Originally Posted by parrothead
Fair point if someone were actually to do it, my question was more for just pointing out some of the flaws in how LL sets up the rules of stealing, no leads, ball reaches a point that can move, etc.
I would say however that one of the "fundamentals" of stealing bases is the role that the batter plays and how often their actions can be the determining factor as to whether or not the steal is a success or failure. The Shade take, the swing through, the bottom line is on a steal often times the batter has a job to do to assist the steal. So while this is "extreme" and kind of weird question, one of the fundamentals of the game is usually the batter giving up a pitch, be it through swing through, take, etc to assist the runner to steal the base. To be honest, on a LL steal that might be the only "fundamental" other than the slide which translates to later in the game, because its surely not the one way lead anchor yourself to the base watch where the ball crosses the batter for your jump nevermind the pitcher who is throwing from the windup because that is exclusive to LL and will go away after your 11.
I think one of the issues is that a lot of people know just enough to teach "a little" and I think this play, the steal, in particular the fake bunt steal is a great example. I see so many batters, both in youth baseball and youth fastpitch do the fake bunk when the runner is stealing, but they do it mid or front of the box and they allow the catcher to really start to creep, get on their toes and gain ground. Batters think they are distracting the catchers but 90% of them are actually doing the C a favor. Instead they should do that back of the box to keep the catchers back and often times catching the ball on their heals.
Speaking of not intended by the rules, one of my major objections is with courtesy runners, the intention was a speed up rule, matter of fact we had it in our JV league in HS but only for C and only with 2 outs. Now its totally out of control.
* Its for P and C regardless of outs.
* In many of the tournaments, its for the current P and C, so if your going to put in a new catcher, that player cant be run for but the C or P who just pitched and caught who are not going to P or C the next inning, they can be run for? How does that speed up the game.
Its totally missed the mark on the origins of the rule, which was a speed up the game let their C get gear on rule, not a strategic advantage rule.
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