Quote:
Originally posted by Ump20
It seems to me that the pitcher can accelerate his delivery to the plate as long as he does not Quick Pitch. I am not an umpire who calls all the balks that I see but I realize that this one is key. Anyone with any clarification on how to handle the steal of home as it pertains to the pitcher's delivery? Jim/NYC
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Jim, my advice would be to simply
call the pitch on its merits and don't be concerned with anything but the most obvious of balks - eg the catcher stepping out in front of the plate to glove the pitch.
IF you believe there was a possibility that the pitcher stepped off the rubber before delivering the ball, call "Time" and check when the play is over. You can always sort this one out later. Either the batter is out on the strike (or batter's interference - if any - with 2 outs) and no run scores or, if there is interference by the catcher, there is another outcome that can be easily be determined after the following action.
The key issue for the original poster was that the runner would need to have crossed the plate BEFORE the pitcher even commenced his delivery of the pitch in order for the run to count. IOW, the steal of home would need to have been completed BEFORE the pitcher made any motion naturally associated with his delivery of the ball to the batter - defined as the
Time of the Pitch.
BTW, if
you were ready then there's a good chance the
batter was ready too. Most experienced umpires will wait for the batter to be reasonably set before getting set themselves. That way it's easy to tell an illegal quick pitch from an ordinary delivery.
Hope this helps
Cheers
[Edited by Warren Willson on Aug 1st, 2003 at 05:18 PM]