Are you calling a Balk?
 

Mediocre Varsity teams. Score not important. R3. Pitcher is in windup and steps on to the plate with both hands together. After taking sign and setting ball in glove he removes hand about 4 inches out of glove, returns it to his glove and begins his motion. Coach insists pitcher has balked. We move on.

One week later, same team , same coach ahead by 9 runs in 7th inning and everyone yells for pitcher to step off. Lo and behold he does, but not with the pivot foot. He looks over and says "that is two you owe me". I tell him after the game that both cases were technical balks and he says " a balk is a balk." We agreed to disagree and moved on.

I know the differences, are you calling these?

How else is the kid going to learn? It will also stop the other coach from griping - he's less apt to gripe in a game he's winning easily, but what is he's losing and you ignore the balks?

JJ

Varsity. Balk it. That's the only way they learn. Kind of like speeding tickets.

You can start calling it now, or wait 'til the losing team puts up a 9-spot in the last inning after you passed on it because of the big lead. Your choice.

1. Call the balks.

2. Tell the coach that if he is counting, he'll be in the parking lot by the time he gets to 4.

Taking the ball out of the glove and not completing the pitching motion is not a technical balk. It's a balk. Any movement once the pitcher has assumed the windup position other than a step backward with the pivot foot commits the pitcher to pitch (FED). Anything else is a balk. When the pitcher removed his hand (with or without the baseball) from his glove, he effectively started his motion and the runner was free to take off and steal, but was held in check by the illegal deception.

Thank you for your advise on the balk but, I don't need to bark out commands or make threating statements to let the coach know I am in charge or satisfy my ego. I know I have the final say and there is no need to flaunt it.

Nice point. I see more than a few umpires think it is good form to instruct the dugout from afar when a mere shake of the head or palm shown their way will suffice. Opening your mouth to the team usually opens the door to trouble. Silence can never be misquoted.

I think by now you know not to put on a balk clinic but to simply call the balks you saw. In my experience, the first balk call is usually all it takes. Good luck this season.

Thanks Mike, it works for some and that is their perogative. I have just never found it necessary (unless the situation needed), to let everyone know who is in charge on the field. I know it and that is all there is to it.

As far as the balks, I agree that it can be a learning process by calling all of them, whether technical or mechanical, its discretion and I continue to refine even that, if I think it will make me a better official. Not just because some has told me too. There are often some different schools of thought on it and I was just trying get some more opinions from others.

Thanks

Better to have them learn it in a 9-0 game then to learn it in a 0-0 game that becomes 0-1.

You giving him 4 strikes?

Better to have one side ticked at you because you enforced a rule as it should be enforced than to have one side ticked at you because you're letting stuff slide.

One side is going to be ticked off no matter what, but I can live with that if I'm doing my job the right way.

You can't read?

I will continue to argue that neither one were technical. The runner in each case is illegally deceived by both taking the hand out of the glove in the former and by stepping off with the free foot in the latter. In each case, the runner is put at a HUGE disadvantage. What would you have done in Play #2 if after the pitcher stepped off, the runner decided to steal and the pitcher threw him out at the base? Go back and say "Oh, that was a balk, by the way?" Just wondering what your reasoning is for considering either of these balks "technical," when each one has effectively killed the runner's chances of a stolen base.

The proper mechanic is to immediately signal a delayed dead balk.