Ten Seconds...

[Steve M]

Originally Posted by BretMan

Well then, if you gave them a warning, then you gave them a warning. That changes my opinion of "overzealous" a little bit.

As "last resort" I meant after requesting the batter to get in the box or issuing any warnings. And after giving the batter every benefit of the doubt that your silent count of ten seconds wasn't maybe 8.5 seconds or 9.5 seconds...

If they have ten seconds and they're just about to step in the box when my silent count hits ten, I'll probably pause another second or two to let them settle in. If they're constantly pushing the ten second limit, I'll probably say something like, "Let's go batter", to let them know to speed it up.

The next step (ie: last resort) for me would be to start calling penalty strikes. I think that the umpire can keep the game moving along with good game management techniques before resorting to the automatic called strikes.

Bret,
I'm going to disagree. Warnings of "don't do that" seldom work for long. Apparently Texas is taking the same approach Pennsylvania is. We had one of the rule interpreter meetings last night and were told just about the same that Joe's association and state were told. This rule seems to work pretty well in the college game. I would not be surprised in a year or two to see it in ASA.
I agree with telling the teams that they're in violation when you're doing a scrimmage - everybody is in the scrimmage to get rid of the rust and get familiar with the rule changes. It sounds like Joe's coaches got to see it being done right.