OK-please educate me. What is OBR? Thanks.

U of Sam
 

OBR is the abbrebriation of "Official Baseball Rules", the rules of Major League Baseball. It comes from the rule book which MLB publishes, they name it the Official Baseball Rules.

We used to call them "Pro rules" years ago, I wish that we went back to that title/usage. It makes things a lot easier for new people.

And just in case:

FED- National Federation High School Baseball Rules
NCAA- NCAA College rules
NAIA- NAIA (Small School College) Rules
LL- Little League Rules
BR (Babe Ruth), PONY, USSSA, Legion: All these organizations use OBR rules with some changes in rules/interpretations as appropriate to their level of Baseball. Some people on the board will ask a specific question dealing a specific rule code which may have a different answer than "straight" OBR

[Edited by jkumpire on Jul 4th, 2005 at 02:37 PM]

YEARS of experience watching THOUSANDS of batters, TENS OF THOUSANDS of pitches, HUNDREDS of batters getting hit and then making a good guess ;).

Thanks jkumpire.
Sam

hbp
 

I've seen it at the ML level, twice I want to say two years ago.
But have seen dozens of times when the thought crossed my mind that it should have been called and wasn't even considered.
I've never called it in 20yrs.(well, several times a game in SP but we all know that's not baseball)

If batter doesn't move or barely flinches, I give him the benefit, he really thought it was gonna miss him or it might break enough I better protect and hang in there.

I have called it because the pitch was a strike, slow breaking ball, at the 15 yr. old level, guy bent at the waste and threw the front arm over the plate.

For me to call it a batter must really dive into one.

On a safety note, lets take a pitch coming right in at the rib area, the batter tightens up and takes it rather than try and duck and perhaps take it on the chin or in the ear-hole. Though it would appear he didn't try and move I'll give him the benefit, perhaps it's just good survival instincts. On the other hand, call it once and see if those pitches don't strat coming in a little tighter and tighter.

To add to all of this. Craig Biggio didn't set the MLB record for HBP by accident. He learned to how to "roll" on a inside curve ball and take it on the back of the shoulder. I'm willing to bet that alot of PU know this too.