[greymule]

You mean like, "Any pitched ball that hits the ground or plate cannot be legally swung at by the batter. If the batter swings at a pitch after the ball hits the ground or plate, it is a ball."

Why is it that your posts concentrated on the last sentance and not the previous one?

Even taken together, the sentences are ambiguous. The word "then" must be assumed in the first sentence, as in "cannot then be legally swung at," since obviously if the swing comes before the ball hits the ground or plate, it's a strike. So there's still the question of whether they are talking only about a bounce followed by a swing or including a swing simultaneous with a ball that hits the ground.

If the sentences were clear, I would have understood them, and other experienced umps, some who post on this board and others who do not, wouldn't have admitted that they weren't sure. And conflicting, erroneous rulings wouldn't have been taught at clinics.

I don't think it's illogical or amateurish, or whatever other pejorative you want to apply, to question whether a swing and miss—in a legitimate attempt to hit a ball in flight—should be called a ball because the ball hit the ground a split second before the bat went past it.

Show these sentences to 50 ASA umpires and you will get a variety of interpretations—except from the mind readers who have the uncanny ability to discern when the ASA book is to be taken literally and when it is not.