Illegal pitch
 

How strict do you guys enforce this. Situation: Pitcher is in the wind-up. steps back with non pivot foot...then just stops and sets himself again.

I understand in the rule book it's called an illegal pitch but the thing that got me was that the ump called a balk with no one on base.

I don't know what strick means.
I also don't know what inforce means.

But I'll ask you - what's the difference here between an umpire calling this an IP and calling it a balk with no one on base?

About the same as the difference between strick and strict or inforce and enforce.

Did he move the runners up?:D

Your Honor, I request that this statement be stricten from the record.

1. You can't balk unless there are base runners, right?
2. I have seen umps leave it along and I have now seen umps call it a balk(which was wrong). There is no advantage to the pitcher doing this(as long as they don't continue to do it), so why not just let it be?

Rock:
 

Rock wrote:

"You can't balk unless there are base runners, right?"

Garth opined:

"Did he move the runners up?"

As always things aren't as easy as it may seem:

OBR -- There is no penalty for a start/stop with no one on base.

NFHS -- When Brad Rumble wrote the opinion in the 1995 Spring NFHS Newsletter he called a start/stop with no one on base a "balk."

The philosophy of Rumble in all NFHS Rules when he was editor is that if something is illegal with runners on it should also be illegal without runners.

This means that the action of start/stop, even with no one on in NFHS rules is illegal.

As to calling it a "balk" the 1995 NFHS Newsletter is the ONLY place I have seen this interpretation and Rumble's initial error of calling it a "balk" rather than an "illegal pitch" or "illegal activity" has never been changed (according to my research).

Rumble wanted there to be a penalty (rather than a "Don't Do That" warning) so he directed the penalty of a "Ball" to be added to the count.

So Rock, I don't know what rules you were playing under but in NFHS rules, using the exact wording of Rumble's directive, a "balk" can be called without runners on base.

After all this . . . I would ignore that activity with no one on.

Regards,

Tim, I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that since HS ball is over in at least 45 states, the poster was speaking of OBR.

Despite the fact that Brad's poor writing of 1995 has not been specifically corrected in a subsequent Newletter, neither has it made it to the case book or rule book. Illegal pitch remains the correct term for his balk with no runners on, at least according the NFHS people I've spoken with.