Tricks for Timing

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by Publius

If that advice is excellent, here's some that's awesome:

No pitch is either a ball or a strike until after it reaches the catcher's mitt.

A bias or predisposition toward a certain outcome might lead to quicker games. It certainly leads to an improper zone if you want to advance in adult baseball (college-aged and older).

Bible's advice might be OK for established umpires, although I find that partners who follow it tend to have strike zones that are unfairly large. Beginners who follow that advice are practically guaranteed that result, and they make enough mistakes in that direction as it is.

I don't know who said it, but I think it's sometimes attributed to Doug Harvey:

"The batter's got a right to make a living, too."

I must have read Jon Bible's column in Referee Magazine too when I first started out, because that has always been my philosophy. It isn't a bias or a predisposition to calling it one way or the other. I would still always track the pitch into the glove, and then make my determination based on the final outcome. I endeavored never to ever judge a pitch early. But I learned that the baseball comes in on a railroad track, and that track is a "strike." If anything derails the ball off the track, it then is considered a "ball." But it is definitely a strike leaving the pitcher's hand. But as we all know, that can change rather quickly. . .