Wellll...
'Bout a month into the season here; it's a balk first time, every time, frosh to varsity. They've had time to learn what the rule is by now.
BUT:
I did a start-of-season tournament with visiting teams from another state, where I came in for the 2d game of a DH at the plate, my partner had just finished the 1st half w/ another guy. FWIW my BU/partner is one of our guys who does NCAA ball & is a trainer/evaluator.
1st inning, here comes the visiting pitcher with the "full gorilla": ball in pitching hand, down in front of his body, swinging to beat the band. I'm getting ready to nail him, when it occurs to me that my evaluator/partner/BU has just seen these teams, and is looking right at this ape, saying
nada.
Hmmmm: maybe I missed the memo? I told F2: "remind your pitcher that he's not supposed to do the gorrilla arm like that." F2 looks @ me like I'm speaking Urdu. I try again, but still nothin'.
My BU still ain't calling it, and I've let it go for a while now. Can't really balk him the 15th time he does it, y'know? No chance to confer w/ partner between innings: he is very committed to avoiding gossipfests between umpires while the game is on & is in Right field as if by teleportation at the end of each half inning. I'm guessing this came up in the first game & we ain't playing this rule tonite. They're not "official" games, so: OK.
Post game, changing at the "locker" between our vehicles in the far corner of the parking lot: one thing I have picked up from this particular fellow - the "senior" partner opens the postgame with a quick eval of his own game, beginning with what he was not completely satisfied with; then encourages/ asks the partner to do the same for his [partner's] game. The Sr. guy then asks "have you got anything for me?" - an opening for questions/observations/criticism.
When we get to this point, I ask:
hey, that first pitcher from the visitors: I couldn't figure why you weren't calling the gorrilla arm. I guessed it had come up in the first game, and we weren't gonna call it tonite.
NOPE!! He had spaced the whole issue. "What's a gorrilla arm?" Now, in my partner's defense, our State-mandated Rules meeting was it's usual less-than crystaline style, and I slept through most of it [if not for discussions on this & other web sites, I'd been req'd to read the books
].
My eval for this game consisted of: (1) you are kinda funny-looking back there [
almost but not quite GD stance-cbf
], but your zone & consistency were good; (2) if you see something, call it, don't assume your partner knows something you don't.
[Edited by cbfoulds on Apr 11th, 2005 at 11:47 AM]