[noobie]

I hear you, chiquita. I've been out for the last 19 years, and this is a huge problem for me right now. Am doing my best to follow the rule book to the tee, but there seem to be a lot of misimpressions in my local P&R league about what the strike zone actually is. I catch a lot of heat; but we all know that goes with the territory. You are right on the money.

The myths about the strike zone amaze me. I even had one catcher tell me that any ball that lands more than 18" behind the plate can't possibly be a strike. (Some of these conversations get hilarious, fast ... they'll swear it's in the rule book!) Sometimes I think my leg is getting pulled; but I know better.

I'm fortunate enough to have a couple of very experienced guys in my league decent enough to take their time to work with me on this.

Even though the umpire's manual says not to call "low", "high", "inside", "outside", "tall", "deep" (and all those other adjectives we could use to describe why a ball is a ball); I see just about every ump in my league doing it. It seems there's an expectation on the part of pitchers of automatic feedback. Having pitched, I can relate, but the official "book" says not to do this.

How does everybody else handle this?