Illegal Pitch Not Called

[gophert]

My DD got called for IP (leaping) in the championship game of our 10U state championship at the end of June. Both me and her new pitching coach was aware of it and had been working on it, but we had NEVER been called for it. DD was by far the most dominate pitcher in our age group playing in the tourney. She was called for it, like I said, in the championship game. It totally wrecked her emotionally and we had to pull her and of course we lost the game. It was a very tough loss. HOWEVER, on Monday when I got home from work, she was waiting at the door with ball and glove in hand and said..."Lets go fix this leaping thing".....and she did. Although a tough loss, it took her getting called for it to be motivated to fix it.

 

[DanDare]

Good news is that with a win last night, DD's team has advanced to the district finals. Bad news is that they will face this same team and most likely this same pitcher. Oh and they will need to beat them twice. Any advice on how to prep the umpires for the inevitable illegal pitch?

 

[Comp]

If you believe the pitcher is illegal I would suggest having a discussion with whoever the tournament authorities are/tournament director/uic before the game ever occurs. If they feel it to be a problem they can discuss it with the umpires.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

If you believe the pitcher is illegal I would suggest having a discussion with whoever the tournament authorities are/tournament director/uic before the game ever occurs. If they feel it to be a problem they can discuss it with the umpires.

Absolutely! - get things stated BEFORE the game starts and then tell players/parents/coaches (assuming they are already sensitized to it - no need to bring it up if they are unaware) that once in the game ya want to hear no reference to any before-game-brought-up IP case. It's done at that point. You now just focus on what you can do to win.

 

[DanDare]

Good advice. Can't let the players get caught up in anything except playing hard.

 

[csmda5]

We dealt with IPs all season for little league. They're in for a rude awakening come middle school. They call them there.

 

[RubberBiscuit]

We dealt with IPs all season for little league. They're in for a rude awakening come middle school. They call them there.

Funny - in my little area we are lucky if they even field a pitcher in middle school.....

 

[Umpire]

My DD got called for IP (leaping) in the championship game of our 10U state championship at the end of June. Both me and her new pitching coach was aware of it and had been working on it, but we had NEVER been called for it. DD was by far the most dominate pitcher in our age group playing in the tourney. She was called for it, like I said, in the championship game. It totally wrecked her emotionally and we had to pull her and of course we lost the game. It was a very tough loss. HOWEVER, on Monday when I got home from work, she was waiting at the door with ball and glove in hand and said..."Lets go fix this leaping thing".....and she did. Although a tough loss, it took her getting called for it to be motivated to fix it.

It was unsportsmanlike for you to knowingly put a player on the field knowing that she would violate the rules and to also gain an advantage while doing so. It was wrong to your daughter, as soon became evident by what happened. It was wrong to the other team. Doesn't really sound genuine to me that you "had been working on it" before the tournament and it wasn't fixed; yet, the day after, all is bliss.

 

[tcannizzo]

It was unsportsmanlike for you to knowingly put a player on the field knowing that she would violate the rules and to also gain an advantage while doing so. It was wrong to your daughter, as soon became evident by what happened. It was wrong to the other team. Doesn't really sound genuine to me that you "had been working on it" before the tournament and it wasn't fixed; yet, the day after, all is bliss.

Disagree. It is Unsporting Conduct for a coach to instruct players to deliberately violate rules.

In this case, coach put his own team at a disadvantage knowing the likelihood of having IP's called against his own team.

 

[gophert]

It was unsportsmanlike for you to knowingly put a player on the field knowing that she would violate the rules and to also gain an advantage while doing so. It was wrong to your daughter, as soon became evident by what happened. It was wrong to the other team. Doesn't really sound genuine to me that you "had been working on it" before the tournament and it wasn't fixed; yet, the day after, all is bliss.

I guess we are going to have to disagree that "leaping" allows a player to "gain an advantage" at the 10U level and that being unsportsman like. I would probably agree with this statement if these were older girls. All 10U girls are learning to pitch. It's one thing to pitch in practice, but even more important to get circle time at a young age. I could probably go to any 10U tournament and point out multiple IP's, but I think we all know that at this level it's not called very often. Let me say this from experience. Motivating a 10 yr old to fix something that has never been an issue in a game is very difficult, and to think that it was 100% corrected the day after is a bit of an overstatement on my part. The fact is, by getting called in a game, it motivated the PLAYER to make the change. She is still working on perfecting her drag toe while getting her speed back.