to pat down each application. Now let's call him in after each inning to fix the surface? No, that's not fair, he should come in every half inning. And if the area gets beat up during a half inning, the plate ump can call him in to fix it. This will really make the game fun and quick!
As I said, there are girls who hop quite egregiously. And there are girls who leap very badly regardless of field conditions. These problems need to be fixed. A pitcher with a 3 foot crow hop should not be allowed to continue doing it year after year. I'm not really sure about the leap since I don't think it really provides anything positive and really results from bad timing and coordination or lousy field conditions.
A likely rebuttal to my diatribe today is probably going to be something like the rules are the rules and they should be applied evenly, period. To that, I will say that, technically, if you apply the rules perfectly, no player on the defensive team, nor her parents in the stands for that matter, is allowed to distract an offensive or defensive player in any way, shape or manner. That being the case, and the rules are the rules, you must remain quiet in the stands in those tense moments that determine the outcome of the game. Probably it would be best if players only spoke when the ball is in the circle and the pitcher is not on the rubber lest they distract anyone. So no chatter of any kind is allowed. All those catchers taught to block the plate while the throw is still incoming, that is obstruction. Any contact made between an incoming runner and the catcher has to be either interference or obstruction and because these players are really not supposed to come into contact at all, someone should be ejected from the game on almost every close play at the plate I have seen.
The point is rules can be taken to extremes. Obviously there is need for most rules. They ought to be applied and applied evenly. , But rules change or are clarified every year because they are, by nature, imperfect.  -; before we go from a speed of -0- to one of 120 mph, we ought to at least consider the bigger picture (I almost wrote pitcher).
Personally, I think some degree of latitude should be given to the finch's of the world. I think there should be room for a "crow hop" on one or two inches which really would be limited to a mere slipping and sliding of the pivot foot from the rubber to a point right in front of it. I also think a degree of rationality should be applied to the leap rule. I saw a pitcher against who illegal pitches were called the other night on my Tivo. The broadcasters noted that she had lost touch with the ground by a few inches on each delivery. I replayed one over and over until I saw it. She did leave the ground though you'd have to have very good eyes to notice it. The funny thing was that she left the ground on those pitches on which illegal was called almost as often as she did when it wasn't called!
We might also want to at least look over at our brethren on the baseball diamond and make note of their balk rule, just as a reference point. if the attempted illegal advantage is over the runners, they should get the benefit of any penalty. If it isn't, they shouldn't. The windmill pitch is a theoretical attempt to gain on the batter, not the runners. The penalty should be a ball. Why should the runners advance????
Finally, I seriously doubt that many folks out there, be they umps, coaches or whatever, have a good understanding of pitching rules. One umpire recently said to a pitcher throwing warm-ups that she was crow hopping. She wasn't. She was leaping. And, by the way, you are allowed to do that during your warm-ups! A coach once recently was heard telling a pitcher that she was crow hopping, she wasn't. She was leaping but that was because the field was in such terrible condition that had she dragged, she would have ripped her toe nails off inside her shoes.
I know rules are often hard to understand and harder to apply fairly. But to the guy coaching first base who screamed balk as my then 9 year old was about to release the ball approximately 100 times during a nothing tournament game several years ago, read my lips. THERE IS NO BALK IN GIRLS FASTPITCH SOFTBALL. Also, to the same fellow, your daughter is an egregious crow hopper! For the rest of you, please consider the words of ten year MLB umpire, Ron Luciano, as he addressed the issue of baseball's balk. he said, "I never called a balk in my life. I didn't understand the rule."
Information From: www.girls-softball.com
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I was going to list out issues and questions numerically but there are so many cross-related items that I find I must write this in my usual rambling way. I'm gonna throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks.
The first item on the agenda is: why am I writing this now? I am writing about illegal pitches because I have seen and heard more calls and more comments by umpires and coaches in the first few weeks of this year than I have in the several full years prior. I watched my first college game on TV a few weeks back and witnessed multiple illegal pitch calls against both pitchers of two top teams. Obviously the umps are calling it at the collegiate level. This may be an early season emphasis on pitching rules or it may continue throughout the season as the ruling bodies actually get serious about it.
I do believe that the illegal pitch call must start at the top and emanate downwards through youth play. If the college umps are not calling egregious infractions, why the heck should an ump at a 10U game care particularly much? I have seen much ado about illegal pitches at the high school level and so I assume that every umpire is hot on the trail. I expect to see more calls in travel ball this year than ever before. Therefore, we must all be concerned with it until that supposition is proven wrong.
So what is an illegal pitch? Aside from a pitcher going to her mouth while on the rubber, bringing her hands together twice, not bringing her hands together at all, etc., there are really two sorts of illegal pitches, one called a crow hop and the other a leap. This is important only in as much as it elaborates upon the rules. That is, an illegal pitch, whether crow hop or leap, is still an illegal pitch. But nobody seems to grasp the difference between the two and this leads to something of a misunderstanding.
The basic rules of windmill pitching require the pitcher to maintain contact with the pitcher's plate (rubber) until she releases the ball from her hand. Obviously, very few pitchers are actually in contact with the rubber when they release the pitch. That is because it is not physically possible to push off well and throw while maintaining contact. Therefore, the rules logically say that if the pitcher drags her push off (pivot) foot along the ground, she is deemed to have maintained contact with the rubber. In short, you don't have to maintain contact with the rubber until you let the ball go. You must be in contact initially and then drag away, not lose touch with the ground, before releasing the ball.
The infraction known as a "leap" involves the pitcher losing contact with the ground with her pivot foot. The pitcher pushes off, becomes air-born with both feet off the ground and then throws. It is not imperative that both feet be off the ground for a "leaping" infraction. All that must happen is for the foot pushing off the rubber to lose contact with it and the ground. You do not cure leaping by having a pitcher land with the other foot before losing contact with the pivot foot. Generally, "leapers" become completely air-born, if but only briefly.
The "crow hop" is related to the leap but, in this case, the would-be "leaper" lands her pivot foot anew before releasing the ball. She obtains what is called a "new point of impetus" before she completes her windmill. This has the effect of putting her much closer to home than she would otherwise be. That is, a pitcher throwing from 43 feet might leap to a new point of impetus several feet in front of the rubber and, in effect, be pitching from 40 feet or closer rather than the rulebook distance of 43.
Why do pitchers crow hop? Some folks claim that they do this in order to throw harder because throwing with a crow hop is faster than throwing legally. I very much doubt this is true. The fact is a proper pitching motion is more efficient than an improper one. The crow hop is not a faster method. It does shorten the distance and thereby make it seem as if the pitcher is throwing harder but it does not make her faster. I say this because I've heard claims that it actually adds mph on the radar gun. There's just no way that is true. Those who make the claim are just not thinking the thing through.
Still, a crow hop does provide an advantage to the pitch because it brings her closer to the batter and shortens the time, however slightly, that the batter has to decide and swing. It provides an unfair advantage, one contemplated by the rule makers and is specifically prohibited. The leap is also prohibited but I doubt it gives any real advantage to the pitcher.
When an illegal pitch is called, the batter gets a ball and any runners on base are moved forward one base. Some folks confuse this with a balk in baseball because that is close to what results with a baseball balk. But the two are really completely unrelated. A baseball balk has nothing to do with a pitcher getting an unfair advantage over a batter. Rather it is the baserunner(s) over whom an unfair advantage has been obtained. Obviously baserunning rules in the two sports are very different. Since there is no leading before the pitch in fastpitch softball, the baseball balk is completely irrelevant to softball.
There are generally two types of baseball balks, a procedural balk and a punitive balk. The punitive balk happens when there are runners on base. A delayed dead ball is theoretically called and runners advance a base. I say "theoretically" because in practice, everything stops on a balk call. There's no delay about it though that is what the rules call for.
When there are no runners on base, the only sort of balk that can happen is a procedural one. Because the balk rule specifically contemplates baserunners being deceived, there is no penalty unless the umpires believe the pitcher was doing something illegal in order to fool the batter in which case they may award a ball. When a softball illegal pitch is called, the batter is always awarded a ball and any baserunners awarded the next base. There is no distinction between a procedural or punitive illegal pitch.
Baseball pitchers do not crow hop because this provides a disadvantage to them. Every baseball pitcher knows that they need to keep their pivot foot on the rubber as they push off and come forward to the release point. There is nothing to be gained from bringing the pivot foot forward on the mound, obtaining a new point of impetus and then throwing because they lose some of the downward trajectory advantage they have and because they cannot get as strong a push off. This brings up a point relevant to windmill pitching but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Baseball pitchers' pivot feet frequently do not drag away from the rubber, however, because, I suppose, the mechanics of baseball pitching are different - they are overhand. Any overhand throw ends with either a foot dragging or not. It is about 50/50. There doesn't seem to be much particular reason to do either. Neither is markedly more powerful than the other - it is more a question of style or habit. Some pitchers do drag, some do not. It depends on the style of pitching they are performing. Some pitchers have their pivot foot fly away after push off and before release. Some pitchers drag. But it ain't covered in the baseball rulebook and absolutely nobody cares.
Regardless of what is covered in the baseball rulebook and regardless of whether baseball pitchers do or do not crow hop or leap, the fact is these are both illegal in windmill pitching. So, why do girls do it? There are several reasons but, again, I do not believe anyone is trying to learn to do it in order to gain an advantage.
Windmill pitchers, unlike their brothers in baseball, must train by performing actual pitches throughout much of the year. In youth and high school ball, many baseball pitchers take much more of the year off than windmillers do. The windmill is just that much harder. But in most places, one cannot practice pitching outside on an actual pitching surface.
Most pitchers do their "winter work" on a flat surface, without a rubber, or on some type of artificial surface with a rubber but no actual dirt around it. The gymnasium floor is often a place where pitchers work. It is very difficult to drag away from a point of impetus (rubber or not) on gym floor surfaces because they are made for NOT SLIPPING.
If you get yourself one of those mats with a rubber on it, you can drag away more easily than on a gym floor but it is still far more difficult than real dirt. So, regardless of where they perform their winter workouts, many softball pitcher's get out of the habit of dragging away.
Sometimes, they actually develop crow hops while throwing on these indoor surfaces. I'm not sure why this is but perhaps it could have something to do with trying to develop more speed. Again, the crow hop is not a faster method of pitching but when a girl is pitching on a difficult surface to push and drag, she may do things in order to gain leverage so as tyo throw hard and not put too much stress on her shoulder. Since she doesn't lose anything in the gym because she has no rubber, perhaps she can be prone to crow hopping. I really do not know but I have seen many gymnasium pitchers who were legal outside develop crow hops during the winter.
A larger reason why pitchers develop crow hops has to do with the windmill learning process. The motion is, in my humble opinion, one of the most complicated moves in all of athletics. There is so much to learn separately with the upper and lower body, not to mention the core muscles, that it has to be taught in pieces. A girl learns to snap the ball out of her hand, then bring her arm down and snap, and then a full rotation followed by a snap. After the basic arm rotation is taught, then and only then, the twisting of the core is taught. Only after these two pieces are learned fairly well is she taught about pushing off. Thereafter, drills and warm up routines are established which break the motion down into pieces and ultimately bring them together. It is very complicated and many girls struggle along the way.
I have watched several girls who have been trained to pitch for several years have difficulty maintaining a reasonable circle throughout their rotation. I have seen many who do not fully open and thereby reduce the quality and length of their circle from which much of the power is gained. I have seen many other girls who, despite fully opening and maintaining pretty good arm circles, have difficulty with the end of the motion or simply get into the habit of forgetting to snap the ball. It is not easy.
In order to fix broken parts, many coaches go back to the drawing board and build up from the bottom again. Then, after the broken piece is mended, girls sometimes have trouble bringing the thing back together again. Or, and this is really frustrating, the girl fixes the broken piece and then something else is out of alignment. Windmill pitching can very much be "Humpty-Dumpty."
Sometimes girls learn to pitch while making the mistake of crow hopping or leaping and these aren't fixed by their coaches for a couple reasons. First of all, if a coach is working on 50 different little pieces that need tweaking, probably the last thing he or she is concerned with is a tiny leap. Secondly, because the leap is very hard to fix on a poor surface for pitching, why bother? Heck, she'll fix that when she gets back outside and we have so much else to do!
Another reason why pitching coaches do not or have not in the past bothered to fix little leaps and hops is because nobody has been calling them for years. There has been a lot of talk about the subject but nobody has done anything about it for a long time. Now, all of a sudden, the talk has caught the attention of the governing bodies and they are trying to fix what they allowed to break in the first place. So, at the last Olympics, illegal pitches were actually called. Also, last year the NCAA got slightly tougher on pitchers' feet. Then the high school umps applied it a bit more than they had in the past. This year seems to be the water shed. Umps are calling it left and right.
Why was the illegal pitch almost never called before last year and this one? I can't really say for sure but I assume that 1) nobody saw a real advantage gained by pitchers and 2) the rule has one major defect.
In baseball, as I said, the pitcher who commits a balk is trying to get, or in effect getting, an advantage over the baserunner. In softball, that's not the case. In baseball, the rules very sanely say, if you're trying to get an illegal advantage over the baserunner, then not only will we not allow it but we will give the baserunner an advantage by moving him up one base very time you do it.
In softball, where the pitcher is trying to get, or in effect deemed to be getting, an advantage over the batter. We sanely penalize her by awarding a ball. But, we then turnaround and also award baserunners a free advance to the next base. We penalize the pitcher once by awarding a ball to the batter and that should be about right. That should be it.
Umpires are often gifted with a good amount of common game sense, whether they know the rulebook precisely as written or not. Many I have encountered over the years have taken time to explain not only to pitchers but also to coaches precisely what it is they think she is doing wrong. I have even seen umps take the additional step of explaining the problem to parents of pitchers between innings. They seldom make the illegal pitch call, or have historically done it seldom, because it changes the game, slows it down and basically destroys much of the good.
If you walk up to a random field and observe a pitcher at 10U through 18U, chances are probably 50/50 or better that you will see a pitcher make at least one illegal pitch during any inning. Most likely, if you stay for both innings, you will see both pitchers make multiple illegal pitches. Can you imagine going to a softball game, expecting it to be a low scoring, hour and a half affair but when you get there, the first pitch is called illegal, then the second, and so on? That nice pure game will end up taking more than the 4 hours many baseball games take. The score will be something like 50-49. And both pitcher will have thrown no hitters! VERY BORING!
Many umps recognize this and call illegal pitches infrequently unless the game is an important one. The last thing they want to do is make the game a huge bore for all involved.
Another reason umps have often ignored illegal pitches is because when you take some 11, 12, 16 year-old pitcher and tell her to change her motion in the middle of a game, two things can happen. One is she is going to throw so badly that the ball is going to be hit all over the place. It is not because she has lost that wonderful advantage she illegally gained over the prior hitters. It is because she is now out of sync and unable to pitch the way she has thrown the last forty thousand practice pitches.  -; She doesn't know what to do.
More importantly, when a pitcher changes her motion in the second inning of some game and then continues to throw another 100 pitches in a failed attempt to correct the mistake she has been making without correction over the past 3 or 5 years, she is going to put far too much stress on her shoulder, her back or some part of her body. She is going to end up injured. And that is a really bad outcome of trying to correct something like this during a game.
Do you think I am overstating reality by claiming that most pitchers throw illegally and can be called multiple times each inning? Take a look at the top names in our game and show me five pitcher who do not throw illegally! Jennie Finch? Sorry, almost every pitch she throws involves a slight step forward off the rubber onto the ground in front of it. Monica Abbott? Cat? Ditto, ditto. Keep going. I guarantee you that almost every pitcher in the top 50 or even 150 in the world, some of the greatest pitchers of all time, has some sort of routine flaw with her feet that should, if the letter of the rules are followed, result in a call at least some of the time.
Now, there are crow hops and there are crow hops. There are leaps and there are leaps. Jennie Finch gains nothing worth noting with her "step" which is technically a crow hop. I'm not sure that any of the top pitchers really do gain from their hops or leaps. It is just hard to be athletic with one very important foot nailed to the ground.
Further, even the game surface is somewhat imperfect. Have you ever taken a good look at the dirt in the circle during a tournament game when 5 games have already been played on this field and the only repair work is by some guy like me who is absolutely clueless and even if he had a clue, doesn't have the proper materials or equipment to fix holes in the surface?
I have watched games on occasion where a pitcher was called for leaping because she lost contact with the ground after push off. But the area in front of the rubber had a one foot drop and it is getting worse each and every pitch! That is certainly not true of international or NCAA level games but in everything from high school on down, there are some pretty bad field conditions. And even with state of the art equipment and materials applied by a real ground crew, during play, there are going to be holes dug.
How about this resolution to the illegal pitch? Let's get a guy with clay at the ready and a tamper to pat down each application. Now let's call him in after each inning to fix the surface? No, that's not fair, he should come in every half inning. And if the area gets beat up during a half inning, the plate ump can call him in to fix it. This will really make the game fun and quick!
As I said, there are girls who hop quite egregiously. And there are girls who leap very badly regardless of field conditions. These problems need to be fixed. A pitcher with a 3 foot crow hop should not be allowed to continue doing it year after year. I'm not really sure about the leap since I don't think it really provides anything positive and really results from bad timing and coordination or lousy field conditions.
A likely rebuttal to my diatribe today is probably going to be something like the rules are the rules and they should be applied evenly, period. To that, I will say that, technically, if you apply the rules perfectly, no player on the defensive team, nor her parents in the stands for that matter, is allowed to distract an offensive or defensive player in any way, shape or manner. That being the case, and the rules are the rules, you must remain quiet in the stands in those tense moments that determine the outcome of the game. Probably it would be best if players only spoke when the ball is in the circle and the pitcher is not on the rubber lest they distract anyone. So no chatter of any kind is allowed. All those catchers taught to block the plate while the throw is still incoming, that is obstruction. Any contact made between an incoming runner and the catcher has to be either interference or obstruction and because these players are really not supposed to come into contact at all, someone should be ejected from the game on almost every close play at the plate I have seen.
The point is rules can be taken to extremes. Obviously there is need for most rules. They ought to be applied and applied evenly. , But rules change or are clarified every year because they are, by nature, imperfect.  -; before we go from a speed of -0- to one of 120 mph, we ought to at least consider the bigger picture (I almost wrote pitcher).
Personally, I think some degree of latitude should be given to the finch's of the world. I think there should be room for a "crow hop" on one or two inches which really would be limited to a mere slipping and sliding of the pivot foot from the rubber to a point right in front of it. I also think a degree of rationality should be applied to the leap rule. I saw a pitcher against who illegal pitches were called the other night on my Tivo. The broadcasters noted that she had lost touch with the ground by a few inches on each delivery. I replayed one over and over until I saw it. She did leave the ground though you'd have to have very good eyes to notice it. The funny thing was that she left the ground on those pitches on which illegal was called almost as often as she did when it wasn't called!
We might also want to at least look over at our brethren on the baseball diamond and make note of their balk rule, just as a reference point. if the attempted illegal advantage is over the runners, they should get the benefit of any penalty. If it isn't, they shouldn't. The windmill pitch is a theoretical attempt to gain on the batter, not the runners. The penalty should be a ball. Why should the runners advance????
Finally, I seriously doubt that many folks out there, be they umps, coaches or whatever, have a good understanding of pitching rules. One umpire recently said to a pitcher throwing warm-ups that she was crow hopping. She wasn't. She was leaping. And, by the way, you are allowed to do that during your warm-ups! A coach once recently was heard telling a pitcher that she was crow hopping, she wasn't. She was leaping but that was because the field was in such terrible condition that had she dragged, she would have ripped her toe nails off inside her shoes.
I know rules are often hard to understand and harder to apply fairly. But to the guy coaching first base who screamed balk as my then 9 year old was about to release the ball approximately 100 times during a nothing tournament game several years ago, read my lips. THERE IS NO BALK IN GIRLS FASTPITCH SOFTBALL. Also, to the same fellow, your daughter is an egregious crow hopper! For the rest of you, please consider the words of ten year MLB umpire, Ron Luciano, as he addressed the issue of baseball's balk. he said, "I never called a balk in my life. I didn't understand the rule."
Information From: www.girls-softball.com
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