Thread: The future of crow-hopping in girls fastpitch?

IDK, this is a lot different than having a shaved bat or a substance on the pitchers hand.

The entire world can see what the pitcher is doing and either enforce the rules or not, if they are not going to enforce the rules the rules will change regardless of the writing of the rule.

The umps know what is going on; they are following what they are directed to do.

So in response to Comp (and looking for others perspective too) - Ya I can see your point about not wanting to deal with this touchy subject in Exposure tourneys,....I guess I can get that.

But do you think that college coaches will shy away from these "skippies"? (My DD & I call them that :-) )

It drives me nuts when you see pitchers that are obviously illegal and nothing is said. My dd pitches for our travel team and I assist in coaching her 14U team. I think, as a coach, it is somewhat irresponsible to let them continue to throw in a way that is illegal. I watched a girl pull her foot off the back of the rubber a good 8 inches prior to her stride. I wanted to see what blue would do and we went two full innings with nothing said. I finally called blue over and mentioned it and it took another half inning of watching her before he talked to her. What is difficult to watch is a younger pitcher that has developed a bad habit of pitching illegally and watching them struggle after being warned. There is no reason for that other than her coaches not taking the time to explain what she is doing wrong. Don't wait until game time to let that happen.

Someone mentioned Colorado, your right, the do seem to be a bit lazy about calling illegal pitches here. To the contrary, we went to New Mexico last summer and they were illegal pitch happy! The field ump was calling everything he could on all pitchers. I swear he was making stuff up. We had to get the rule book out to figure out what he was doing. He was wrong, but that didn't stop him from advancing runners. That was horrible.

I haven't had enough coffee for this conversation!

It isn't going to change. Last year we heard new ways to allow it to happen. One tournament the ump said...its early in the season and the girls are just getting started...we will not be calling it. I got 100.00 that says they didn't call it all year.

Another said...the mound is in bad condition so we are not going to call it. The mound was terrible. Why they wouldn't get the crews to fix it is beyond me. And with the way it was...i don't think they fixed it before the tournament.

We did get an ump to call an illegal pitch once for pitching out of the pitching lane. She pitched correctly for next 2 pitches and then it was never called again.

I have said before on here that I talked to our states head ump and the system just isn't set up to stop it. So its not going to happen.

Yes you can teach a "skippie" pitch...i wouldn't but it can be taught. That is part of the irony of this...poor pitching instructors having successful pitchers...that pitch illegal cause they are either consciously or not...are being taught that way or never correcting the problem.

While I have no way of knowing what a D1 school would do...i would suspect they would want to avoid issues. So if they have a choice between someone that is mid 60's that is legal...they may lean towards that person over someone illegal. But who knows...if they see potential 70's from the illegal person and not in the illegal pitcher...they may lean that way.

The college question is an interesting one. We know what happened to Kenzie Fowler and what a disaster it was trying to change her so late in her career. Clearly she was recruited as a leaper and not within the rules. What makes this interesting is that she was recruited to the same school that had pushed the bounds of legality in the past. Those lines on the side of the rubber in NCAA play are not called "Mowatt Lines" for no reason. So it seems the best schools are willing to try to get away with whatever they can.

I don't think we should teach kids to be illegal, we should teach them properly. The problem comes with the lack of legal role models.

-W

Originally Posted by starsnuffer

The problem comes with the lack of legal role models.

-W

This is true. This next generation of pitchers will be interesting...they are likely to become the models...where the model pitcher thread now is really more pitchers that have been successful thread.

Something I found interesting this past year. I would guess-timate that half the pitchers we faced in TB were illegal, yet in HS it was maybe a third or less. It might of been that way before but I have not noticed it...till this year.

Here is something I found interesting. I had three different umpires compliment my DD on her "beautiful" pitching mechanics. All three of them told me that if she got a "little air" under her pivot foot, she's gain speed and would never get called on it. One of them even showed me how her DD does it.

Well, my DD can't bring herself to do it, so she has learned well. I'm proud of her for doing it the right way.

One of my more pleasant memories in softball was an opposing coach pulling me aside and telling me DD is too good to be pitching illegal. Was not mentioned during the game or in front of DD, just someone trying to help.

I go back to this thought process =>
1. Those who skip/replant/crow-hop have an advantage.
2. I believe it specifically states in the rules that you can not replant that back foot until after the release of the ball.
3. Therefore I blame the organization of umpires for not having a pair & being consistent. It taints the sport like steroids & corked bats.....

Let's fight for consistency for the future genrations of athletes.