[charliej47]

The first time I saw that and some of the other actions by pitchers during Spring play, I could not understand why it wasn't being called.

I have since learned that this has been discussed and the PROs are going back to the original ruling where "if a patcher is consistent in his movements with runners on base as he is with no one on, then it shall not be considered a balk/illegal patch".

I believe this was first printed in the 1903 or 1913 time frame.

The discussion was that the umpires were becoming too strict and needs to "let the players play".