illegal pitch

[marvin]

Originally Posted by ronald

1) NCAA umpire's ASA National career ended when he called illegal pitch for player not being on the field at the time of the pitch. This umpire in question is an NCAA assignor for a conference and has gone as far as the Super Regionals. Call was correct by rule, but sometimes, you gotta look past the rule or stop something from happening that does not need to happen.

Are you sure the problem wasn't that the ump did not allow enough time for the player to get in position? If there was no other issue, it is very sad when any organization places the brunt for poor rule writing on those they entrust to enforce the rules. If they don't want the penalty applied as specified in the rule book, change the rule book!

The double touch rule is very frustrating for lower level/beginning pitcher's to comply with. They want to bring their hands together to fix their glove, they step in the mound with the ball in the wrong hand and bring the hands together to switch the ball, they bring their hands together to reposition the ball in the glove, and they sometimes just want to start over and bring their hands apart to do so. They do these things because they have not developed a routine that complies with the rules.

I honestly feel that most IPs are the result of the pitcher just messing up and are not intentional. I also know that there are pitchers who deliberately break the pitching rules.