Balk, Balk Yells the Coach!!!

[Gre144]

I hope you guys gave me the right information because I used it to not call a balk in the following two situations.

Situation 1) R1 on first. F1 while on the mound throws the ball to F3 who is standing in his normal F3 position not near the bag and catches the ball in that exact same position without moving towards the bag.

Situation 2) R2 on second. F1 throws the ball to F6 who is standing in his normal F6 position not near the bag and catches the ball in that exact same position without moving towards the bag.

The varsity coach screams at me both times saying that the pitcher must step towards the bag. I said that he has to step at a 45 degree angle between the two bags which gives the pitcher the leeway to step halfway between any bag.

Did I make the right call? I would have called a balk in both situations before discussing them on a thread in this chat room. But after getting the opinion of many umpires, I canged my view on the definition of "stepping towards a bag" allowing the pitcher to step halfway between any two bags.

Your help is always appreciated.

Greg

[Edited by Gre144 on Jul 9th, 2001 at 05:20 PM]