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Hands bouncing while coming set


clawdad
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 This happened during a game one of my fellow umpires was working. I was asked the question on whether this is a balk or not. Hopefully I can describe it well enough for you all to give me your thoughts.  I wasn't there, so this is based on how it was described to me.

NFHS:  F1 starts in the stretch, leaning in to get his signs.  Once he does, he begins to come set.  During his motion to come set, his non pivot foot comes to a complete stop, but the F1 continued to bounce his hands (still together) up and down in front of his body from about navel to sternum.  After a couple of bounces, he comes to a complete & discernible stop prior to delivering the pitch. A balk was called, because - I was told - the hand movement did not constitute one continuous motion. 

I was under the impression that as long as something was moving during the motion to come set then it was part of "one continuous motion."  If he had paused completely at some point and then did the hand bounce, I can see the balk for a double set.  But since the hands were moving from his initial move to come set, he was OK as long as he came to a complete stop prior to delivery.  If there was no complete stop then you could get the no-stop balk.

Is this a balk?  I think there is a MLB pitcher who does something similar, but I can't think of his name.

Thanks for the input.

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9 minutes ago, clawdad said:

Is this a balk?

No. Since bouncing is not a legal set (we'd balk it for no-stop), it must be continuous motion.

Not merely OOO — which is generally overly technical — but actually wrong.

Glad it wasn't you. ;)

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No. Since bouncing is not a legal set (we'd balk it for no-stop), it must be continuous motion.
Not merely OOO — which is generally overly technical — but actually wrong.
Glad it wasn't you.

That's what I thought as well. So unless there was something missing from how it was described to me, I couldn't get a balk out of it.
I don't necessarily think it was OOO, i think it was called because it looked odd. Which we all know, just because it looks odd doesn't make it illegal.

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As you explain it, not a balk. Now, of course, having that bouncing is takiing risk for mistakes, like discernible stopping between bounces, not stopping after the last bounce, and a discernible stop between the foot movement and the bouncing, all leading to balks. So i would give the benefit of the doubt that unless you heard your exact description above from the umpire who called the balk, maybe one of those mistakes happened that one time.

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