Strange week from the pitcher's mound.....

[HokieUmp]

The first three days of this week were a little weird from the various pitcher's mounds.  Ended up with  four balks total - and it just took three games for that to happen.  Two of them were "normal" - kid making a movement to start, and then not.  The other two were a little stranger, with one I'd never seen before.

1) On Wednesday, working a LL "Senior" game.  It's really a combo Junior and Senior league, based on the ages of players, since they wouldn't have enough players to make a decent-sized league for either of those age brackets alone.  Kid decides to do the "3-1" play - steps to third, doesn't disengage, then turns to throw to first.  It was obvious he was gonna do it, so I just waited him out.  "Balk!  Time!  That's a balk" etc, etc.  Told the coach, sure, that's a legal move in HS, but LL isn't based on HS rules.  Oops.

2) This is weird one.  Private-school play-in game - the winner gets to be part of the TAPPS (the Texas private-school "league") playoffs, and the loser is done.  We'd had an R2, but that kid stole third at some point.  A pitch or two later, the pitcher turns and throws to second base - when he made the move, he threw to the SS, who was away from the base.  THAT part is fine, as we know.  But he'd apparently forgotten the whole dude-stole-the-next-base thing.

THIS one, I didn't get right away.  He made the move, I took a beat, thought "Wait, what?" then stepped out from behind the plate, and went "Time."  Waved my partner over, just to make sure I/we had actually seen what I/we just saw, and was like - "unoccupied base.  that's a balk."  And then scored the runner.  In my defense, in over 1200 games in the US, and others abroad, this was NOT something I'd ever seen before.   Honestly?  Despite seeing in the rulebook over the years, I never *really* expected to see it happen in the wild.

It might be a weird thing to say the first week of May, but it's been a long year.

[JonnyCat]

45 minutes ago, HokieUmp said:

1) On Wednesday, working a LL "Senior" game.  It's really a combo Junior and Senior league, based on the ages of players, since they wouldn't have enough players to make a decent-sized league for either of those age brackets alone.  Kid decides to do the "3-1" play - steps to third, doesn't disengage, then turns to throw to first.  It was obvious he was gonna do it, so I just waited him out.  "Balk!  Time!  That's a balk" etc, etc.  Told the coach, sure, that's a legal move in HS, but LL isn't based on HS rules.  Oops.

The 3-1 is legal in LL. It hasn't adopted the OBR restriction. Did you balk him just for doing the 3-1, or am I misunderstanding the situation?

[noumpere]

7 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

The 3-1 is legal in LL. It hasn't adopted the OBR restriction. Did you balk him just for doing the 3-1, or am I misunderstanding the situation?

Even when the move was legal under OBR, F1 had to break contact with the runner on the mover to third -- otherwise the move to first wouldn't be "direct."

[noumpere]

8 hours ago, HokieUmp said:

 A pitch or two later, the pitcher turns and throws to second base - when he made the move, he threw to the SS, who was away from the base.

Was F6 closer to second or to third?

[Tborze]

2 hours ago, noumpere said:

Was F6 closer to second or to third?

If F1 stepped toward 2nd it wouldn’t matter.  

[JonnyCat]

5 hours ago, noumpere said:

Even when the move was legal under OBR, F1 had to break contact with the runner on the mover to third -- otherwise the move to first wouldn't be "direct."

Understood. But I have a hard time visualizing F1 feinting to 3B, then turning to throw to first without breaking contact with the rubber.

Maybe HokieUmp can provide some clarification. I'm not envisioning how as described in the OP this is a balk in LL.

[Velho]

46 minutes ago, JonnyCat said:

But I have a hard time visualizing F1 feinting to 3B, then turning to throw to first without breaking contact with the rubber.

Bet she could do it  

 

[HokieUmp]

15 hours ago, noumpere said:

Was F6 closer to second or to third?

Easily closer to second.  And F1 stepped directly to second.  This one was a gimme, once I processed what I'd seen.

[HokieUmp]

9 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

Understood. But I have a hard time visualizing F1 feinting to 3B, then turning to throw to first without breaking contact with the rubber.

Maybe HokieUmp can provide some clarification. I'm not envisioning how as described in the OP this is a balk in LL.

The clarification, based on what I'm reading here, is that I probably F*#Ked up the call.

I'm a LL umpire, just in the sense that I work games that are run by LL orgs.  Therefore, I made the assumption that LL was based off OBR, and thus did NOT allow for that move.  So I got it.  I cannot recall with certainty on the ultimate disengagement, since I had it as a balk once he didn't complete the throw to third.  My bad.

[The Man in Blue]

This weekend I actually had a kid ask if he could throw to second with runners on first and third.  I don’t know why.  He didn’t do it.

[noumpere]

18 hours ago, JonnyCat said:

Understood. But I have a hard time visualizing F1 feinting to 3B, then turning to throw to first without breaking contact with the rubber.

Maybe HokieUmp can provide some clarification. I'm not envisioning how as described in the OP this is a balk in LL.

It's easy to do -- you've never started to go one direction, then immediately pivoted and stepped to go the other direction?  And, the OP includes "steps to third, doesn't disengage, then turns to throw to first" (I assume that the OP meant "breaks contact")

I agree that in practice, it's rare to see on the ball field, but it happens.

[JonnyCat]

10 hours ago, HokieUmp said:

I'm a LL umpire, just in the sense that I work games that are run by LL orgs.  Therefore, I made the assumption that LL was based off OBR, and thus did NOT allow for that move.  So I got it.  I cannot recall with certainty on the ultimate disengagement, since I had it as a balk once he didn't complete the throw to third.  My bad.

Ok, that makes sense, thanks for the clarification. Between HS, OBR and LL, sometimes those rules get mixed up with me, too.

LL is OBR based, but with a few changes, like the 3-1, obstruction, Illegal pitches in majors and below(no balks), etc.

I can't tell you how many times in LL I've had to explain to coaches, players, and parents that the 3-1 is legal. Coaches (at all levels it seems) act like the rule book is some sort of secret document only available to umpires.