USA Softball Council Meetings

[Big Slick]

The playing rule changes for USA Softball are now available:

https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Softball...-SB/Governance

Of note to this thread:

Rule 6A, Section 1C: Both feet must be on the ground within the 24-inch length of the pitcher’s plate. The shoulders shall be in line with first and third bases. The pitcher shall take a position with their pivot foot in contact with the pitcher’s plate and their non-pivot foot in contact with or behind the pitcher’s plate.

Comment: Allows female pitchers to start with one or two feet on the pitcher’s plate. This aligns the male and female pitching rule as it relates to foot placement.

Rule 6A, Section 1E: The pitcher shall bring their hands together for not less than one second and not more than 10 seconds before releasing the ball. A backward step may be taken before, simultaneous with or after the hands are brought together. The pivot foot must remain in contact with the pitcher’s plate at all times prior to the forward step.

Comment: Allows female pitchers to take a backward step from the pitcher’s plate, before, during or after the hands are brought together. This aligns the male and female pitching rule as it relates to stepping back from the pitcher’s plate.

This is the same as the NFHS rule. However, this is different than 2020-2021 NCAA, which does not allow any movement backwards after the pitcher position has been set.

And while we are at it:

Rule 6A, Section 11B&C, Rule 7, Section 5D: (Junior Olympic Fast Pitch Only) Eliminates the penalty of advancing a runner one base without liability to be put out from the effect of committing an illegal pitch.

Comment: In Junior Olympic Fast Pitch ONLY, when an illegal pitch is declared, the penalty is only a ball on the batter. We no longer advance runners in Junior Olympic Fast Pitch as part of the penalty.

This aligns with NCAA and NFHS.

[CecilOne]

Good job, Slick !!

[RKBUmp]

Every rule set except NFHS moved away from the step back years and years ago, why in the world would USA move back to it??????

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by RKBUmp

Every rule set except NFHS moved away from the step back years and years ago, why in the world would USA move back to it??????

Playing that game we all played as children, Follow the Leader

[Big Slick]

Originally Posted by RKBUmp

Every rule set except NFHS moved away from the step back years and years ago, why in the world would USA move back to it??????

USA technically never 'moved away' from the step back. That has been the men's rule for as long as I've been around (circa 1997). I think this is just a matter of not writing two separate preliminaries for genders. And to my knowledge, NFHS has not required two feet on (well, since 2000).

NCAA made the change this year for only one foot on, but they adopted the WBSC rule for preliminaries on the feet. That includes no step back once the feet are set.

But since the USA Male rule is the same as NFHS (in totality since 2016, once NFHS allowed the step back once the hand came together), USA just opened the preliminaries to all fast pitch.

It really isn't that big of a deal.

Now the big deal is when NCAA (and NFHS, and USA Jo/females) allows leaping, which is legal in WBSC.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by Big Slick

USA technically never 'moved away' from the step back. That has been the men's rule for as long as I've been around (circa 1997). I think this is just a matter of not writing two separate preliminaries for genders. And to my knowledge, NFHS has not required two feet on (well, since 2000).

1936 - Both feet need to stay in contact until the delivery

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by Big Slick

USA technically never 'moved away' from the step back. That has been the men's rule for as long as I've been around (circa 1997). I think this is just a matter of not writing two separate preliminaries for genders. And to my knowledge, NFHS has not required two feet on (well, since 2000).
...
It really isn't that big of a deal.

I have a different theory that may be totally out of whack. But maybe USA made the move to attract more fast pitch players to participate in USA travel ball. By allowing the step-back, there may be more pitchers who opt to play travel because they now can pitch as they would during the high school season.

Seriously, this, to me, was a fix to something that wasn't broken. I've never heard anyone in any USA-related event (tournaments, clinics, meetings, etc.) clamor that they wanted the women's fast-pitch rule to align with the men's rule. So if that's really the only reason why they went that way, I think it's dumb. My suspicions tell me there's another underlying motivation that may be related to attracting more girls to the organization, now that there's so many other options out there (USSSA, PGF, NSA, USFA, etc.)

[Big Slick]

Originally Posted by Manny A

I have a different theory that may be totally out of whack. But maybe USA made the move to attract more fast pitch players to participate in USA travel ball. By allowing the step-back, there may be more pitchers who opt to play travel because they now can pitch as they would during the high school season.

Seriously, this, to me, was a fix to something that wasn't broken. I've never heard anyone in any USA-related event (tournaments, clinics, meetings, etc.) clamor that they wanted the women's fast-pitch rule to align with the men's rule. So if that's really the only reason why they went that way, I think it's dumb. My suspicions tell me there's another underlying motivation that may be related to attracting more girls to the organization, now that there's so many other options out there (USSSA, PGF, NSA, USFA, etc.)

It has everything to do with aligning rules across other organizations and nothing to do with men's FP (I would venture to say that a high percentage of players, coaches and umpires in the travel ball world have never watched a MFP game, much less know the rules are different for pitching). The change at the WBSC level (2018) influenced NCAA, with the coach of team USA lobbying for international pitching rule in NCAA (as you might know, leaping was a proposal for NCAA this year). The rest of the world plays WBSC rules, so I think it is a competitive disadvantage to have a pitching rule that is different.

NFHS has always been a "lone wolf" if you will, as they do not consider themselves as feeder programs for either NCAA or summer ball.

But it is curious why the change happened at the same time as NCAA. Knowing how submitted the proposal would probably shed some light on the subject (and I do not know that answer). I would like to know how close the vote was.

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by Big Slick

It has everything to do with aligning rules across other organizations and nothing to do with men's FP.

Originally Posted by Big Slick

I think this is just a matter of not writing two separate preliminaries for genders.

Okay, maybe it's just me, but it sounds like you're providing conflicting arguments. And USA admits in their press release that this rule change was made to align both the male and female pitching rule.

Whatever the real reason, I was okay with the first rule change that allows the pitcher to set up for the signal with the non-pivot foot on or behind the plate. It does bring USA in line with NFHS, NCAA (which also changed to this for next year) and WBSC. I like the consistency. But then to throw in the step-back to align only with NFHS (I doubt NCAA or WBSC will ever allow that) just seems like, well, a step back (no pun intended) in their thinking.

Claiming that they did it to align male and female play is not a compelling enough argument for me. If that's their rationale, they should've just gone all in and allow leaping as well, in my opinion.