Please help a couple of coaches

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by Rufus

My fellow coach said it is because he didn't disengage with his pivot foot backwards off the plate first.

This particular rule is the same in all codes. Your fellow coach has been drinking the myth kool-aid.

Two differences that hve not been mentioned:

• A balk is an immediate dead ball in FED, even if the balk is immediately followed by a throw or pitch. Kill it and advance the runners.
  
• The "gorilla stance" is a balk in FED. How strictly it's enforced will vary by area.

[Rufus]

Thank you all for the responses and (fortunately or unfortunately as I've been coming to this forum for a while now) I didn't find the responses too confusing (I know, give it a couple of minutes!).

I will look into Jim Evans video as well.

[Ump Rube]

Not that it relates directly to your question, but one other major difference in the balk codes is that in OBR the ball stays alive, in FED the ball is dead immediately. A good piece of information to remember if you, or the umpire you are dealing with, operates under multiple codes.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

The "gorilla stance" is a balk in FED. How strictly it's enforced will vary by area.

This area: Not getting called. Everyone would just say, "But Heath Bell does it!" I'm not going to try and explain to the coach the reasoning behind the FED rules, I'm just going to not enforce it like everyone else.

[Kevin Finnerty]

Last season:

Coach: "Hey, Kevin, can he swing his arm like that?"

Me: "Yes."

Coach: "Isn't that against the rules now?"

Me: "Yes."

Coach: "I love it."