1970's lefties balking

[jwwashburn]

(not talking about George McGovern and Jimmy Carter)

Little Joe and I were watching the 1975 All Star Game for free on mlb.com and I noticed that starting pitchers Jerry Reuss and Vida Blue were balking rather obviously with a runner on first-bouncing off the waist with no attempt to even give the impression that they know that they should pretend to stop.

I am 40 years old so, while I remember 1970's baseball...I didn't know form balks.

1) Was this common back then?
2) Was the rule different back then?


There was a balk called on Steve Busby but the camera work was lousy so, I have no idea what he did and he was a righty, anyway.

Calling San Diego Steve and those almost as old as him...what is the answer?

Joe in Michigan (soon to be Texas)

[SanDiegoSteve]

I remember it being a little more lax back then. A change of direction was good enough, a mere pause if you will. You see the same motion in a lot of adult leagues, Mexican leagues in particular.

Then they came out with that awful "complete and discernible stop" nonsense and everybody started tightening up the balks. Bob Davidson made it an art form. The rule was very unpopular (with pitchers particularly, who were getting balked like crazy) and was removed from the rules to just read "complete stop."

That's all I have on the subject. Any other old farts like me have anything to add?

[JR12]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

I remember it being a little more lax back then. A change of direction was good enough, a mere pause if you will. You see the same motion in a lot of adult leagues, Mexican leagues in particular.

Then they came out with that awful "complete and discernible stop" nonsense and everybody started tightening up the balks. Bob Davidson made it an art form. The rule was very unpopular (with pitchers particularly, who were getting balked like crazy) and was removed from the rules to just read "complete stop."

That's all I have on the subject. Any other old farts like me have anything to add?

I have noticed the same thing on the old games from the 70's. Seems a change of direction was OK. I also remember the year they tightened up. Several balks a game(seemed like)

[BigUmp56]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

I remember it being a little more lax back then. A change of direction was good enough, a mere pause if you will. You see the same motion in a lot of adult leagues, Mexican leagues in particular.

Then they came out with that awful "complete and discernible stop" nonsense and everybody started tightening up the balks. Bob Davidson made it an art form. The rule was very unpopular (with pitchers particularly, who were getting balked like crazy) and was removed from the rules to just read "complete stop."

That's all I have on the subject. Any other old farts like me have anything to add?

Steve,

Was the additional wording "complete and discernible stop" added in '74?


Tim.

[greymule]

This can be traced to a point in the early 1960s, when a "one-second stop" was instituted. Naturally, many balks followed, so MLB changed it to just a "stop." Since hands coming together and reversing direction had technically stopped at some point, pitchers (like me) loved simply to change direction.

To deal with that "loophole," MLB followed with what SanDiegoSteve described earlier, the "complete and discernible stop" and then just the "complete stop."

When I pitched (1963-1972), you had to do something outrageous to be called for a balk. No technicalities.

Something else I remember from the late 1960s: there was some violation a pitcher could commit that caused a ball, not a balk, to be called, and one of our (college) pitchers tried to walk a batter intentionally by committing that violation four times. However, he wasn't doing the violation "correctly" and, provoking no call, would step back off the plate and start again, trying to be more obvious about his violation. I was playing infield, and after the pitcher did this a few times, the BU asked me, "What's he doing?" I said, "He's trying to get a ball called, but he's balking instead." The BU took another look and said, "You're right. That is a balk." So I asked for time, went to the mound, and told the guy to give the intentional walk in the regular way. (I'm not sure; whatever rule that was might have been college only.)