Hand to mouth, FED

[umpjim]

Originally Posted by Rita C

I'm a little confused with your answer. It is never a balk in OBR (LL included) baseball.

If you read the cites I agree going to your mouth is never a balk in OBR and shouldn't be in FED but unfortunately due to the casebook and some approved rulings in FED it is if you have a runner and the pitcher is on the rubber.
I was trying to give the involved umps a way out with the 8.02(a)(2 thru 6)rule which does allow a balk but also requires an ejection. I don't think that is what happened here but who knows.
If they were using FED rules here they were remiss. Even in our District umpire briefs we cover those specific differences (We do mostly HS). We even cover the LGB failure to update to the OBR rule concerning going to the mouth on the dirt. We call it like OBR and tell them that if they go furthor it might be called one way or the other. Find out how they will call it. Since MLB changed the rule to avoid the waste of time that the pitcher would spend walking down to the grass I don't think anybody would mind if it was called that way even if LL did not pick up on the change.
But apparantely, at the LL SBBWS, the umps did not only know the difference between the LGB and OBR, they did not know that FED was different from both.