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First of all, never put it past any player to fake anything. I had an incident where an inside pitch missed the batter, missed the catcher and hit me directly on the elbow. While I was writhing in pain at the backstop, one of the fans said "That hit you, didn't it batter?" The batter nodded...even though I was set up in the slot and saw it obviously didn't hit him. These kids were TWELVE.
Anyway, this might be semantics but when I'm BU and a coach wants me to overrule something like a check swing, my response isn't that "it's not my call", rather that it is the plate umpire's call first, then if he needs help he will ask me. BUT, in this situation just like the caught/not caught third strike the PU is in a position where he can easily be screened from a ball hitting a foot or whether or not the 3rd strike bounced or was caught clean.
As BU, when the pitch is on the way...where else are you looking, anyway? You have to watch for check swings, or something crazy such as where the ball might be hit. Sure, sometimes a foul off the foot happens so fast you can't exactly tell it hit the batter, but in this situation what's the harm in throwing your hands up, calling foul and allowing play to be reset? If it looks like a strike, call a strike. If it looks like a foul off the foot, call foul.
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Fri May 06, 2005, 12:56pm
Hybrid Mode
