Pitcher stumbles after catching cleat, delivers the ball. Balk?

[Tog Gee]

Might be yhtbt, but with runners on base, the pitcher catches a cleat while stepping home and stumbles a little. The delivery motion now becomes messy, but really it's just a stumble and a strange delivery and the form disintegrates/slows. The stumble adds a few tenths of a second to the delivery. 

Yet the pitcher flips a weak throw in the vicinity of home plate. It bounces across the plate. 

 

Balk?

 

Nfhs, but I doubt it matters.

 

 

Like this, but I don't believe the pivot foot took an extra step. 

 

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4q3CQL8YZZ2EwW4EhFnb5tpOVKVp2fQT?si=cz8eOC-BEIGNZNgy

Edited July 16, 2024 by Tog Gee

[umpstu]

55 minutes ago, Tog Gee said:

Might be yhtbt, but with runners on base, the pitcher catches a cleat while stepping home and stumbles a little. The delivery motion now becomes messy, but really it's just a stumble and a strange delivery and the form disintegrates/slows. The stumble adds a few tenths of a second to the delivery. 

Yet the pitcher flips a weak throw in the vicinity of home plate. It bounces across the plate. 

 

Balk?

 

Nfhs, but I doubt it matters.

 

 

Like this, but I don't believe the picot foot took an extra step. 

 

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4q3CQL8YZZ2EwW4EhFnb5tpOVKVp2fQT?si=cz8eOC-BEIGNZNgy

The video is clearly a balk, but your yhtbt is the correct answer.

[maven]

Is the delivery in the video a balk? What provision of the pitching restrictions did he violate? He paused, didn't stop and start, delivered the pitch after stepping toward HP, ball crossed the plate (ish)... what did he violate? Maybe my brain is not grokking this, but I can't see it.

As ever, I will counsel against using pro rulings in actual games as a definitive guide for officiating amateur contests. Pro ball has its own rhythm and flow, and everyone on that field expected a balk there. So they got one—maybe this wasn't "smooth and continuous" enough for pro ball, or maybe they ruled that he dropped it rather than throwing it.

But we have to be able to explain what F1 did wrong. Catching a cleat isn't illegal, nor a violation of the pitching restrictions. Ugly is not illegal. Different from his other pitches isn't a balk. If we can't explain it, we shouldn't be calling it.

Oh, that's my answer to the OP, too. 😎

[agdz59]

12 minutes ago, maven said:

 Different from his other pitches isn't a balk.

Doesn't NFHS have a clause about motions not 'habitually' associated with the delivery?  I went to look it up but I guess NFHS makes you buy their rules now!

[noumpere]

26 minutes ago, agdz59 said:

Doesn't NFHS have a clause about motions not 'habitually' associated with the delivery?  I went to look it up but I guess NFHS makes you buy their rules now!

"...failing to pitch to the batter in a continuous motion immediately after any movement of any part of the body such as he habitually uses in his delivery"

 

That's met even when catching a cleat.

[ArchAngel72]

illegal pitch

[ArchAngel72]

1 hour ago, maven said:

Is the delivery in the video a balk? What provision of the pitching restrictions did he violate? He paused, didn't stop and start, delivered the pitch after stepping toward HP, ball crossed the plate (ish)... what did he violate? Maybe my brain is not grokking this, but I can't see it.

As ever, I will counsel against using pro rulings in actual games as a definitive guide for officiating amateur contests. Pro ball has its own rhythm and flow, and everyone on that field expected a balk there. So they got one—maybe this wasn't "smooth and continuous" enough for pro ball, or maybe they ruled that he dropped it rather than throwing it.

But we have to be able to explain what F1 did wrong. Catching a cleat isn't illegal, nor a violation of the pitching restrictions. Ugly is not illegal. Different from his other pitches isn't a balk. If we can't explain it, we shouldn't be calling it.

Oh, that's my answer to the OP, too. 😎

Due to his back foot coming off the rubber and then touching back down to push off in front of the rubber isnt that more than ugly and illegal?

[maven]

2 hours ago, ArchAngel72 said:

Due to his back foot coming off the rubber and then touching back down to push off in front of the rubber isnt that more than ugly and illegal?

Maybe. F1 clearly may not walk 5 steps toward HP before delivering the pitch. I'd like to be able to articulate it in fewer than 5 words: too many steps?

[maven]

3 hours ago, agdz59 said:

Doesn't NFHS have a clause about motions not 'habitually' associated with the delivery?  I went to look it up but I guess NFHS makes you buy their rules now!

Too many of us use this provision to claim that F1's delivery must be the same every time.

That's not what the provision means: as noumpere hints at, the rule specifies an additional (FED) constraint on time of pitch, so that F1 cannot pick after starting his delivery with a habitual motion.

[The Man in Blue]

4 hours ago, maven said:

Is the delivery in the video a balk? What provision of the pitching restrictions did he violate? He paused, didn't stop and start, delivered the pitch after stepping toward HP, ball crossed the plate (ish)... what did he violate? Maybe my brain is not grokking this, but I can't see it.

 

Balk in the video.  OBR . . . 

 

Had he delivered while falling, I agree with you that he can manage to do this without it being illegal.  Unfortunately, in that video, not only does he "replant" but he does reset his arm and make a second motion as well (I have that as a start/stop).

 

 

 

[The Man in Blue]

8 minutes ago, maven said:

Too many of us use this provision to claim that F1's delivery must be the same every time.

That's not what the provision means: as noumpere hints at, the rule specifies an additional (FED) constraint on time of pitch, so that F1 cannot pick after starting his delivery with a habitual motion.

 

THAT I will agree with, @maven.  

 

3 hours ago, noumpere said:

"...failing to pitch to the batter in a continuous motion immediately after any movement of any part of the body such as he habitually uses in his delivery"

 

Is one the most misconstrued phrases in the rulebook.  Coaches and pitchers want to drop that a out of "a continuous motion" and claim that as long as they are still moving* they are good.  No.  Umpires want to misconstrue that into "every motion must be the same."  No.

 

*More on this in the "non-ejection" thread I am headed to post.  Yes, I "illegal pitched" the kid for a Nestor Cortez impersonation.

[noumpere]

1 hour ago, maven said:

Maybe. F1 clearly may not walk 5 steps toward HP before delivering the pitch. I'd like to be able to articulate it in fewer than 5 words: too many steps?

Didn't watch the video, but does "crow hop" work?  Or "replanted the pivot foot"?

[ArchAngel72]

2 hours ago, maven said:

Maybe. F1 clearly may not walk 5 steps toward HP before delivering the pitch. I'd like to be able to articulate it in fewer than 5 words: too many steps?

Well I swear I just saw a post on here the other day talking about an illegal pitch where MLB had to put into the illegal pitch rule due to a certain pitcher "hop stepping" off the mound and then pushing fwd again.  I will try to look for it. For all I know it was a jomboy video.. this heat has me all over the damn place lately. 

[Velho]

3 hours ago, ArchAngel72 said:

certain pitcher "hop stepping" off the mound and then pushing fwd again

Carter Capps?

 

[Tog Gee]

On 7/16/2024 at 7:24 AM, maven said:

As ever, I will counsel against using pro rulings in actual games as a definitive guide for officiating amateur contests.

I agree. The video I posted was a way to get a visual in front of y'all instead of just parsing my cumbersome description.