Interesting Question About the Strike Zone

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I received this interesting question about the strike zone in a recent personal message. It is an excellent question regarding something that comes up from time-to-time and I thought that it was something worth sharing here.

I will respect the privacy of the person who asked me this. The name of the person who asked has been ommitted...to protect the innocent- and, perhaps, the guilty!


"I am just wondering what can be done when you run into one of those umpires that are effectively interpreting the rules to the way they want the game to be? I am not talking about judgement calls that you disagree with. Yesterday at the 18U ASA state tournament we had an umpire tell the coaches in pregame meeting (his words) "I call a tight strike zone very little on the corners and nothing above the waist". Ump is forcing 18U pitchers to throw the ball over the middle of the plate right in the wheelhouse to strong experienced players that are trained to drive that pitch up the middle... an ump like I mentioned above in my opinion is a menace. Younger pitchers are going to have trouble hitting that zone and get frustrated, and older players are now in danger."


From the standpoint of managing a game and avoiding problems, this umpire started out on the wrong foot. You should NEVER go into any explanations of how you're going to call "your" strike zone at the pre-game meeting. Especially if "your" strike zone is something like this guy is describing- a blatant disregard for the rule as written and the interpretations offered through ASA umpire training.

A respected baseball umpire wrote a book entitled "101 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Baseball Game" and this was one of them.

I really don't understand why some umpires feel that they have to make such gross adjustments to the strike zone. Do they really think that their personal idea of how it should be called is better that the written rule and all of the instruction that they are offered? It's bad enough if you have an umpire calling this truncated zone, but it's even worse when he takes the time to, essentially, tell the coaches up front that he is going to disregard the rules.

Some of the ways this can go downhill fast:

- This approach starts the game out on a confrontational tone. If the coach says anything, the umpire is likely to take it as questioning his authority and become defensive.

- If, during the game, he calls a strike on a pitch right down the middle and just above the belt (a perfectly good pitch), then the other coach has a right to be mad because this guy has already told you that was going to be a ball.

- It plants a seed in the coach's minds that, "If this guy is going to ignore the proper strike zone, I wonder what other rules he is going to ignore?".

Calling a strike zone that isn't what the sanctioning body intends is bad practice. Telling everybody up-front that you're going to do that is stupid! This is something that well-trained umpires are specifically trained not to do.

Back when I was coaching, I had this same thing come up in one of my pre-games. Knowing that any comments on my part could be taken the wrong way, I listened to the umpire's explanation and kept my mouth shut. But, I did kind of roll my eyes. The umpire saw that and was immediately right up in my face asking, "Do you have a problem with that, coach?".

(And that is one way this can turn out badly. An umpire who has the attitude that "my way is better" is likely to be an umpire with an over-inflated ego who cannot handle any criticism. The coach is kind of darned if he speaks up and darned if he doesn't.)

My response was, "So you're telling us that today you will be calling pitches that are strikes "balls" and pitches that are balls "strikes"?". As expected, this really set the guy off and he treatened to eject me right there on the spot.

As a coach, you're kind of between a rock and a hard place. About the only option you have is to let the game start, see how the strike zone really plays out during the game and have your players adjust accordingly- and hope for the best. After the game, I would track down whoever is in charge of the umpires and relate the story to him in a calm and factual manner. The guys that oversee the umpires really do care about stuff like this and would probably be interested to know that one of his umpires is ignoring the sanctioning body's guidelines.

 

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Why wouldn't you go to the UIC before the game starts and have the ump pulled off the field?

 

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That would have been my response. Send one of my assistants to fetch the UIC and ask him/her to attend the pre-game conference and to clarify any misgivings. I would be especially concerned with my pitchers & corners safety in this case. Wouldn't a situation like this open the umpire to a trememndous amount of liability? Isn't the umpire's primary responsibility the safety of the players? Isn't that why they're supposed to inspect all helmets, bats, etc. before the game?

 

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I would think both coaches should approach ther UIC and protest the game regardless of the outcome. Hopefully before the game starts or at least send a "runner" to go get the UIC so no one is accussed of delay of game. Rules are rules !!!

 

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As I mentioned in another thread - we had an ASA ump in Whitehall that, although she didn't say what her strikezone was going to be pre-game, it was essentially what you're talking about - across the middle of the plate at the waist/hip. No knees or corners. I was just glad that our girls got out of that game without an injury from the hard hit meatballs.
Umpires that tighten the strikezone to suit themselves for whatever reason are risking serious injury to the players. I hope that any umpire that has that kind of strike zone recognizes themselves when they read this but that will never happen - it's all about them and their ego. As a parent of an infielder, I'd have a hard time controlling myself if my kid was injured by a batted ball during a game where the pitcher was forced to throw straight down the middle.

 

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Bretman ... one possible exclusion that I can think of ... "little girls rec. ball" which typically has poor pitching - meaning, tell the coaches UPFRONT that you will have a BIG STRIKE zone to encourage the young ladies to hit and not have a game of 25 walks per side. Short of that, I agree with never divulging your strike zone prior to the game.

 

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Rec leagues are, of course, a different story from competetive travel ball, where the pitchers are more skilled and can hit their spots. In some respets, it can be even tricker to find a good balance between calling a generous strike zone to keep the game moving along and not calling pitches so far out of the zone that the batter has no reasonable chance of hitting it.

In a rec league, a lot of times a coach will ask about this before the game and, if the conversation is friendly and nonconfrontational, you might let them know that you will be calling a generous zone that day. Most rec coaches understand and expect that.

Still, I would never offer up concrete boundries, like "above the waist" or "at the chin", which kind of paints you into a corner and can give a coach ammunition to make an arguement if you don't follow it, or even vague ones like "very little on the corners" which has no real meaning.

So, yes, the rec ball world is a little bit different and you might discuss this with the coaches a little bit before the game. But I'm certainly not going to offer up some explanation that is a gross misrepresntation of the accepted norms for that age group or level of play.

Personally, I never offer any unsolicited explanations of the strike zone before the game. If a coach asks, maybe we talk about it a little bit. Maybe that is erring on the side of caution, but I have found it to cause the least amount of problems in my games.

This comes up enough that I have a couple of stock answers to kind of defuse the situation. If a coach asks, "Hey Blue, what kind of strike zone are you calling today", in a low-level recreational game, I might just flash them a big smile and say, "Nose to toes, so you better have them swinging!".

In a higer level game, I might answer the same question with, "The strike zone as defined in the rule book".

And, if I really want to throw 'em for a loop, I have said, "You're about to find out in two minutes!". That one usually gets a blank deer-in-the-headlights stare from the coach before he trudges back to the dugout.

 

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I would think, as the mother of a pitcher, that part of the pitchers job is to find the zone early! ;D

 

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I was talking to a parent who was at a rec baseball game that had such bad pitching the umpire stopped the game and had a coach's conference and said, "Listen, if the catcher can catch the ball, it's a strike"

 

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We played in a tournament 2 weeks ago (14U) and the umpire told us that he does not call strikes at the letters or at the knees. He stated he has a "hitters strike zone". I told him that his zone was possibly going to get someone hurt. He didn't seem to care. I was told he just came from the OHSAA State Tournament!!!!! This sounds like to me that the umpire cannot take the critism on the pitches that are close. Obviously one team is not going to like the call.