<acronym title='Pitcher'>F1</acronym> Throws Cap on 3rd to 1st Move

[bpate]

I understand your pov. I'll certainly rethink my position on this. Not sure how you can say the deceive part is irrelevant. Seems to me that the rules committee is making it clear that the balk is because of the deception. Otherwise they wouldn't have written it that way. BTW, were you a pitcher?

[grayhawk]

I understand your pov. I'll certainly rethink my position on this. Not sure how you can say the deceive part is irrelevant. Seems to me that the rules committee is making it clear that the balk is because of the deception. Otherwise they wouldn't have written it that way. BTW, were you a pitcher?

I say irrelevant because those are balks listed in the rules. Why they are listed isn't relevant to me. If a pitcher feints to first without disengaging, then I don't care if he was trying to deceive, I just know it's a balk and will call it as such. Let's take the other end of the spectrum: In my last game, with a runner on third, F1 is pitching from the windup. As he starts his windup by stepping backwards with his free foot, he just stops. After the stop, he then continued his motion. I balked him. In this case, I don't think he was trying to deceive, I think it was just a brain fart. Should I have not balked him because he wasn't trying to deceive? I didn't hear a peep from his coach and they never even asked what he did (they knew).

This has been a good discussion, and we all learn from each other, which is why we are here. I do understand where you are coming from, but all I am saying is if you are going to call a balk, be able to explain it using one of the listed balks in the book. "start/stop," "feint to first," "didn't step to the base," "no stop," "foot was behind the rubber," etc. Simply saying he deceived the runner wouldn't be enough for anything above JV, and maybe not even there.

Edit: I pitched in Pony when I was a kid, but didn't play organized ball past age 12.

[mstaylor]

Deception is not the purpose of the balk rule, it is a portion. Any pitcher that has ever picked off a runner has deceived him, that is part of his job. Our job is make sure he doesn't illegally deceive the runner. Throwing his hat is nothing more than a bush league play that needs to go away but it is nothing for us to address. Intent to deceive is to used as a tie breaker, not a basis. There are as many technical balks as deception so take that language out of your tool bag.

[bpate]

Glad I'm on this board guys, I'm certainly no pro at this and am looking to get better. I have 3-4 experienced guys telling me that I have it wrong, and I'm gonna rethink it.

[mstaylor]

Balks are tough and it is normal to go through several stages of balk calling. Deception is the reason for balks is one stage, myths from past coaches and brain dead announcers. Then you learn more and you see balks behind every tree. This too will pass. Finally you learn to see balks, what to allow and what to call. It is not easy, it is work. There are balks that we let slide at our levels that get called at the MLB level. There are balks that we call that they don't touch at the pro level.