Treatment of female umpire in Minor Leagues

[Welpe]

Originally Posted by greymule

but it turned out that it was practically irrelevant: no pitcher took anywhere near 20 seconds between pitches.

Sorry for cluttering this thread with actual baseball discussion but...I wonder if that would still be true today?

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by Welpe

Sorry for cluttering this thread with actual baseball discussion but...I wonder if that would still be true today?

Especially now that it is 12 seconds. I've still never seen it called at any level yet.

[Rich Ives]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Especially now that it is 12 seconds. I've still never seen it called at any level yet.

It only applies, of course, with no runnrs on base. Then:

The MLBUM (2009 edition p24) says the clock starts when the pitcher is in possession of the ball AND the batter is in the box "alert to the pitcher".

At this point in play, there is hardly ever anything approaching a violation.

[greymule]

At first, everybody was watching the clock (including me, in left field). By the time the tournament was over, nobody was. It's interesting to me that even in 1969, MLB was concerned about the pace of the game.

A few years ago, I ran into an old friend we had picked up to play for us in that tournament. He had gone on to a 15-year career in the Majors and played in a League Championship Series and a World Series. He mentioned that—35 years later—he still felt bad that he hadn't hit better for us during that tournament. He didn't remember that a woman had umpired any of our games.

I remember that our coach, who was also a college coach, got himself a permanent nickname from that tournament. They used 3 umpires, and he went out to question a call made by the 3B umpire. Our coach asked, "Are you telling me he didn't get under that tag?" and started on his way back to the dugout. The response: "That's what I'm tellin' you, Mac," froze our coach, and we all laughed while a spectator yelled, "He was out by a mile. Get back in the dugout, Mac!"

Since that night, he's been "Mac" to everyone who remembers.

[greymule]

It only applies, of course, with no runners on base. Then:

The MLBUM (2009 edition p24) says the clock starts when the pitcher is in possession of the ball AND the batter is in the box "alert to the pitcher".

At this point in play, there is hardly ever anything approaching a violation.

In the tournament, they started the clock shortly after the pitcher received the ball from the catcher. They stopped the clock if the batter stepped out, and they reset it to I think 10 seconds if the clock stopped within 10.

I'm not sure whether the clock ran with runners on base.