The Jim Evans "timing is the proper use of the eyes" method is correct. The unfortunate thing is that his teachings are rather new, and not universally taught outside of his school classes or clinics.
The sad thing is that some of us were taught by Brinkman and Wendelstedt grads, long before Evans had a school. These instructors used the artificial counting method on us, so now we automatically delay our calls. I don't do any counting to myself (or heaven forbid, out loud
), but my timing is that of a natural looking couple of beats after the ball is caught.
I actually had an evaluator tell me in 1996 that my timing was too fast, even though it really wasn't (pretty slow, really). This guy wanted me slower than Greg Bonin or Jerry Layne. I cheerfully ignored his advice, and continued to do it the way I had been, which was just fine.