[QUOTE]Originally posted by CecilOne
[B]In case anyone missed this last week:

I agree with Mike (Mike, are you sure you don't want to call any more fastpitch games again? ).

I think that I would also take the preventive umpiring a step further. I would walk out to the pitcher's plate, and while brushing if off, I would remind the pitcher to ask for time to be granted before removing their glove with ball inside from their hand. (You know, the "discreet" conversation between just you and the pitcher).

And yes, I have seen this (very rarely) used by the defense to lure the runners to come off the bags. But I mostly see this happen when time has already been called (i.e. PU brushing of home plate, time was already granted to a baserunner and ball has not been put back into play, etc).

Hope this makes sense. My writing skills aren't that great.