Pain in th a-- coach

[DDonnelly19]

I don't see the purpose of giving warnings on balks. It causes too much inconsistency on how the game is called.

Say the pitcher fails to come set. Balk, first offense, he gets off with a warning. Good, now little Johnny knows that he must come set before pitching. Later, little Johnny feints to 1B. Balk, already had a warning, so we move the runners up. If we use the "warning" as a vehicle to teach the pitchers, how is Johnny supposed to figure out that a feint to 1B is the same penalty as failing to come set? At this point, the "warning" really becomes a "get out of jail free" card.

If you want the "warning" to serve as a teaching opportunity, then you should issue a warning for each type of balk infraction. But then is that per team or per pitcher? Is a throw to 1B without stepping the same as if the throw were to 3B? Coaches will argue that every balk deserves a "warning", so why call them at all? Of course, I'm sure we've all given the pitcher "secret" warnings, so should those count as "official warnings?"

I was going to suggest that at some levels balks should be called but without penalty, but then I'm sure some manager will have his pitcher pull this -- R1 stealing on the pitch. F1, seeing this, purposely balks. R1 goes back to 1B. If runners are allowed to lead off and steal bases, balks almost have to be enforced. You can't try to emulate "real baseball" at the lower levels while removing any responsibility from the pitcher to execute legal moves.

Also, from a practical standpoint, any umpire you put at a lower level likely isn't going to have the training or experience to know when it's appropriate to call a balk. If he sees the pitcher fail to come set, he's either going to call it every time (because he knows the rule) or he will never call any balk at all (because he doesn't know the rule).

If any leagues wants this level of game administration, they better start shelling out the $$$ for the big dogs, because nobody else will be able to keep up with all the convoluted local rules these leagues create.