Balks-Pitcher Not Facing the Batter When He Delivers

[Majordave]

SDix00 posted in the situations forum about balks and the way you communicate them to coaches/players when calling.  He referred to the 15 ways to balk from OBR and one of them got me thinking.

 

(f) The pitcher delivers the ball to the batter while he is not facing the batter;

 

I used to coach (Collective shriek and sigh) a pretty good American Legion team and I had some pretty good pitchers.  

 

One of them, a tall lefty with extra long legs, used to practice his pickoff move to first in two mirrors with socks rolled up as balls.

 

He could look at home and step almost exactly on the 45 degree line (he taped it off where he practiced and he drew it with his cleats on the real mound) between first and home and pick to first.

 

He could also look at first and pitch to home, snapping his head towards home plate at or immediately after he released the pitch.  

 

He also lifted his leg very high with his knee breaking the plane of the rubber but all of his foot remaining in front of the pitcher's plate so he didn't break the plane.  

 

This was his signature as the high leg kick caused runners on first to take a secondary lead just as he snapped it to first about 12-18 inches off the ground for the picks.  They couldn't take more than two steps off or he would pick them. A very valuable weapon to have I assure you.  Sometimes he would walk a guy just to pick him off.

 

The only way they ever stole off of him was by going on his first move and beating the second throw from F3 or a muff of the tag by F4 or F6 as they covered 2B.  He was incredible!

 

Everyone we played was always screaming for balks.  I had to start prepping the umpires by explaining his move and that assuring them that he did not break the plane of the pitcher's plate, that he did not hesitate and he did not step more to home than first but on the universally accepted 45 degree line as directly to the base, etc.

 

He was usually called for balks when I could not or did not prep the umpires but not after. (some of the umpires we got in summer ball were below average at best or were newer guys trying to move up to bigger boy ball from younger youth ball)

 

So, here is my question:  Was he balking or could he have been called for balking because he was looking at first when he pitched to home plate?  I don't remember anyone calling it on him but I was just wondering.

 

The reason this came to mind is I had a Kansas HS pitching coach prep me on his lefty starter's move to first before my plate job in a district game last night.  It made me think of how I used to chat up the umpires about my lefty when I could.  It worked as the opponents, especially Daddies in the stands, were screaming for balks last night when I nor my two partners (3 Man crew-YES!) ever saw or called one on the kid and he had two pickoffs in a 7-6 ball game.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.
 

[sdix00]

IIRC, the "facing the batter" balk is a remnant of the freak-delivery era.  

 

Freak deliveries were mostly used to hide the ball until the last possible minute and to cause the batter to question where a pitcher might release the ball (if the pitcher is not facing the batter, the ball could come from the opposite side.)

 

Because the balk was added with a specific infraction in mind, I am not sure I would apply that balk rule to the OP sitch. 

[JaxRolo]

It is pretty hard for me to call this a balk. Only way I can see it happen is if he went to the mound backwards get set and never looked in the direction of the batter. I just can't imagine that at some point he didn't look at the batter.

[grayhawk]

Here you go:

 

[Jocko]

Looking at and facing are two very different things.

[Umpire in Chief]

I can't think of a legitimate way this would happen.