- Jun 12, 2015
- 3,843
- 83
Had something new happen this weekend. I have a pocket radar and I clock pitchers all the time at various tournaments. I paid a bunch of money for it, might as well use it. I've never had anyone complain. I'm not sneaky about it at all. often I'll have parents come over and ask what their pitcher is throwing. It's never been an issue. This one team in the tournament had a pitcher I kept hearing was in the 50s. Always skeptical, I decided to see (FYI, high of 47). When I went to clock her one of the moms came over and said they don't let people clock their pitchers. She wasn't polite about it and didn't make it sound like a request. She told my husband she was going to tell the tournament director, to which he replied to go for it. She never did, and one of the dads came over and apologized and said she's crazy and not to worry about it.
One of the umpires overheard us talking about it and he said there is no rule against clocking pitchers, unless it's during one of your games against the team, and you report the information to the dugout. I hadn't heard that before and have often told the girls "Hey, she's only in the low 40s, so you guys have this!" They used to be really intimidated if they thought a pitcher looked fast. So I did break that rule by mistake if the umpire was correct (and he did seem very knowledgeable, probably the best one we had all weekend).
Has anyone else run into a situation like this? I can't imagine caring if someone clocked my DD while she was pitching. They told DH that being clocked makes their pitchers nervous. I think that's probably a lie (my theory is they can intimidate teams with the rumors of their fast pitching, and the girl is really big, and they don't want it getting around that she's only high 40s? Just a guess) but if it is true, how on earth do they handle other pressures in the circle if they can't even handle someone clocking a few pitches? the whole thing was so weird.
One of the umpires overheard us talking about it and he said there is no rule against clocking pitchers, unless it's during one of your games against the team, and you report the information to the dugout. I hadn't heard that before and have often told the girls "Hey, she's only in the low 40s, so you guys have this!" They used to be really intimidated if they thought a pitcher looked fast. So I did break that rule by mistake if the umpire was correct (and he did seem very knowledgeable, probably the best one we had all weekend).
Has anyone else run into a situation like this? I can't imagine caring if someone clocked my DD while she was pitching. They told DH that being clocked makes their pitchers nervous. I think that's probably a lie (my theory is they can intimidate teams with the rumors of their fast pitching, and the girl is really big, and they don't want it getting around that she's only high 40s? Just a guess) but if it is true, how on earth do they handle other pressures in the circle if they can't even handle someone clocking a few pitches? the whole thing was so weird.