Answer to second one-question test

[Warren Willson]

Originally posted by Hayes Davis
I DID get on the rubber and it IS possible to step to third with ONLY a shoulder movement and NOT any arm feinting of a throw. Now you're getting on with semantics. YOU LOSE Carl. You BOLDLY stated that a feint under FED rules MUST be accompanied by arm movement and the FED's shot you down in Play 6.2.4d saying that no arm feint/movement was necessary in that case. Go figure?

In an attempt to restore this discussion to a less personal and more topical level, I would like to try and precis Carl's position as it relates to your paragraph quoted above. This is NOT in any sense a personal defense of Carl, or an attack on you, Hayes. As a 3rd party, and one who does NOT call FED or even possess a current FED rule book or case book, I think I can be considered impartial in this thread. Ok?

The Play you cited, 6.2.4d, certainly DOES say that there can be a shoulder feint with NO accompanying arm movement. The actual circumstances for that play, however, are that there was also NO accompanying step toward the base i.e. the shoulder feint was the ONLY movement toward 3rd base in the cited play. That is certainly possible although illegal, as the play defines.

OTOH, Carl's point was that if the pitcher first STEPS toward the base, as one would apparently be legally required to do under the FED provision, and THEN also attempts to "shoulder feint" toward that base, one of two other things must also happen:

(a) he DOES NOT separate his hands, which I believe Carl's post implies would be a balk anyway under FED rules, OR

(b) he DOES legally separate his hands, which action when accompanied by any shoulder movement CANNOT be physically achieved without also requiring at least minimal arm movement of some description except perhaps under the wierdest of circumstances.

To achieve a shoulder feint which is also accompanied by the required hand separation but with no perceptable arm movement, the hands would need to separate in the vertical plane but the wrists remain fixed together and pivot. To do anything else means that the arms MUST move perceptably.

If I am correct in my assessment, and option (b) is the scenario of which Carl speaks, then I believe Carl HAS made his point that any feint to a base which is preceded by a legal step AND the required separation of the hands MUST also include some arm movement. With that "wierdest of circumstances" mentioned as the only possible exception, I would certainly be inclined to discount any alternative view as wholly unrealistic.

Now please remember, Hayes, that I claim NO specific knowledge of, or general expertise in, the subject rules of the NFHS. All I have done here is to try to impartially follow the various logical arguments of this thread and come to some sort of conclusion based on those arguments. You may well STILL disagree with my conclusion but I trust you will accept that it has at least been arrived at impartially, and in a spirit of reconciliation of the two obviously disparate views.

My best wishes to you and yours for Christmas and the coming New Year.

Cheers.

[Edited by Warren Willson on Dec 25th, 2000 at 04:38 PM]