slow pitch strike zone

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally posted by rharrell

New to slow pitch this year after years of coaching and calling fast pitch and baseball.

While I base my zone on the batter, player's seem to have the mentality that there is a box behind the plate and if the ball lands in that box it's a strike. I've seen some umpires in our league point to the ground and call "deep" which seems to reinforce this. Had a game last weekend with a couple of 6.5 foot players and some who were barely 5 foot and this led to more than the usual whining about the zone. Also, we normally play with a 4' 10' arc, but it was 6' 12' for this particular tournament.

I'm sticking to calling it either a ball or a strike without explanation. I'm sure this has probably been discussed before, but any advice on maintaining a consistent slow pitch strike zone?

Speaking ASA

The ground has no impact on the strike zone. Only if the ball hits the plate or in front of the plate do I really care where it lands. Umpires which point to the ground and use that as a reference point for the call are either untrained or lazy.

Unfortunately, you are correct about umpires perpetuating the players inaccurate belief of what constitutes a strike. The bad part about that is the umpires who call the zone correctly usually take more heat than those who do not.