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Originally Posted by egj13
I am either dreaming or we have some bad umpires in here.
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You are correct... but the bad umpires are the opposite group from what you're assuming.
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The pitcher would only have become an infileder if he stepped backward off the rubber prior to feining to third base.
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Why would you think this. More importantly, what rule states this? This is just flat untrue. Feinting a throw (FEINTING, people, not FEINING) to third (or 2nd) is a legal disengagement from the rubber. You don't have to disengage first to feint a throw to 2nd or 3rd.
[QUOTE]So since he stepped directly towards 3rd..without stepping off...and then wheeled to throw to first without stepping towards first ahead of the throw he now balked.[/quote}This is only true if he manages all of this without removing his foot from the rubber at all. A) That's DAMN hard to do, and B) the reason you've never seen it is because it's a balk.
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The fact that he lost contact with the rubber when he feinted to third does not releas him from the requirement to STEP towards first before he throws there. Pull up some video...I bet you will be able to see that after feining to thrid, he then turned to throw to first WIHOUT STEPPING AHEAD of the throw...which is a balk.
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Herein lies the complete misunderstanding of this rule you seem to be having.
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Clearly no one on this board was calling it a balk hence the reason to need to change the rule
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It was not being called a balk because it's not a balk... that said - you're literally insane if you think MLB would change a rule because the members of officiating.com were calling something incorrectly.