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LL Championship Plate


JonnyCat
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Shout out to my friend Chris Rutz from California District 70. He was just assigned tomorrow's championship plate for the LL World Series. Chris is a great umpire and has donated thousands of hours of his time working games, and instructing here in SoCal. I've had the pleasure of working many games with him, and instructing with him the last 10 years. It's been a long time dream of his.

He's an awesome guy, and I couldn't be happier for him!

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2 hours ago, LRZ said:

Your friend did a nice job, I thought. A much better sense of the outside corner than other LL umpires I watched in earlier games.

Agree 100%. He should be proud. Well done!

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anyone watch much of the LLWS, having a son who played LL Majors last year I've been watching a lot of the games the last few years, my question re: the zone.

 

Anyone think that pitches two balls off the plate being called strikes was an instruction from LLI?  Seems a lot of these pitches with the catcher in the opposing batters box and the pitch coming in around the line of the opposition batters box were consistently called strikes. 

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1 hour ago, stkjock said:

anyone watch much of the LLWS, having a son who played LL Majors last year I've been watching a lot of the games the last few years, my question re: the zone.

 

Anyone think that pitches two balls off the plate being called strikes was an instruction from LLI?  Seems a lot of these pitches with the catcher in the opposing batters box and the pitch coming in around the line of the opposition batters box were consistently called strikes. 

Maybe, but you said the key word - "consistently".  How many times have we as umpires heard the coaches complain about calls not going the same both ways.  Once he established his zone, it did not change at all.  Hitters and pitchers adapted to him.

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That's the kind of pitch that Rutz, to his credit, did not fall for.

BTW, I was amused by 12 y/o catchers dragging pitches a foot outside back into the zone and holding them there. I thought another LLI instruction to umpires must have been to ignore this. Normally, we'd say to a kid, "Son, you know, don't you, that when you move your glove like that, you're just telling me the pitch was a ball?"

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1 hour ago, LRZ said:

That's the kind of pitch that Rutz, to his credit, did not fall for.

BTW, I was amused by 12 y/o catchers dragging pitches a foot outside back into the zone and holding them there. I thought another LLI instruction to umpires must have been to ignore this. Normally, we'd say to a kid, "Son, you know, don't you, that when you move your glove like that, you're just telling me the pitch was a ball?"

I'll have to see if I find any clips. I don't recall the Sunday game well. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/28/2017 at 8:38 AM, stkjock said:

anyone watch much of the LLWS, having a son who played LL Majors last year I've been watching a lot of the games the last few years, my question re: the zone.

 

Anyone think that pitches two balls off the plate being called strikes was an instruction from LLI?  Seems a lot of these pitches with the catcher in the opposing batters box and the pitch coming in around the line of the opposition batters box were consistently called strikes. 

I haven't heard anyone report receiving that instruction.
 

The box is only 4" from the plate, so a pitch one inch inside the batter's box is a rulebook strike.

 

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6 hours ago, basejester said:

The box is only 4" from the plate, so a pitch one inch inside the batter's box is a rulebook strike.

The gap between the plate and the batter's box is specified as 6 inches in every code that I know of.  A baseball is just under 3 inches in diameter.  A softball is under 4 inches in diamter.  Some part of the ball must travel over some part of the plate for the pitch to be a "rulebook" strike (in any code with a defined strike zone instead of a mat).

A pitch that travels past the plate one inch into the batter's box is not a "rulebook" strike anywhere, ever.  In fact, a pitch that travels past the plate over any part of the chalk is not a "rulebook" strike anywhere, ever.  A baseball must be a full 3 inches away from the chalk (and a softball over 2 inches away) to actually catch the plate.

I'm suggesting that it's wrong to call the "river."  It's generally accepted and often even expected.  But it's not "rulebook."

Edit:  See below for @JonnyCat's correction that smaller LL fields do specify a 4 inch gap.  Sorry, @basejester.

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20 minutes ago, CJK said:

The gap between the plate and the batter's box is specified as 6 inches in every code that I know of.  A baseball is just under 3 inches in diameter.  A softball is under 4 inches in diamter.  Some part of the ball must travel over some part of the plate for the pitch to be a "rulebook" strike (in any code with a defined strike zone instead of a mat).

A pitch that travels past the plate one inch into the batter's box is not a "rulebook" strike anywhere, ever.  In fact, a pitch that travels past the plate over any part of the chalk is not a "rulebook" strike anywhere, ever.  A baseball must be a full 3 inches away from the chalk (and a softball over 2 inches away) to actually catch the plate.

I'm suggesting that it's wrong to call the "river."  It's generally accepted and often even expected.  But it's not "rulebook."

In LL majors and below, the batters box is in fact 4" from the plate.

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1 hour ago, basejester said:

I haven't heard anyone report receiving that instruction.
 

The box is only 4" from the plate, so a pitch one inch inside the batter's box is a rulebook strike.

 

yes, a pitch between the plate and the line certainly could be a strike, my recollection is that balls on the inside of the opposing batters box were being called strikes.

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4 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

In LL majors and below, the batters box is in fact 4" from the plate.

I'll be darned.  I looked before I posted, too, because I don't do Little League.  After I read your comment, it still took me another 10 minutes before I finally found a source that showed me the 4 inch offset.

Thanks for the education, @JonnyCat.  My apologies, @basejester, for my mistake.

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