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So last night, for the first time ever, I called the "both hands moving then stopped" balk. What happened next left me in shock and awe. R2/R3, pitcher takes the rubber with hands down at his side in the windup. I'm VERY lenient on any movement to bring the hands together as 'assuming his initial position' if it's even remotely close. This, however, was not. He stood there with both hands at his side, looked in at the catcher for a bit, then brought both hands together in front of him. And stopped. I waited a sec, thinking 'is he going to keep going, however slowly?'...but nope, he stopped. Called the balk, he was perplexed...since it was a JV game, I thought it appropriate to tell him specifically why it happened, the whole 'with both hands down, moving both is start of motion'. This is a pet peeve of our state director, who had the good fortune to call it twice last year in a varsity game and have to hear "NO ONE HAS CALLED THAT ALL YEAR!". So he made sure we ALL knew about it this year. But the amazing part was what happened next. I braced for the coach to come out asking what happened. It was only a 1-0 game, and this balked in a run. Nope, he stayed put. So maybe he was busy and didn't notice? Nope....as soon as the inning ended on the next batter, the pitcher went to his dugout and started asking what that was for. And the coach not only explained it, but demonstrated what he did wrong. He's not an umpire as far as I knew, but not only knew the rule but used it as a teaching moment for his pitcher. Hero.

Runners on 2nd and 3rd base with 1 out. Our pitcher is more comfortable in the windup position so he steps on the rubber for his windup. Umpire immediately calls balk after he steps ON the rubber stating he stepped on the rubber with the wrong foot, he's a lefty and I believe he stepped on the rubber with his pivot foot and umpire is stated it should have been his free foot. I should note that both of his feet do start on the rubber from his windup position. Does it matter which foot engages the pitching rubber first when stepping on the rubber first in the windup and is this actually a balk?