Do ASA rules allow a pitcher to step back (not just a rocker motion) off the rubber with their non-pivot foot during their wind-up. Can you reference the ASA rule that clarifies this?

Welcome to the board.

No, ASA rules do not allow a pitcher to step back.

ASA Rule 6 Section 3. G.

Thanks for the quick answer. Does anyone know if the IHSA rules are the same - I.e. NO step-back. I have been told IHSA - Allows the pitcher to step-back with non-pivot foot. The rule reference would be helpful also.

Additionally - what is the justification for allowing a step-back or NOT allowing a step back. Where is the advantage to the pitcher or dis-advantage to the batter/runner?

(Illinois High School Association - charter member of the National Federation of State High School Associations)

Illinois most likely follow NFHS rules for HS softball. NFHS does allow the step back by the pitcher. I don't have the book handy to provide a reference, but I'm sure someone will be along with the rule soon.

I have been told that the justification for this is that HS rules are written to encourage participation by as many students as possible and by allowing the step back, it makes pitching easier.

in nfhs they can step back begining before the hands are brought together for the signal.

6.1.2

"Do ASA rules allow a pitcher to step back?"

Assuming FP - answer is Yes.

ASA 6.1.E.1: "If the pitcher decides to pitch with the non-pivot foot to the rear and off the pitching plate, a backward step may be taken before, simultaneous with or after the hands are brought together."

"Additionally - what is the justification for allowing a step-back or NOT allowing a step back. Where is the advantage to the pitcher or dis-advantage to the batter/runner?"

That is an interesting question. The original ASA FP softball rules (1933) required both feet to remain in contact with the plate, and the pivot foot had to remain in contact with the plate until the stride foot landed. Those rules remained in effect through the mid-eighties and were the same for NFHS FP.

By 1990 the ASA rules had changed (for men only - see 6.1.E.1 above) to allow the step back. The drag of the pivot foot for JO/Women also become legal. NFHS changed its rules to follow the ASA men's rule in allowing a step back; did not allow the LEAP (legal for ASA men), and did allow the drag.

The obvious advantage to the step back, and the legal drag is to create more forward momentum and thus more powerful, or faster pitches.

WMB

Nice setup by an accomplished ASA basher! http://www.clicksmilies.com/s0105/ak...smiley-033.gif (only partly kidding, WMB. It really was a nice setup! It had me going for a sec!) Actually, it seems to me it does both. It makes it easier for less skilled pitchers to pitch strikes more often, and it gives accomplished pitchers a more powerful drive off the plate.

The step back is also illegal in international play (e.g. Olympics) for both men and women (I believe that to be true - don't have the ISF book), and it is illegal in the NCAA. The real question is why?

Nice setup

Thanks. A little devious perhaps, but it was fun. But - only "partly kidding?"

encourage participation by as many students as possible

I don't see that. Note that NFHS had the no-step-back rule for many years. They changed when ASA did.

The real question is why?

Probably because male pitchers have a lot of power in ASA. As noted, they got 50 years of consistant rules changed only for them. They got the Leap make legal for only them. (It was subsquently make illegal, and now it is back again in modified form.)

Regardless of the rules currently in effect, male pitchers don't like to follow them. I hear from other umpires, and I have experience it myself - being told by the powers-to-be NOT to call any illegal pitches on men pitchers.

And that refutes the claim that the step-back is a rule for the less experienced or less skilled. You cannot say that adult male pitchers fit that catagory.

WMB

...In Little League
 

8.01(g) -" <I>A backward step may be taken before or simultaneous with the hands being brought together. The pivot foot must remain in contact with the pitching plate at all times prior to the forward step.</I>"