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Sep 29, 2014
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You’d be proud of me texasheat ... I had a game at a State Tournament today that looked like an Oprah Winfrey show taping. “You get an illegal pitch! You get an illegal pitch! And you get an illegal pitch! She gets an illegal pitch! Everybody gets an illegal pitch!”

9 illegal pitches on both teams in the first two innings resulting in two runs scored, three outs negated, and two strikeouts became walks. As an umpire, I hated that it had that much of an impact on the game.

The bad part is one pitcher corrected her illegal act with a different illegal act. By that point, I have to confess I gave up (she was being pummeled like a speed bag by then).
and this is why when I umped I always watch pitchers warmups...you want to not impact the game so you let coaches know ahead of time what you see and that if you see it in a game you will call it. Sometimes they listen sometimes they don't and you have to make them believers. Like you said at 10U rec league you point it out maybe call it a few times and then really try and work with the girls. 14U Travel Tournament I see it in warmups and simply say you are doing X and if I see that in the game you are goin to get an IP called and first pitch of the game it's getting called.
 
May 29, 2015
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One point that is never talked about......................... those pitchers who do it legally watching those who do it illegally and never get called for it. They must think "Why do it the right way if the umpire is never going to penalize them for doing it the wrong way?". Not a good lesson to be teaching our youth.

Not only that, but I don’t like that the penalty has been reduced in NFHS. The runners no longer advance. If the penalty on my pitcher is that the batter is going to get a ball (which was likely anyway) and, worst case scenario, I may lose an occasional out ... why would I bother to mess with my pitcher’s motion/mechanics?
 
May 29, 2015
3,731
113
and this is why when I umped I always watch pitchers warmups...you want to not impact the game so you let coaches know ahead of time what you see and that if you see it in a game you will call it. Sometimes they listen sometimes they don't and you have to make them believers. Like you said at 10U rec league you point it out maybe call it a few times and then really try and work with the girls. 14U Travel Tournament I see it in warmups and simply say you are doing X and if I see that in the game you are goin to get an IP called and first pitch of the game it's getting called.

Going to give you a “like” for preventative officiating, however I would caution warning anything that does not happen during play. Watching for tendencies and mechanics is good, but she may not pitch the same way she warms up. Why open that can of worms?

In this case, it was a State Tournament so warnings ended last week. On the second one, the runner stole and the pitch was a ball, so there was no penalty. The coach was mad that I “gave her a warning on they second one”. I had to explain it wasn’t a warning, but the penalty was nullified.

The other thing with this game was that watching warmups wouldn’t have helped. Every single one was for taking the hands apart and then bringing them back together while on the rubber.
 

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