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Originally Posted by newump
how much effort do you require the batter to make to avoid getting hit? i've only denied a HBP if the batter actually did something to encourage getting hit - or if the pitch was actually in the strike zone and it struck a batter hanging out over the plate. i'm giving him the base even if he freezes and lets the pitch hit him. how can you expect a kid to hang in there against a curve ball if he has to worry about bailing out so the pitch doesn't hit him?
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Any amount of effort works for me. But if he stands there like a statue or leans into a pitch he stays, and it doesn't much matter to me what kind of pitch it was.
I have had two this year. This first was in an early season game and he just stood there and let a hanger hit him. The manager argued with me that he didn't have time to get out of the way. I told him that he an I both know this pitcher is not throwing hard and he should be able to get out of the way of a pitch that slow. At the end of the half inning the manager approached me again, and said he had to argue the point because the boy's dad was here and he would be on his butt if he didn't.
The second happened last Saturday. Batter stood there like a statue and I kept him in the box. This time the argument from the manager was the pitch was so slow he couldn't avoid it. I said if it was so slow he should have had plenty of time to move. At the end of the half inning he approached me again, and was arguing his point, and I finally said, "OK you have argued enough to satisfy the parents now you can go on to the dugout". He just smiled and said "you must know me". I didn't but I know a lot of similar managers.