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Old Tue Mar 14, 2006, 09:48am
AtlUmpSteve AtlUmpSteve is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Woodstock, GA; Atlanta area
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You didn't say if this was a softball clinic or a baseball clinic; not that it matters for your discussion, mind you.

I often feel the same way; and I am a college umpire, who is a state-wide ASA trainer, and a state-wide GHSA (Georgia High School) trainer. At every clinic, camp, or school, you will get a slightly different message, depending on the clinician. We have a set training staff in both organizations, in the effort to teach uniformly, but there are always variations, and personal preferences. To our advantage, many of the same people are on both staffs, and GHSA has adopted ASA softball mechanics (the differences with NFHS are minimal, and many more umpires across the state have had some ASA training). I have been known to say "this is how we teach it", followed by "here is an alternative which works for me and some others".

The head moving is what made me ask about baseball. "Tracking the ball" is taught in ASA to be done by keeping your nose pointing at the ball, a la Pete Rose, and the ball on the outside edge should have your head turn to track the ball across the plate and into the glove. To claim to do that with eye movement and peripheral vision only, when the glove is only 12" behind the plate (with the batter in the very front of the box) is not only phyically and anatomically impossible, but ludicrous. So, I would have absolutely agreed with the second evaluator, who noted you tracking the ball. If the first was referencing a head movement early in the pitch, he might be right, too.

Setting too early versus too late is pretty subjective. It might depend on the pre-pitch motions the pitcher makes, more so than a fixed time. Ideally, you want to be completely set when the ball is released to track it from hand to glove; when you start to set is the variable.

Oh, and another example of differences by clinicians; I was taught by Henry Pollard, then the Deputy Director for ASA, with Merle Butler in attendence to NEVER say YES, as he claimed it was inconclusive, and appeared to suggest we preferred one outcome over the other. He taught "swing" for years as the word to denote an attempt by the batter, and then "swing?" with a questioning tone to request help. And, Mike's Regional UIC, Bob Savoie was also in attendence at that ASA Advanced School when the "Swing?" first became the mechanic in place of "Did s/he go?"
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