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officialtony,
FWIW, I am squarely in cbfould's camp on this question. As I envision the delivery from your description, the only thing that could be considered a balk would be the pause. And, as cb pointed out, that means his entire body would have to be motionless and it would have to more than just a "change in direction".
I'm guessing from your comments (as well as those made by PS2Man) that what's causing you to consider this a balk is the phrase (from OBR, not FED - sorry, I don't have a FED rulebook handy):
"....From this position any natural movement associated with his delivery of the ball to the batter commits him to the pitch without interruption or alteration. ...."
which is found in the rules describing the legal pitching positions. Now, I don't even know if the identical wording is used in the FED rulebook or not, but I have been taught that the principles are the same (despite the numerous differences between what is legal and illegal for an "in contact" pitcher under OBR vs. FED) in regard to this aspect of legal/illegal deliveries.
Let's take the easy part first - "interruption". This means that an "in contact" pitcher cannot start to do something and then stop "in midstream". Hence, cb's very on target statement"
"The bottom line in your sitch comes down to the "pause"."
If, in the sole judgement of the umpire(s), this "pause" constituted an "interruption", it's a balk. If not, it's not.
The only "exception" to this proscription is that a pitcher may "stop" a pick-off move to 2B or 3B before completing the throw. However, even in this case, he must complete the "direct step" towards the base without "interruption".
Now for the trickier part - "alteration". Now, in "plain English" it is a perfectly reasonable interpretation to infer that this means that "the pitcher must do it the same way every time." However, this is not what it means in the context of the rules of baseball.
In this context, it means that a pitcher cannot start to do one thing and then change it into something else. Now this a little tricky, because when a pitcher who has come set starts his "motion", we don't yet know what he has "started" to do.
Let's take a RHP who is "set" (I'm inferring from your description that the pitcher you balked was a RHP - the same would apply to a LHP, only in "mirror image".)
Once he begins to lift his free foot toards "balance" we know he has "started" to do one of three things (we'll assume bases loaded):
1. Pickoff throw/feint to 3B
2. Pickoff throw/feint to 2B
3. Pitch to the batter.
Once his free foot crosses the "plane" of the rubber (Back edge for OBR, and, I believe, front edge for FED) he has started to do one of two things:
1. Pickoff throw/feint to 2B
2. Pitch to the batter.
Once his motion (foot, shoulder, pretty much anything) reverses towards the direction of home, there is only one thing left:
1. Pitch to the batter.
As cb has already stated, there is no requirement that a pitcher "do it the same way every time" in either delivering a pitch or in attempting a pickoff. As long as he complies with the legal delivery requirements and avoids the balk proscriptions, he can do it differently every time (this might wreak havoc with his control, but it would be perfectly legal).
JM
[Edited by CoachJM on Apr 10th, 2005 at 07:19 PM]
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