On the river

[4 girl's dad]

If I remember correctly, there is no "black" on a softball home plate. I don't remember where I read that. I'm looking for it now.

 

[29dad]

The "river" is the 5th and final community card in Texas Hold 'em where my opponents catch incredibly lucky, perhaps even miraculous cards to suck out and steal the pots that I deserved. Lucky bastards!!

 

[riseball]

Look closely.

?? your wisdom and insight is over my head grasshopper. I know not what you speak of.

As someone pointed out, there is no black. Just white, 6 inches of clay, and a 2 inch white chalk line. The ball is about 4 inches wide so it fits easily within the 6 inches of clay. Some umpires will give a strike in those 6 inches meaning you could have the ball 2 inches off the plate and get a called strike. An umpire doing this is said to be "calling the river". This is fairly common except at the higher levels of play. My DD is her second year of JUCO and can pretty much count on getting a call on the river when playing other JUCO's. But when she throws against an ACC or especially an SEC team the zone will be called tighter and force her to come in 2" and get some ball over the plate. Typically she will not get a call on the river. Sometimes she will get some of the river out and nothing in. All depends on the umpire. As long as it is consistent she is a happy pitcher.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

Many home plates come with a black border around them, but the black portion is not part of the plate when applying rules.

 

[4 girl's dad]

Still have not found where I saw this, but in baseball the black is part of the strike zone, but in softball it is not. I'm assuming that it's because of the ball size differences. And, as stated already, "on the river" is between the white edge of the plate and the batters box, usually on the opposite side of the batter.

 

[cuzmail]

As someone pointed out, there is no black. Just white, 6 inches of clay, and a 2 inch white chalk line. The ball is about 4 inches wide so it fits easily within the 6 inches of clay. Some umpires will give a strike in those 6 inches meaning you could have the ball 2 inches off the plate and get a called strike. An umpire doing this is said to be "calling the river". This is fairly common except at the higher levels of play. My DD is her second year of JUCO and can pretty much count on getting a call on the river when playing other JUCO's. But when she throws against an ACC or especially an SEC team the zone will be called tighter and force her to come in 2" and get some ball over the plate. Typically she will not get a call on the river. Sometimes she will get some of the river out and nothing in. All depends on the umpire. As long as it is consistent she is a happy pitcher.

And I thought your reference was going to be about living ON instead of IN the river. Dang!

All the plates around here have the black border. Even though it is technically part of the river, it is still referred to as the black with the river actually being the dirt area.

Keeping in mind that when any part of the ball touches the strike zone it should be called a strike, I'm not sure it really matters anyway.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

Still have not found where I saw this, but in baseball the black is part of the strike zone, but in softball it is not. I'm assuming that it's because of the ball size differences.

Baseball rules are not different than softball in this regard. I've seen people from both sports post the black is part of the strike zone for various reasons, however none of them were based on the rules.

 

[MTR]

Still have not found where I saw this, but in baseball the black is part of the strike zone, but in softball it is not. I'm assuming that it's because of the ball size differences. And, as stated already, "on the river" is between the white edge of the plate and the batters box, usually on the opposite side of the batter.

Speaking ASA, a visible black edge to the plate is to be considered part of the plate for all applicable rules

 

[riseball]

All of our home plates on every softball field I have seen, TB, rec, HS, next to my house have black on them. When you have played on poorly maintained or weatherworn fields, you see the black regularly before you have to fix the field and cover it up.

College is more likely to call balls out in the river. The rules there allow the ball to touch the edge of the plate and they don't have to cross that edge. It may be a minimal physical difference but in application, you get a wider zone. Since people complained about Nelson, Fowler and Lagenfeld's screwball, they have pulled their calls in but not by much.

Do you actually believe the nonsense that you post?

 

[riseball]

As to the black on the plates, yes it is there. My point was that it has absolutely nothing to do with the strike zone.