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Originally Posted by Ref Ump Welsch
I disagree with IRISHMAFIA that the chopped ball definition change is unnecessary. The rule currently is vague and wide-open to interpretation, while I believe this change will bring some uniformity to the interpretation. There are SP players who swing downwards (and I'm one of them) who hopes to clip the ball just right to put a crazy spin on it that gives it a lofty flight (hard to explain in words what I mean) and they end up missing the mark and it looks like a chop. Most times those of us who swing downwards are not intentionally chopping, but swinging to give it a good hop. The word "deaden" would give us some room to say, hey, you chopped down at it in an effort to keep it from going anywhere, that's a chop.
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Not true. I don't believe this gives any more clarity to the definition. I've never heard of a "chop swing" as being described as anything, but a straight chop perpendicular to the ground "as if chopping a log". That means the bat is raised over one's head. (Well, anyone who chops log knows that unless splitting, straight down is not going to do the job that well. I would say it is more like driving a stake into the ground with a sledge.) What can be more precise than "straight down"?
Nonetheless, the ban on "chopping" was probably adopted from baseball. The purpose was to "chop" the ball and drive it directly into the ground to bounce it high and give the BR time to advance before the ball came down. From what I understand of the history of this, some groundskeepers at ball parks would allow the area in front of the plate to harden like concrete. I'm sure we have all had games on infield like that. The batter would drive the ball into the ground. Sometimes it would bounce high enough the BR would be at first before the ball came down. Sometimes it would bounce over the infielder's heads for a base hit (Baltimore Chop).
Probably what brought this to light is last year a speedster of the All-Army team, He made the Armed Forces team and demonstrated his ability to top the ball and beat out an infield hit in the Men's A Nationals in OKC. There was a large amount of complaints by the opposing players.
Performing this feat, even in SP, is not that easy. Of course, I'm in the group that believes the bases should be moved back in SP which would help eliminate the effect of a "softly" batted ball.