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Wrist Balk?


SnareDrum
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It was a 13U Wood Bat tourney in a converted cow pasture (a "Field of Dreams" practice facility behind a house), OBR/USSSA. We got one game in, then had to end it after an inning in the second due to rain.  Afterwards, we were collecting our game checks in a huge shed where many of the players, coaches, and parents were waiting out the storm.  My partner asks me if I had seen what the pitcher had been doing with the ball. My reply was somewhat noncommittal  so he proceeded to show me (and everybody) what "should have been" a balk.

 

The RH pitcher, on the rubber before coming set, was solidly pinning the ball against his thigh with his wrist, and he went through an elaborate example of it. Quickly running through OBR Pitching in my head, I told him that I had seen it, but I didn't believe that it was a balk. He said that the ball had to be in the hand or the glove, and at "the clinic", he was told that this was a balk.  Seeing a coach nearby, he told him, "Hey, your pitcher was doing this (shows him). That's supposed to be a balk." 

Again, mentally skimming through OBR... and later with a hardcopy... I didn't have it. (I know that FED says "glove or hand"). The coach looked completely confused and simply said, "You'd think he'd want the ball in his hand."  My partner replied that "if it isn't, that's a balk."

 

Question: In OBR or FED, is that a balk to you? To me, no. Thoughts?

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"NAY!" sayeth BalkHawk. I'm not even asking him to stop doing it. The rule says in his hand or glove, but it means they have to be separate from each other. If he can rest the ball on his shoulder in the stretch, and still come set with a fluid, continuous motion, I'm allowing it.

 

Gotta talk to your partner about what one should say in the company of rats.

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