A "Balk" terminology question

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Originally Posted by walkerbard

Wow....can't believe I haven't visited here since 2002...Anyway, here's my question. On a sports forum, someone posted a clip of a pitch Reds' pitcher Johnny Cueto threw the other night. It was a Luis Tiant-esque wind up, turn towards second with an ever so slight pause, a shoulder wiggle and then finishing up the delivery throwing a big, slow curve. The batter kind of just gave up and put his bat on his shoulder during the pause part of the delivery and watched as the pitch was called a strike. This started a debate on whether it was or wasn't a "balk". I contended that you can ONLY have a "balk" called if runners were on base, to begin with. That set off a search of the MLB rule book to determine if a "balk" can be called with no one on base. The wording in the rule book is kind of contradictory. In one place, it states that a "balk" committed with no one on base is a ball and in another place it states (insert balk example) is a balk with men on base, and a "ball", if not. So, my question is, if a pitcher commits an illegal pitch/action (like a quick pitch or going to his mouth on the rubber) that results in a ball being awarded (would have been a balk if someone was on base) to the batter, is it still CALLED/CONSIDERED a balk (i.e. would an umpire say, "That's a balk...ball 1")?Thanks.

This has got to be the rule of the season for me.

There are TWO illegal pitches without runners in OBR. One is pitching without the foot in contact with the rubber. The other is the quick pitch.

WITHOUT RUNNERS, ANYTHING ELSE IS NOTHING!

I've been banging my head against the wall on this all season!

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