3rd strike dropped mechanic ?

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by EsqUmp

It is a good mechanic that could help prevent someone from arguing, "Your arm was in the air. You called her out." A product of having a strike and out signal being the same.

No it doesn't. It is a strike, call it as strike and the proper mechanic is an arm in the air.

I recommend going one step forward. I think that a toned down bow & arrow (not a sell, but just a simple signal) followed by no catch is even better. Then you really can prevent the appearance of calling someone out.

I'll go a step further, get rid of the theatrics and just call the strike. If out, sure go ahead an call the batter out. Why do people feel the need to "sell" a called third strike? I just don't see the need for it.

Since coming over from baseball, have never used anything other than the standing mechanic and use an inflection of the call as an indicator of it's importance. Well, I'm lying. In a SP fundraiser I took a called third strike halfway to 3B on this jackass who made it his part-time job to tell everyone how weak the game of softball was, that real men play baseball. His team loved it, told him to shut up and sit down, it wasn't the umpire's fault he didn't swing the bat.

This happened in a regional game, where the defense left the field and a run scored. It was the deciding run.

Granted, the umpire didn't use the correct signals.

So, of course, the umpire needs to take up the slack of poor coaching.

Maybe the next move is to create an umpire-to-umpire signal of when the DTS possibility exists. Or, for that matter, let's have the PU give a signal for all to see, that way there is no excuse for the teams to not be aware of the situation.