Gerry Davis Mechanics

[AtlUmpSteve]

The GD stance has several weaknesses in softball, in my opinion. The first is that it leaves the umpire's head very high looking down through the zone, forcing a judgment on the top of the zone, and making the judgment more difficult at the knees; compared to setting your eyes at the top of the zone, and making anything above your eyes a ball, and anything below your eyes a possible strike. That can be overlooked with consistency, but it still requires more judgment than necessary.

The second issue is much more problematic. In the softball game, the batter is most often in the front of the batters box, and the catcher then moves up to a point almost directly behind the plate. If you, as an umpire, set up 3' behind the catcher, the last time you will see the ball is 3' in front of the plate, because the catcher's body will take that space in front of her away from you. This is not an issue in baseball, when batters universally stand in the back of a box that is 4' behind the plate; it is a huge and insurmountable problem when the batter is 4' in front of the plate.

If you claim to see the ball across the plate into the catchers glove with that stance with the catcher directly behind home plate, you are only fooling yourself.