Balk question
 

This situation happened twice this weekend to umpires in my association (one of those umpires being me.)

OBR, R2, outs don't matter. R2 breaks for third. Pitcher has already started his delivery to the batter, but the screams of, "he's going!" causes him to halt his delivery. Balk is called immediately by all umpires on the field in each case. Pitcher steps off the back of the pitcher's plate and throws the ball wildly over the third baseman's head. R2 scored in each case.

OBR 8.05 APPROVED RULING: In cases where a pitcher balks and throws wild, either to a base or to home plate, a runner or runners may advance beyond the base to which he is entitled at his own risk.

Since the pitcher did not make the throw from the pitcher's plate and instead stepped off the back of the rubber, should the play have been killed? The pitcher did throw immediately after stepping off in each case.

Once the pitcher hesitates (and stopping the delivery qualifies), the ball is dead. Award third only.

"AT the end of play" if runners have not advanced you would then kill the ball and award one base. Read the whole "balk" rule.:D

The section you are quoting is when a pitcher balks and throws the ball. If the pitcher balks and then doesn't throw the ball the play is immediately dead and the balk is enforced.

Let everything play out. As long as the runners all got the one base that they were entitled to then ignore the balk. That being said, if he doesn't throw immediatly to the base, consider this as ending the play and just kill it.

Gotta love the fed rule here, except of course when the pitcher doesn't come to stop, you call the balk and the batter hits the ball out of the yard.

Unfortunately, F1 stopped his delivery (according to the original post) so the correct thing here would be to call TIME immediately upon seeing F1 stop his delivery.

Okay, got more information from one of the two balk situations from the past weekend:

On the other situation, the pitcher was not making a delivery to the plate. He reacted to R2 running towards third by turning his body towards second base, but never stepping directly to second base. Imagine his body turning, but his feet remained in the same position as they were when he was in the set position. Balk was called. Immediately after doing this, the pitcher stepped of the back of the rubber and threw wildly to third base.

Still kill the play?

Yes. The ruling about "balking and throwing the ball wild" (or whatever the specific words are) is meant *only* for those situations where the act of throwing itself is illegal and, thus, a balk.

In this sitiation, you had a balk for feinting without a step FOLLOWED BY a disengagement and a wild throw. It's two separate moves, so the balk is enforced.

Had, for example, F1 merely thrown the ball away without stepping (just turned his shoulders and threw the ball into center field), then the play would be kept live.

So Bob, are you saying that F1 balked to second base?

Nope, sorry, he balked for starting and stopping. But thanks for playing.

Bob said, "In this situation, you had a balk for feinting without a step FOLLOWED BY a disengagement and a wild throw. It's two separate moves, so the balk is enforced."

He indicated that the balk was because of the feint without a step not for starting and stopping.

Are you indicating that he was starting to pitch and stopped??? Or starting to feint a throw to second and stopped. (which would technically be called a balk to second wouldn't it??)

"Technically" this is a balk for beginning a pitch [separating hands w/o a step toward a base first] and not delivering. Bob can describe it as he did w/o violence to the principle of IIITBTSB because he [Bob] knows the difference. Those who do not [understand the difference] need to stick with the mantra IIITBTSB, so that they don't invent non-existent balks [a favorite of the "balk to 2d" crowd is the throw to SS at his position].

What constitutes a "feint" is a step + not throwing. Without the step there's no feint, just a balk for starting and stopping.

I had a game last week with one of our association's notorious Smitties, who urged me three times to review the "rule" that says F1 can't throw to F5 away from the base (with R3).