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Originally Posted by Mountaineer
My mistake was comparing two different sports... some of you hate me because I umpire softball. Get a life!
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Larry - assuming your signature is correct, and you really do call NCAA softball and LL Baseball, surely you recognize a significant difference in the games. Heck, I call them different sports. You (as I assume you know) really have to truly have a different mindset in each game.
However ... all of that said - unless you're working youth ball or calling an eephus pitch, you are going to have trouble advancing if you consistently call a pitch that you perceive as skimming the bottom of the zone before bouncing into the catcher's glove a strike. Seriously. I work mostly upper level FED and ASA softball but have filled in at NCAA level - I can't remember calling a bounce-pitch a strike at that level. I also suspect that if you did, and then saw that pitch on tape, you'd realize it was actually low.
You can be forgiven when you call a hittable ball outside the zone a strike. You might get yelled at by the coach, but you're not going to damage your career. And if you are consistent with it, they will swing at it. But when you call an UNhittable ball outside the zone a strike, you're going to hear about it from every angle, and possibly hurt your career if you don't correct this error.
I gave one poster a hard time far above for making the blanket statement that ALL bouncers are non-strikes, trying to point out that at 10U or even bad 12U (either baseball or softball), you will have MANY bouncing strikes. But above this level, it should not happen. And while you may defend your position that "if it goes through the zone, it's a strike", I would maintain that the physics of the situation dictate that if it bounced, it was almost definitely NOT actually in the zone. Another good use of film if you are calling these pitches strikes - take a look at what your pitch looks like from another angle and you may agree that you are missing these pitches.