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Ed wrote:
An interesting discussion took place at the Southern Umpire's Clinic. It was attended by Steve Rippley, Gerry Davis, Ed Hichox, and Paul Nauert (three were involved in Wendelstat's school). They claim the current zone was not low. A strike was called at the proper level when the batter is "prepared to swing at a pitched ball" which they considered after he strided, which is 4-6 inches lower that his starting batting stance (which turned out to be about belt level when it was demonstrated). Under the new way the zone will be called, it will be now pitches under the front elbow when the batter is striding.
Interesting....
At the training session in Chandler, Az, umpire union president John Hirscbeck, and umpires Richie Garcia and Al Clark all admited the book zone, as it pertains to the upper limit of the stike zone, had not been called in years. In fact, each also provided their reasons.
The training session in Chandler involved minor league batters taking their stance and then having tape applied to an area half the distance between the belt top and the shoulders. Umpires took turns calling pitches from a pitching machine with the player at the plate.
Later, the tape was removed and the umpires called pitches again. Each umpire was videotaped for later review.
The consensus seemed to be that stances will have to come up a bit so umpires aren't trying to call pitches that they have to look up to see, strikes. Garcia predicted that a number of umpires would abandon the slot and go back up over the catcher in the AL Box.
According to Hirscbeck, not one umpire had a negative thing to say about the training session. (All ML umpires were present)
Now this, taken together with Ed's report seems to indicate a split in the umpire ranks.
Very interesting.
GB
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GB
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