Strike Zone

[greymule]

Just to clarify, I don't believe in calling truly bad pitches strikes, whatever the situation. If the pitcher throws 50 in a row that are over the batter's head or in the dirt, that's 50 balls.

This isn't just a theoretical point. A few years ago, I began a SP (men's) softball game with 48 straight balls. (Boy, was that game fun to work.)

Once on a business trip (to a Chicago suburb) I found a LL game near my hotel, so I sat in the stands for a while. The first 30 pitches would have been balls if the plate had been 6 feet wide and the batter 10 feet tall. And the 30 took about 20 minutes, as after each pitch the catcher waddled over to retrieve the ball from wherever it had ended up. When they decided to station a coach at the backstop to do the retrieving and "speed" the game along, I left.

[TheSlav]

In youth ball (12U), as long as you don't expand up or down too much you should be OK. MOST coaches want the kids to swing the bat, the others at that level know that walks turn into PB doubles, triples and more importantly RUNS scored and are subtly teaching a percentage of their kids to NOT swing the bat and draw the all-important walk.

One on the inside corner, two on the outside or visually anything between the two batters box lines, provided they were drawn by someone who can put them close to where they belong.

Nothing above the shoulders or in the dirt (You'll hear the whiny "how can I teach him not to swing at that if you guys are going to call it").

The kids finally enjoy playing a 4-3 or 5-3 game and a full six innings once in a while instead of the beer-league softball scores ended by darkness with four ugly innings in the books after 2 1/2 hours.

RANT OVER