Quote:
Originally posted by PeteBooth
Originally posted by mcrowder
The only reason I mentioned experience is that you seemed to think I was not around 7 years ago when the rule was more strict. But I was. And at no time did I ever see, do, or hear of Peter's assertion that we should call a strike on a batter who thought he'd received ball 4.
If it matters...
Baseball FED since 1992.
If you were doing FED games since 1992 then how can you say "And at no time did I ever see, do, or hear of Peter's assertion that we should call a strike on a batter who thought he'd received ball 4.
Not to beat a dead horse, but it's one thing to not enforce a rule and one thing to say You never saw or heard of it.
Pete Booth
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I did not say I'd never heard of the rule. Good grief. I do remember that the rule was unusually strict immediately after it was put in. But I also remember this coming up in clinics when someone wanted to point out the absurdity of the rule as written, and being told (more than once) that the rule was not intended to be implemented in cases like the one discussed in the OP. Yes - the rule DOES include this case, but it was not the INTENT of this rule (according to my bosses at the time) to be used in this case. Kind of absurd to think that the rulesmakers would have wanted us to call an extra strike on the batter simply because we took a second longer than he thought we would in making our strike call. What's to prevent the OOO's in the house from simply delaying ALL of their 3-1 strikes until the batter started heading toward first base on what he thought was a BB - only to call STRIKE! and STRIKE THREE! for vacating.
Perhaps it was taught that way elsewhere. We were never told to be this absolute with the rule.