What is the purpose of the 16'dia circle? We know that it is used for the purpose of the look-back rule, but I am sure the circle long pre-dated the look-back rule.

I had someone tell me tonight that the pitcher could not land with her stride foot completely outside the circle (!). Was that ever a rule in the past - for any level of FP?
WMB

WMB,

Just funning, but 8' is a loooong stride.

http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/Gif/homercrawl.gif

And No, I cannot say if it was ever a rule or not.

glen

How about the pitching step and the following step reaching 8 feet in an adult male game?

Easily
 

Some of them could almost touch the batter.

Don't know about the history of 16 feet. I thought it might historically have something to do with the size of the baseball mound but that is 18 feet diameter.

Professor of occult studies at Princeton University tells me the circle originally was not 16 feet, but 5 times pi feet (15.71 feet). Something to do with necromancy and an ancient curse. Through the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the Catholic Church, in an attempt to eradicate vestiges of paganism, set the uniform standard of 16 feet.

If you examine the ancient fields along the Cornish coast, you'll find the five-pi circles.

The prof says the ancients used the exact same infield fly rule, though.

Very good
 

So the pitchers had pi feet? And they had 5 of them! Which one had to be on the rubber? Did they have to drag all four of the others... simultaneous or sequential?

Was it still called a "crow hop" or was it a Rockettes shuffle?

Good questions, DownTown. I'll see if the professor will let me do research for a Ph.D. thesis on the subject.

Greymule, that is merely more evidence that Stonehenge was in fact the first "modern" softball park!


Scott