Pitching and Pitchers Discussion Illegal pitch

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I with Lester and Mad Hornet. Unless you (umpire) can show where you have the authority to pick and choice which rules you enforce then just do your job. Let the rule makers make the rules, let the enforcers enforce those rules and let the players learn and abide by them. If you (umpire) want the authority to pick and chose then get that authority but don't have the audacity to bestow it upon yourself. Crow hopping is illegal, it's not crow hopping is illegal unless the pitcher is young or inexperienced or you feel she is not with a very good team or if they bring you water between innings or you won $5 in the lottery that day and feel generous or today life is all rainbows and lolly pops so you don't want to be mean. geezzz. lol

We just played in a tournament this weekend where the pitcher was crow hopping on her pitches. We pointed it out on sat when we first played them and the ump called time and told the other coach what she was doing but left it as that and the pitcher never changed her motion. We played them again on Sunday in the bracket and again we pointed it out to the ump. He called illegal pitch and told the other coach and player. The coach and player had a conference on the mound and she started to pitch correctly. She did lose some speed and control but wasn't bad by any means. After a few batters she started to lose her control and her coach from the bench told her to not worry about what the ump said and pitch " normal". She started hopping again and nothing was called after it was pointed out again. When asked between innings why the ump wasn't calling it he said well you don't seem to be having any problems hitting her. Next time I'll just yell to our pitcher to start throwing over hand for a change. If rules don't matter why not sling a few in there side arm. I understand it is hard to do but if it was easy everyone would be a pitcher but letting it go by is only going to hurt her in the future. Trying to break a habit that has been practiced daily for months or years is not something that can be easily rectified. ( I learned this trying to break the keep your elbow high swing)

 

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hack umpiring... period. Yes, I said it!

 

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hack umpiring... period. Yes, I said it!

It is rampant. Saw something similar this weekend. Umpire called time twice to address the pitcher who did absolutely nothing to remedy the situation and not one illegal pitch called. Again, I ask, "why have the rule?"

 

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At the risk of repeating myself, we had a very good umpire tell us at ASA 14u States one year that if he called an illegal pitch every time the pitcher in question threw one, we would be there all day. Of course, if he called it every time she threw one, she would probably stop throwing illegally or her coach would replace her. Or we would have had a run-rule game.

 

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IMHO I don't believe umpires/coaches are doing the young pitchers any favors. They will get called at upper levels (sometimes, not nearly enough) but definately in college. The South Florida pitcher got called for it 8 times in one game alone. Unfortunately, I saw it every pitch. But the umpire called it when he saw "white" under her drag foot. The worse the leap the call got made. The closer her drag foot was to the ground the less he could pick it up. It's going to get called eventually and it will be ALOT harder to correct. Fix it now while they are young enough to make the change without to much trouble. My dd was 10 when I was told it was illegal. We corrected it over the fall and winter and have not had a problem since.

 

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At 10U ASA/USA, we got called on every single illegal pitch. We all lived through it and our pitching is better for it now as a second year 12U.

Umpires, Enforce the rules!

It is the coaches job to know the rules and make sure their team is playing by those rules.

If your a pitcher, ask your coach for a copy of the pitching section of the rule book. There isn't much gray area in there.