Hey guys, can someone describe this illegal(?) pitch to me? My daughters coach(very good one, I might add) was asking me about this other pitcher at a "Majors) game the other nite. Girl would wind-up as usual and then the pivot foot would move forward and re-set about 6 -10 inches in front of rubber for final blast-off. He is saying that pivot foot must be dragged on ground after bl;ast-off???
Thanks.......BBump(trying to figue this strange game out) LOL

A crow hop occurs when the pivot foot leaves the pitching plate and replants prior to the release of the ball. ASA goes on to say that the pitcher must push off from the replant point in order for the motion to be called a crow hop. Regardless of which definition you use, the motion you described certainly sounds like a crow hop to me.

SamC

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BINGO!! We got a BALK, ooops, wrong game...LOL Kinda tough to judge the release at the time of replant, but I think we got the bird-pitch here. Penalty??? Thanks Sam

one more thing....
 

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My daughters game bout week and 1/2 ago, F1 is definately doing this "crow" thing(where the did they get this name??), coach asks blue to watch it, ump jumps down his throat that "she's not gaining advantage", I dunno bout that, 40 feet minus 6-10 inches sounds like an advantage to me.....comments???

cris s wrote:

<b>"F1 is definately doing this "crow" thing(where the did they get this name??)"</b>

cris,

Ever see a crow walk around. NO, they hop. http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk.../1syellow1.gif. I know
this is more of a bounce, but best I could do. :D

glen

While a crow hop is defined as a replant of the pivot foot, watch carefully and you'll see that the good pitchers do replant to some degree, with at least the ball of the foot but not the entire length.

They all release several inches in front of the rubber, and they are certainly gaining at least some stability from the pivot foot. It seems that as long as the push, the drag, and the release are immediate parts of one quick motion, she's OK, even though the actual release is unquestionably in front of the rubber with the foot as anchor.

The true crow hop is usually obvious. It's the hop and then the arm motion, rather that everything at once. The pivot foot usually gets a little airborne, too, and doesn't drag away from the rubber (thus the "hop").

Watch a crow sometime. They hop extremely quickly, so that they're in one place and then another, but it's very hard to see the motion in between.

Re: one more thing....
 

[B]One of the great myths of the game, right up there with "the hands are part of the bat." I have heard this from several umpires, which really chaps my butt when I hear it. Once, years ago, when I was first starting out in umpiring, I attended a league clinic where the clinician actually told us not to call illegal pitches on the pitchers when they leapt unless you felt like they were gaining an advantage. I asked him this one simple question, and all hell broke loose. The question was, "tell me, where in the rule book does it say anything about 'gaining an advantage' when it describes the criteria for an illegal pitch?!"

Scott

Re: Re: one more thing....
 

My view, also, Scott. If I am not mistaken, this shaving of the rules if there is no advantage gained is a baseball tradition, and you will find it applied to situations other than illegal pitch -- see the discussion earlier about obstruction and blocking the base.

On the crowhop, however, I can't see how this "no advantage" claim even holds up (assuming the tradition was valid). How is it not an advantage to pitch from 6-10 inches closer to home?

IMO, the various bodies that sanction fastpitch need to either get tough with umpires on the crowhop / leap rule, or they need to modify the rule to line up with how it is being called -- see Mike's comment about Cat. Here the premier pitcher in arguably the premier sanctioning body for 18-23 yo fastpitch is (according to many) not pitching according to the rules. Wonderful.

(I don't mean to start something here on NCAA v ASA - it's just that the college game is a lot more visible than the adult fastpitch level of ASA, except during Olympic years).

To continue to have a rule that the majority of umpires refuse to enforce (for whatever reason) or don't know how to enforce is not good, and hurts the integrity of the game and the officials.

The only time I buy "not gaining an advantage" is in rec games where a girl has a motion that is technically illegal but that isn't affecting the pitches she is lobbing in. She's bringing her hands together twice or rocking back or something, and you tell her about it but she has a hard time correcting it.

You can call it every time and ruin the game, or you can tell the coaches about it so they can work with her.

But in a more serious game, you have to call it.

I have done a great deal of FP and watched a lot of high-level pitchers both from behind the plate and from the much better perspective in the field. I watched two of New Jersey's best high school pitchers a couple of nights ago. They all deliver from well in front of the rubber. And no one could argue that the pivot foot isn't at least providing stability and serving as an anchor.

I agree with Dakota about ASA having to come up with a better definition. The book specifies "the act of a pitcher who steps, hops, or drags off the front of the pitcher's plate, replants the foot, establishing a second impetus (or starting point), pushes off from the newly established starting point, and completes the delivery." Nothing about an actual hop or having the foot airborne, though that does make it more obvious.

Fed says simply: "A replant of the pivot foot prior to delivering the pitch."

Watch them carefully. They all do it.

Dakota makes some good points:
"the various bodies that sanction fastpitch need to either get tough with umpires on the crowhop / leap rule, or they need to modify the rule to line up with how it is being called ... snip ... To continue to have a rule that the majority of umpires refuse to enforce (for whatever reason) or don't know how to enforce is not good, and hurts the integrity of the game and the officials", except that lining up the rules with how it is being called would take about 25 pages of zig-zag lines.:)

I see some factors to overcome:
1) illegal pitches are judgemental and require training and focus
2) each rule body defines them a little differently, even those that require the same number of feet on the plate
3) coaches will always argue "she's been legal for 99 years", "no one else calls that", etc.
4) certain umpires seem to think it's a macho thing to "let them play" or that the "best call is always a no-call"
5) the constant lack of calling them has gained momentum to the point that umpires don't call them because they get negative reactions from other umpires for disrupting (i.e., lengthening) the game or because they get negative images in their associations and future assignments
6) the coaches and players understand the rule even less consistently than we do, partly our fault, mostly not caring

You can't be serious! I know of several who don't. They have been coached well and can deliver a pitch completely within the parameters of the rules. Two of the best HS seniors from this region (both already signed with D1 schools) have a lot of power, a plethora of pitches, and both deliver well within the NFHS code.

Scott

Skahtboi: I don't doubt that the pitchers you cite do nothing that an umpire or coach would consider illegal. However, I would be very surprised if at the moment one of them makes the release, the ball of her pivot foot is not several inches in front of the rubber and in subtantial contact with the ground. And they are certainly not delivering during the drag; their pivot foot has stopped and is giving them plenty of support. Go out to a mound and try it yourself. You'll see—you are delivering off the back foot <i>after</i> the drag forward, not during it.

Check out the mound after a game. Forward from the rubber, the pitchers' shoes have carved a gully that ends in a larger depression from which they've been releasing the ball.

It's not that the motion is truly illegal: it is legal by tradition and custom. But because the definition of "crow hop" is not precisely and accurately worded, that motion is in technical violation. Therefore, the rule should be refined to be more precise.

One simple example: the ASA definition specifies "steps, hops, or drags." But ask any umpire, and he'll tell you that as long as the pitcher drags the foot and doesn't hop (get into the air), she's OK. After all, it's the crow <i>hop</i> that's illegal, so if there's no hop. . . . In fact, the Fed interpreter in New Jersey says that the pitcher's foot can lose contact with the ground if the gully gets deep, as long as the foot does not rise above the level of the surrounding ground! Well, these are prima facie contradictions of the rule book.

Incidentally, I'm not saying that rewording the rule would be easy. It would require analysis of films, with plenty of stop action, as well as people who know how to write very precisely, not ASA's forte. (I think that one aspect would be a lack of immediate progression in the delivery. What we usually call illegal involves a noticeable break between the elements of the delivery.) It might indeed take "25 pages of zig-zag lines"!

[Edited by greymule on May 16th, 2003 at 05:37 PM]

Did any of you see the NorthWestern V SWTS game on espnII tonight? I thought that the SWTS pitcher was suspect in that she would land on the cleats of her pivot foot and release as her lead foot landed. It wasn't called so I assumed it was an NCAA thing. I believe they are televising another game on Sunday at 2. Jim

ASA states directly in the rule that the pitcher's foot may lose contact with the bottom of the hole as long as it does not go higher than the level plane of the ground, so I would consider this a reasonable interpretation of the rule for Fed.

If, as stated in the thread about Cat (can't spell her last name), the top pitchers have developed a crow hop that is too fast to see without slow motion replay, well, good for them. But, when it is seen, it still isn't called at the NCAA level. Can anyone remember a crow hop being called ever in a Div I NCAA game? They can't all be invisible.

Fortunately, I deal with considerably less skilled pitchers, and their leaping and slipping off the front of the plate to push off 3-4 inches in the dirt is much easier to see. I rarely see a true "hopless" crow hop. Leaps, mostly.

See my #5 above.

Greymule: "However, I would be very surprised if at the moment one of them makes the release, the ball of her pivot foot is not several inches in front of the rubber and in subtantial contact with the ground. And they are certainly not delivering during the drag; their pivot foot has stopped and is giving them plenty of support. Go out to a mound and try it yourself. You'll see—you are delivering off the back foot after the drag forward, not during it."

Can not agree with you, GM. (Qualifier: in my long career I have been a pitcher, a pitching coach with several H.S. all conference girls, a H.S. coach, and an umpire.) Let's talk about throwing mechanics. Whether Underhand or Overhand, the throwing motion starts with a push by the pivot foot. But the actual throw is executed when the stride foot lands, the hips close, or are closing, and the wrist snaps. After creating the initial forward momentum, the pivot foot has nothing to do with the actual delivery. If overhand, then the shoulder are going down, the hips are closed, and the pivot foot will pick up and reset to the side. If underhand, then the shoulders are coming up and the pivot foot typically drags behind the thrower, then resets to the side when the hips close. (And it is that drag that creates the gully you see, usually about 45 deg from the plate.)

The initial push is, by rule, supposed to come from the plate. If the underhanded pitcher leaps with both feet, and the pivot foot lands first, and the push-off is from that point - then you have a crow hop. After that, everything is the same. The pivot foot will drag (from the new push-off point), the stride foot will land, and the ball is released. And it's illegal

Another thing to look at is the knee. Again, whether Underhand or Overhand, as the weight is transfered forward the pivot foot knee has to buckle in order to push. To truly push off from a new point, the pivot knee would have to buckle a second time and straighten and push. Even when a girl has picked up her foot and relanded a few inches in front of the plate, I don't think she is pushing. (You almost need slow-motion video to see that.) I think that her forward momentum is already established and her pivot foot is just landing and dragging along. Even though I see that little step, if I don't see her pushing from that point I do not call a crow hop.

WMB

I guess the crow hop is now like traveling in professional basketball.

Thanks for noting, Dakota, that ASA does specifically cite the level plane of the ground. The Fed interpreter's advice didn't come out of nowhere.

I admit that the contradiction between the crow hop rule and actual practice has troubled me for years. When I started in FP, it seemed that all the good pitchers were in violation. However, nobody was calling anything unless the pitcher actually hopped in the air or committed a flagrant violation such that, as POE #39 says, "the pivot foot is off and in front of the pitching plate before the hands separate." Anybody could see that one.

I did some experimenting on a mound this morning and may have learned something. I think the motion the rule book "wants" is one in which the hands separate, the arm goes into the windmill, and just after the arm drops behind the pitcher and gets parallel to the ground, the motion of the body drags the foot forward from the rubber. The release is occurring in front of the rubber, but there really isn't a full replant.

What so many pitchers get away with is this: They separate the hands, go into the windmill, and as the ball reaches or passes the top, they yank the pivot foot forward and replant more substantially to deliver. The marks the pivot foot makes on the ground are almost identical, and the length of the "drag" is the same. But with the latter delivery, the actual anchor point is closer to home plate.

The subtle difference is difficult to spot. There are also motions that are sort of "in between." If coaches aren't saying anything, it's no surprise that umpires aren't calling it.

Perhaps umpires draw the line at the airborne hop because a pitcher can hop much farther than she can drag. Plus, everybody in the park can see it.

This summer I was planning to take some action shots of some of the good tournaments. If I can get my son to do the necessary computer work, I'll post any revealing pictures.

Note: I just saw WMB's comments and they are excellent, especially concerning the buckled knee. And I think we can all see how complicated this issue is.

[Edited by greymule on May 17th, 2003 at 11:16 AM]