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AtlUmpSteve,
This was a baseball clinic for my local association. There were about 200 attendees. Most of the instructors were experienced NCAA guys and we even had a few with minor league experience.
Of all the rotten luck, our ASA state clinic was on the exact same day! Logistics made it easier for me to attend the baseball clinic, though I would have loved to be at the ASA one. I think that there are some upcoming ASA regional clinics in Cincinnati (about 120 miles south of me) that I have my eye on going to.
To answer a couple of your points:
I was getting set just as the pitcher started his motion/windup. Seemed about right to me!
On the head moving during a pitch: the times it was detectable it was a very minor adjustment right at the end of the pitch, kind of following the last few feet across the plate and to the catcher's mitt. Up until that last tiny little move my head looked steady.
This was definitely not flinching from the ball or tracking the whole pitch all the way like my head was on a swivel.
On pitches right over the plate, or to the inside (right at you if you're in the slot) there would be no head movement at all. The only time you would see a little movement would be on very low or very outside pitches. Kind of "keeping my nose on the ball" as it went to the outer edges of my peripheral vision- and kind of like the "Pete Rose" tracking you described.
I see this exact same movement, on the exact same pitches, by every home plate umpire I've watched this spring in televised spring training games and the World Baseball Classic. Dozens of umpires in dozens of games, at a higher level that I'll ever reach, and they all do this same tiny move.
Oh...by the way...on a called strike three, I do the "ripping" move that Andy describes above.
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