Moving strike zone?

DD was pitching last night, and this came up.

Opposing coach's offensive strategy is to draw walks. (The vast majority of his players never swing a bat.) He does this by having the girls start in a normal stance and then drop down into a low crouch as soon as the pitcher releases the ball.

DD threw a pitch that would have been a little above the waist had the batter not moved, but instead it ended up about neck high. Blue called it a strike, opposing coach wanted to know how she could call it a strike when it was obviously high. Coach harangued her enough that she stopped calling those pitches strikes.

So DD is a bright kid, and figured out she should pitch lower. She threw a pitch about mid-calf, but when the batter dropped down it was at her knees. Blue called strike. After a few of these, coach started haranguing Blue about how she shouldn't be calling pitches six inches off the ground strikes because those are obviously too low and the girls aren't that short.

So, opposing coach can't have it both ways - either Blue should be calling the zone according to the girls' stances or their final positions. But which is correct?

They establish their strike zone when they get in the box and take their stance.

Ump has called DD on this before, she has a tendency to dip if she is not swinging.

One umpire looked a bench and said that might have looked high but she squatted down during the pitch.

I think it hurts her more then helps.

I kind of figured the strike zone should be established with the stance. Otherwise every hitter would just hit the deck and every pitch would be a ball.

The opposing coach has a tendency to "educate" the umps with things that sound like they're from The Big Book of Rules that Only Help My Team.

The worst is when all the batters have the same strike zone, if DD is on the batter's do not stand a chance. Not fair but can be fun to watch, for me anyways.

Lightning said:

I kind of figured the strike zone should be established with the stance. Otherwise every hitter would just hit the deck and every pitch would be a ball.

The opposing coach has a tendency to "educate" the umps with things that sound like they're from The Big Book of Rules that Only Help My Team.

Click to expand...

It is established with their "natural stance at the plate," not how they move afterward. Only baseball defines the zone based on their positioning during their swing.

The coach needs to knock off the chirping.

NCASAUmp said:

The coach needs to knock off the chirping.

Click to expand...

Definitely.

But that won't happen, at least this year. He's happy to keep harassing teenaged umps until he gets the calls he wants. Next year his daughter moves up an age group and the umps are experienced adults. It will be interesting to see how things change when he can't count on games always being called his way.

Lightning said:

Definitely.

But that won't happen, at least this year. He's happy to keep harassing teenaged umps until he gets the calls he wants. Next year his daughter moves up an age group and the umps are experienced adults. It will be interesting to see how things change when he can't count on games always being called his way.

Click to expand...

If the league is deliberately using young, new umpires to call their younger levels, then they need to do a better job of protecting them. This whole fussing at umps in rec league nonsense just gets to be too much, and the very last thing you want is to run new umpires out of the profession before they even have a chance.

NCASAUmp said:

If the league is deliberately using young, new umpires to call their younger levels, then they need to do a better job of protecting them. This whole fussing at umps in rec league nonsense just gets to be too much, and the very last thing you want is to run new umpires out of the profession before they even have a chance.

Click to expand...

The coach in question is a board member. League rules say that any coach who questions an ump is supposed to be ejected immediately, but the rules don't seem to apply to this guy.

Lightning said:

The coach in question is a board member. League rules say that any coach who questions an ump is supposed to be ejected immediately, but the rules don't seem to apply to this guy.

Click to expand...

Well, therein lies the problem. I can imagine that each umpire knows this guy is a board member, and they are probably afraid he will retaliate.

If the rest of the board had any integrity, they'd pull this guy aside and tell him to knock it off, else they won't have any umpires or teams left.