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I'm no big wig, but I'll chime in also. Dave Hensley is 100% correct. There are only TWO illegal pitches, and stopping in the middle of your windup with no one on base is not one of them.
What West should have done was called time when the pitcher paused, and called NO pitch. And no right minded umpire is going to warn and eject the first time a pitcher does this, and probably not even the second. But if he continues to do it, I tell him to knock it off. If he then continues, now he gets the boot.
Of course you take other things into consideration: is he stopping because he is losing his footing on a badly conditioned mound? If so, OK, I'm not looking to eject anyone. But if he continues to start and stop just to distract the batter, sorry, his a$$ is out of here.
But there is no ball on the batter. Once again, West is making up rules (or punishments), just like his partner Emmel did last week.
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