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Old Mon Jul 18, 2005, 11:29pm
David Emerling David Emerling is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Germantown, TN (east of Memphis)
Posts: 783
Quote:
Originally posted by DG
The move is demonstrated on Jim Evan's video, and it looked fairly easy to do. However, I have never seen anyone fake to 3b and turn to throw to 1b without coming off the rubber.
Neither have I, although, I guess, if you contrive it enough for the purposes of a demonstration it could be done like ...

... placing your foot directly on top of the rubber so you can pivot on the smooth portion without having to deal with the typical rut in front of the rubber that is always there. And, I've never seen a pitcher place his foot directly on top of the rubber.

-or-

... creating an area in front of the rubber that is perfectly level and nearly flush with the rubber which would faciliate pivoting without having to remove the foot from the area in front of the rubber.

One thing is for sure - the right foot is simply going to have to pivot. If it's in a rut, then it is going to have to come out of that rut to facilitate pivoting.

On a classic 3-1 move, the pitcher will get his foot out of that rut by allowing his pivot foot to drag toward 3rd while stepping that direction -or- he will jump pivot after making the move toward 3rd. In either case, the foot is going to break contact with the rubber.

Not losing contact with the rubber is a theoretical point of interest to umpires for the purposes of discussion and test taking much like the question: If a pitch bounces on the ground and is struck by the batter for a homerun, does the homerun count? Yes, but you'll never see it in your lifetime.

David Emerling
Memphis, TN

[Edited by David Emerling on Jul 19th, 2005 at 12:38 AM]
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