Balk Ruling. Judgement or Rule?

[St. Louis Blue]

Coach&Blue:

You are not wrong to want to play by the rules of baseball, however what most of us are trying to get across is that although the incorrect application of the rule may be theoretically protestable, in practice it is not.
Unfortunately, you may have encountered an umpire with an incomplete grasp of the rules. On the other hand, I have had encounters with coaches that claim that the pitcher is not pausing. The rule is a complete stop. My opinion may be that the pitcher stops, you feel he does not. HTBT

[His High Holiness]

Originally posted by Coach&Blue
I understand that umpires at this level should know the basic rules of pitching. I guess I found one who didn't. I guess I am wrong for wanting to play by the rules of baseball.

As an assignor, I saw hundreds of umpires come and go over the years. Before I tell you about their capabilities, let me tell you a story from my NCAA playing days. The year was 1969.

In practice, our coach was teaching us to swing late and step across the plate on a steal in order to interfere with the catcher's throw to second. One of the our players raised his hand and said, "But coach, that is illegal!"

The coach said "Yes, but the umpires that we have will never call it." Let's fast forward to the the present.

50% of all umpires don't understand or know how to call balks, interference and obstruction. Half of the rest won't call that stuff because they don't want the manure that goes with it. That leaves only 25% of umpires who call interference, obstruction, or balks on any kind of consistent basis. I am talking about 90 foot umpires here. I did not deal with LL umpires where the numbers might be even worse.

No good NCAA coach ever complains about balks. (publically anyway) He makes a note of what the umpires are allowing, and instructs his pitchers to do likewise. The surest way to get a balk call in NCAA ball is to complain about balks. Trouble is, the umpires will call the first one against your team!

Coach, you are tilting at a windmill on this one. Get over it and have some fun instead.

Peter

[Coach&Blue]

I understand your point. I was not very mad about the balk not being called. I started this thread to throw out an idea of maybe it being protestable. I have fun with me team, and was just curious as the opinions I had to "correct" the situation. Thanks for the input.....sorry if I sounded like a jerk off type coach. I never yelled and....oh nevermind. Thanks again for the opions you guys expressed.

MV

[Bfair]

Originally posted by Coach&Blue
I understand that umpires at this lever should know the basic rules of pitching. I guess I found one who didn't. I guess I am wrong for wanting to play by the rules of baseball.

Actually, Coach, it appears you had found not only one umpire who obviously didn't know the rule, but it seems you found TWO of 'em. And they got scheduled on the same field on the same day...............
Poor luck.................hmmmmmm............


Just my opinion,

Freix

[Gold_Spark]

You know you can protest a ruling, but not a judgement call. In your situation, let's just say that the base umpire doesn't know the rule. The home plate umpire obviously did and the home plate umpire can call a Balk just the same as the base umpire. Obviously, the home plate umpire didn't feel the pitcher was balking or he would have called it.