Quote:
|
Originally Posted by CecilOne
I never knew that was an official teaching before, in spite of having heard it, knowing it was acceptable and partly using it. I have always preferred visualizing the strike zone as pear-shaped, full height but wider in the lower part and not quite as wide at the absolute bottom.
|
Cecil - check your ASA or NFHS umpire's manual - Plate Mechanics, Set Position. "Widen it, and flatten it!" How far, or what shape it doesn't say. That is an individual's personalized strike zone. Simply because someone with an opinion teaches his version at a clinic somewhere does not make that an official strike zone for everyone to adapt to at all levels.
Here is my opinion; what I try to call; and what I teach.
(Does anyone follow it? I don't know, but at least I have given them ammunition to think about their own strike zone.)
I like a horizontal oval shape, generally from below the breast line to above the knees. Maybe an inch inside (plus 4" ball width = 5" strike zone expansion inside); generally 2" - 3" outside (6" - 7" expansion outside).
As AtlUmpSteve noted, I will go those full limits and probably more outside for 18U or college ball. Still I do not like to go that far inside. You start calling strikes on pitches that far inside and you are teaching the pitcher to throw there. Maybe at the highest level those girls can turn on the far inside pitch, but I think that it is dangerous for H.S. and below.
The reason for the oval shape is to take away the high inside/high outside, and the low inside/low outside pitches. As Irish noted above, those are not hittable pitches.
That is my opinion, do with it as you wish.
WMB