Adjusting what you call based on the age of the players?

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by teebob21

Offtopic, but you and I differ on this one. I call the IP early and often if I see them...to do otherwise contributes to the late-season problem of "but, blue, she's pitched like that all season and never been called for it!" Pardon the crass analogy, but I see "a little bit illegal" like "a little bit pregnant": you either are or are not, and if you are going to do something to eliminate it, it needs to be done early. Sorry if my comparison offends anyone's sensibilities here....

I did say "most", not "all." What I am talking about here are very young players who are not good pitchers. While I agree in principle, I disagree that such players will learn much of anything from an umpire calling every other pitch illegal. I'm not a coach, and a game is not the time to practice. All it would accomplish is a pitcher who is so focused on minutiae that her strike percentage goes from 30% to 10%.

The kind of violations I am talking about are double touches, stepping on the plate with the hands together... technical issues that need to be worked on in practice and are not causing a real problem in the game. Leaps, hops, etc. rarely are an issue with players of this skill level.

If you have 8U teams that can get 6 innings completed in a 75 minute time limit, we are talking about a different level of skill.