Strange batting technique, legal?

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by Linknblue

Saw this once myself. Batter's team had a pretty good lead. Batter's attempt failed but I immediately went to her coach and told him he better stop her from doing it again. I thought she was "mocking" the game and the other team and I was going to have to remove her from the game if it happened again.

Wow. No disrespect intended, but you have a pretty low tolerance level on what you feel is "mocking".

Andy posted that this was a legitimate technique that was designed to catch the defense off-guard. The reason we don't see it is because of the rare likelihood of success.

To me, it's no different than a batter waving the bat up and down before the pitch comes in. While I might find that annoying, I certainly am not going to tell a batter's coach that she needs to stop doing that.

[Linknblue]

Guess "you had to be there". This girl was head and shoulders the best player on both teams. The team ahead had players batting left handed when they were right handed players which I can see...........but the attitudes were beginning to show and when this happened, for me, it was a bit over the top. She didn't do it again so no harm, no foul..............I just wasn't going to have the losers of the game being "showed up" is all.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by Linknblue

Guess "you had to be there". This girl was head and shoulders the best player on both teams. The team ahead had players batting left handed when they were right handed players which I can see...........but the attitudes were beginning to show and when this happened, for me, it was a bit over the top. She didn't do it again so no harm, no foul..............I just wasn't going to have the losers of the game being "showed up" is all.

No, we didn't have to be there. What the player did was legal and you have no choice, but to allow it or face a possible protest and lose.

[MD Longhorn]

I think we've all officiated enough games to understand that blowouts happen - bad sportsmanship happens, and there are things that might be legal, but cross over into the potential to blow up in the wrong situation. When a player is doing something to try to win or score or advance or whatever, that's one thing. When they are doing it to taunt, it's something else. I suspect we've all been there. And I suspect that if we described our situation to someone else, it might not sound like taunting. It's one of those things that you know when you see it.

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by Linknblue

Guess "you had to be there". This girl was head and shoulders the best player on both teams. The team ahead had players batting left handed when they were right handed players which I can see...........but the attitudes were beginning to show and when this happened, for me, it was a bit over the top. She didn't do it again so no harm, no foul..............I just wasn't going to have the losers of the game being "showed up" is all.

I really don't like the notion that it is the umpire's job to protect the feelings of the players. Actual unsportsmanlike behavior, sure, but it is not our job to protect the self esteem of less skilled players. That you would mention having players batting left handed (a well used technique to keep the score down) would seem to indicate you do have a threshold on such things that is too low.

Besides, as Mike points out, a legal play must be allowed.

[Linknblue]

Again! You had to be there............period!!!! I thought it was unsporting and I stopped it. I wasn't about to let it escalate into something that could have been stopped "before" anything ugly happened. They could have protested all day long. It was my judgment cuz that's what I do and the coach apparently agreed cuz it stopped.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by Linknblue

Again! You had to be there............period!!!! I thought it was unsporting and I stopped it. I wasn't about to let it escalate into something that could have been stopped "before" anything ugly happened. They could have protested all day long. It was my judgment cuz that's what I do and the coach apparently agreed cuz it stopped.

The move is legal......period. And the coach probably stopped it because you said to stop it. They do things like that, you know.