LSU/Texas AM game

[AtlUmpSteve]

Originally Posted by luvthegame

But.....Mike or Steve didn't say it??

Steve hasn't responded, because Steve, like Mike, agrees with Dee. But that hasn't been how ASA has taught it as the schools.

I am reminded of a conversation ingrained in my memory forever, circa 1998, or so; I sat with the late Merle Butler, ASA Director of Umpires and his Deputy Director, Henry Pollard, enjoying a cold adult beverage after assisting with an ASA National School, and asked them how could they justify the slowpitch rule that a ball that touched any part of the plate had to be a ball.

I reminded them of the earlier years, when the legal arc was different heights, and even unlimited for a while; and that they teach the strike zone as a column of smoke, and if any part of the ball touched any part of the smoke, that was a strike. Well, it was on three sides with this rule (left, right, and back), but NOT if it hit the front edge and then touched the plate.

The two looked at each other and grinned, and (as was often the case), Henry spoke for both of them. He said they were happy I asked that question, because it meant I really did understand how to call the arc in slowpitch; and that if I asked good questions like that, etc., etc. BUT, they felt they had to put that rule in the book because the vast majority of umpires, and an even higher percentage of players and coaches, didn't really grasp the column of smoke and arc relationship, and there was absolutely no consistency in how balls and strikes were called. Not just in local league play, but at ASA Nationals there were too many inconsistencies.

They could give camps, clinics, and schools, but realized they couldn't affect the absolute inconsistency. And the one symbol of inconsistency was an inability to make people understand that a pitch with a reasonable arc could be at the knees at the front of the plate and still hit the back of the plate and be a strike, while other pitches that hit the plate were balls. For the good of the game, they dealt with the one thing they could; any ball (even a strike!!) that hit the plate would be a ball by rule.

Ironic that the next "dummy-down" effort to address the inability to understand how to call the arc, mat ball, does the opposite, and balls that hit the plate in that version are strikes!!

To my point, I guess; this is another interpretation that I am certain was the result of attempting to minimize inconsistency. To an umpire smart enough to realize and argue the point, of course it isn't what the rule says. As Dee says, you answered your own question.

But it is what was taught to attempt to secure consistency from the masses. I would be interested to see how KR would rule if the question was newly posed to ASA, as he has often changed the "old" rulings.