Pitching Motiong

[nickdangerME]

I have questions about a funny pitching motion in yesterday's 9-10 LL softball tourney, which was not well played. There were plenty of illegal pitches, but PU called only those which affected the batter. I concurred with his non-calls, given the walkfest we were experiencing anyway.

The only pitcher who could find the plate and thus let the batters and fielders play would often start on the rubber with hands together and set, bring the ball out slowly and pause with her pitching arm straight down by her side, then slowly return the ball to the glove to set before starting her motion. This was a clear violation of 8.01(l) ("The pitcher must not use a pitching motion in which, after having the ball in both hands in the pitching position, the pitcher removes one hand from the ball and returns the ball to both hands in front of the body.")

Between innings the problem was raised with her coach, who said it was not her normal motion, but the ump in the previous game called an illegal pitch several times for not "showing the ball" before each pitch. The pitcher was thus altering her normal motion by adding this display in trying to follow that recent "correction." Obviously, I think that "correction" was just plain wrong, but can't fault the coach or the kid for trying to make the ump happy.

I suspect the prior ump's confusion came over another aspect of the pitcher's motion, which I would like your views on. When the pitcher began her motion, bringing her pitching arm down and back, she would not clearly separate the ball from the glove. That is, as she broght the pitching arm back, she would accompany it with her glove arm (reaching across her body and twisting her torso to maintain her hands together). The pitching hand would not come out from the glove until her hands were back in front of her body on the upswing of her windmill motion and her body was already moving forward on the stride. Aside from the "showing the ball" issues, everything else about her motion seemed fine to me (contact with the rubber, hand below the hip, forward release, etc.).

My question is whether this motion was legal? The only relevant LL Rule I found was 8.01(j): "The pitch starts when one hand is taken off the ball after the hands have been placed together." By that definition, her pitching motion never began until well into the upswing of her windmill. That seems counterintuitive. What if she stopped after beginning her stride towards the batter and her windmill, but before the hands came apart? Note that 8.01(m) says: "The pitcher must not make a stop or reversal of the forward motion after separating the hands." I can hardly imagine a pitcher flexible enough to do the entire windmill motion without separating the hands, but I wouldn't have thought I'd see a pitcher who could keep her hands together all the way through the backswing until yesterday.

What do you say?

Nick

"There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."