The hollow of the knee, if in fact pitchers are hitting that, and the umpire KNOWS that is where it is crossing, is fine. But, I see a lot of high school level umpires who think they are calling strikes at the hallow, who in fact are calling in about mid-shin. THAT pitch (the mid-shin pitch) is bad! Calling that and making batters swing at it leads to a lot of contact with the ball that is not conducive to outs! It has to do with the angle of the bat when it meets the ball.

Poor hitters, when swinging at low pitches have the angle of the bat sort of like the bat is standing on end. Thus, only solid contact in the exact middle of the bat produces hits with good lift. The rest of the time, the batter is hooking or slicing the ball because they are not hitting it square. This produces those funky spinning hits that do funny things, which usually leads to bad plays.

Make a guy hit the higher pitch, you know, the one ABOVE THE BELT that many don't seem to call, and you have a batter swinging a LEVEL bat! Hitting a ball slightly off center with a level swing means either a pop up, or a grounder. That is better for getting outs.

Too many guys call below the knee, and nothing above the belt. And they wonder why their games are always 22-15! I am not saying that calling a high zone is going to totally get rid of high scoring games, but, it has certainly cut down on them in my experience.

I know many college guys who are stuck at the JuCo level because they refuse to call the higher zone that the NCAA wants to see. All the umpires I see moving up the ranks call higher zones.

Call the higher pitch! It is good for lower level baseball like most of us do most of the time.