Illegal pitch?

[David Emerling]

I was going through my archive of old photos and videoclips and stumbled across something I'd like to get an opinion on from you experts.

This was taken 2 years ago in a 16U tournament in Franklin, TN (near Nashville).

My role was that of assistant coach for my daughter's team.

The videoclip is that of the opposing pitcher. It's the top of the 1st inning.

We watched this young lady pitching all weekend and we were all of the opinion that her natural delivery is completely illegal.

Before the game started, while the opposing pitcher was finishing her warm-ups, I gave the PU a heads-up that we were going to challenge the legality of her delivery the moment she throws a strike or retires one of our hitters. He seemed uninterested.

Sure enough, the first pitch she threw was fouled off by our leadoff hitter. Our head coach requested time and challenged the legality of the pitcher's delivery. The umpire said that she was "fine." There wasn't much we could do after that and had to live with it. Oh well.

Here's her delivery:
http://www.emerling22.com/softball_v...egal_pitch.mov

I don't want to influence you so I won't tell you WHY we thought her delivery was illegal.

I understand that it would take a lot of courage to rule this illegal because it's almost certain that this young lady would not be able to make the adjustment to make it legal. She's probably been throwing that way for a very long time. It's a habit that she would not be able to break at that moment.

By ruling her delivery illegal, the umpire would, in effect, be forcing the other team to change pitchers. And that's why it takes a lot of courage.

David Emerling
Memphis, TN

[Edited by David Emerling on Nov 6th, 2005 at 08:48 PM]