[nickrego]

Probably the single most important change in my game that got me bumped up from Frosh / JV level to Varsity was learning to take how a pitch is caught into consideration.

Years ago, I called pitches strictly on the flight / path of the pitch. If it touched the zone, no matter how or where it was caught by the catcher, I called it a strike. I used to take a lot of heat from everyone, and was considered to have a poor strike zone.

Then, one of our senior members pulled me aside, and explained to me that even though a pitch might have touched the zone, if the catcher catches it in a way that makes it look like a ball to the rest of the world, I needed to call it a ball. Once I started doing that (took quite a bit of practice), my games went much smoother, my zone felt better, and I started getting compliments from all sides on my pitch calling. And the next year, my entire HS schedule consisted of Varsity games.

That said, let me add; If a strike is what I call a FAT strike, meaning it basically went through the middle of the zone, but say pops out of the catchers glove...Go ahead and call those strikes. What we are talking about are the FRINGE strikes, strikes the catcher has to make extra effort to catch, or a pitch that could go either way. That's when you use how the pitch was caught to make your determination.

One last piece of advice; I would only apply this to 13 YRO and up, on a 90' diamond. Start out conservatively (calling lots of strikes), reducing the number of bad catches you call strikes over time.