Just Softball

[TwoBits]

Originally Posted by greymule

I don't know exactly what has rendered high school baseball so slow,

I still do both baseball and softball and love doing both for different reasons. At the last state regional baseball umpires meeting, I overheard several umpires complaining about 3+ hour baseball games. I silently chuckled to myself that my 7 inning games rarely even approach 2 hours. The reason is that I call the baseball strike zone by the book which speeds up the game significantly. Too many high school umpires aren't calling anything above the belt a strike. I do get a little grief from coaches the first couple of innings when I call the "letter high" or "knee high" strikes (any part of the knees is still in the baseball strike zone), but by the third inning, coaches are telling their players to swing the bat.