2011 ASA Rule Changes with Comments

[NCASAUmp]

Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA

Consistency with FP was the "excuse" for the SP PU to drop to the set position at the pitch's release instead of first determining legal/illegal.

Consistency is something that belongs within the game, not necessarily among the games. While I don't have a problem with maintaining standard mechanics for softball in general, each game has different demands and should be officiated accordingly.

And that's precisely why I said "if." If that's how they want me to do it, then by golly, that's how I'm gonna do it. If ASA (or any association, for that matter) wants consistency among their umpires across varying levels of their programs, then so be it.

But SP is a completely different animal and has a strike zone that MUST be called differently from FP. FP and MP PUs track the pitch through the zone in a relatively straight line, whereas SP umpires track the pitch at an odd angle. Couple that with the fact that we're also governing such things as minimum and maximum height.

But that's going off into a completely different tangent for another thread.