Batting gloves illegal?

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Yesterday at a scrimmage an umpire told my pitching dd that her batting glove being worn under her glove while pitching was illegal. In the several years that my dd has been pitching and using her batting glove, this has NEVER once been a problem.

Is there really a rule about that?

I'm wondering if maybe it wasn't the glove so much, as the Mazuno logo and piping in irredescent green on the batting glove. However, that same logo in the same color was on the opposing pitchers actual Mazuno glove. So... just curious if this is really something to worry about? Should I break out the black sharpie marker?

 

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The fact that your daughter has worn this for years and never had any problems with it speaks volumes...unless every single other umpire who ever called her games was wrong, then all of a sudden this one guy was right!

There's no rule that flat out states a batting glove cannot be worn on the pitcher's glove hand. This is a commonly repeated rule myth that rears it's ugly head from time to time. I believe that many years ago, when batting gloves were usually white, there was a baseball ruling that a pitcher couldn't wear one because of the white ball.

An umpire may ask a pitcher to remove an item if he judges it to be distracting and a batting glove that has optic yellow trim might fit that description. But the umpire would ask the pitcher to remove it due to the color, not just becasue it is "a batting glove".

Almost every instance I ever hear about an umpire making a pitcher take off a glove or piece of gear because it is "illegal" involves an umpire not understanding the rule or unecessarily injecting himself into the game, or a coach complaining about something bothering his hitters (usually, after a few innings have been played and his team is blowing it at the plate) and goading the umpire into making a call (even if the item is perfectly legal).

 

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Just use the Sharpie and I bet it will never be an issue. I wondered the same thing when I saw the Mizuno gloves with the ball-colored logos.

 

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Thanks Bretman. That was my thinking and we were winning by a lot. But I really don't think the other coach had anything to do with it.

ohlovessteelers, we will be using that sharpie! LOL The umpire didn't say it was the color, he said it was the glove. But, if it's all black maybe it will blend better!

 

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Okay, a friend of mine was at her stepsons baseball game and the official made the pitcher take his batting glove off from under his gloved hand. Apparently said it was a new rule this year. I am hoping it is a baseball rule. Although, I have taken a sharpie to my dd's glove and she was not called for it in her game tonight.

 

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Unfortunately, most any time you see an umpire make an odd ruling, then he explains it away with, "It's a new rule this year", the explanation holds about as much truth as, "The check's in the mail".

It's not a new rule. It's an old myth. But, as with many myths, sometimes there is just a tiny kernel of truth in it.

There is a professional baseball interpretation (not a rule in the rule book, but an interpretation issued by MLB to their umpires) that a pitcher may not wear a batting glove. Apparently it has as much to do with a pitcher possibly concealing something to scuff the ball as it does about any possible "distraction" it might cause.

NCAA baseball adopted this as a rule, too. But neither of these are "new" rules- I found reference to them first dating back to the 1980's (about the time that wearing a batting glove under a fielding glove became popular). In fact, some of these references were so old that they refered to the pitcher wearing a golf glove, which is what players used before batting gloves became widely available.

I doubt that the umpire in your friend's baseball game was thinking of the MLB or NCCA rule! Other amateur baseball rule sets, such as Little League or High School have no such prohibition.

There are a lot of sanctioning bodies out there and I guess it's possible that one of them might have written a new rule that says a pitcher can't wear a batting glove, or that some local league wrote a rule like this. But none that I'm aware of.

Still...when it comes to softball there's nothing that says a pitcher can't wear a batting glove...unless it falls under the same "distracting" definition of any other item worn by the pitcher, be it a wristband, arm sleeve, etc.