The NFHS rules we choose not to enforce

[Scotty_Ump]

NFHS Varsity game, bottom 1st. The starting pitcher had been using the windup legally for 2-3 pitches. On a 2-strike count, after stepping back with his non-pivot foot, he came to a complete stop -frozen like a marble statue for 1-2 seconds - before continuing his delivery. Probably trying to disrupt batter's timing.

 

As the base umpire in A, I called time, called an illegal pitch, and added a ball to the count.

 

When I walked toward the mound to explain, the HC - a coach I've had a good relationship with over several years - immediately said, "He's been doing that all year!"

 

I honestly believe him. I'd bet no umpire had addressed that pitcher completely stopping mid-windup.

 

And while that's not my problem - prior non-enforcement doesn't change the rules - it got me thinking about the broader issue.

 

There must be rules that coaches are justifiably frustrated about, not because the rule may be unclear, but because umpire enforcement is so inconsistent they genuinely don't know what to expect.

 

A few that come to mind right now:

 

• Pitchers wearing white or gray below the elbow / white or gray on the glove
• Fielders wearing play sheet wristbands on their belts
• Running lane violations

 

What rules do you think belong here?

 

And do you think inconsistency is more of an attention problem (umpires not noticing violations), an ambiguity problem (the rule itself is unclear or isn't covered well in local meetings or clinics) or an appeasement problem (the umpire doesn't want to be the "bad guy" by enforcing it)?

[SeeingEyeDog]

The inconsistency is an amalgamation of all three of those things equally...33.33% to each of those items. As for the rules you cited, I grab those. I know people will disagree with the enforcement of wristbands on belts but, to me, it's about the slippery slope. Well, if I allow that equipment to not be legally and properly worn, what else do I have to allow? (The industry could fix this by packaging and marketing those as wrist/belt bands but, I digress...)

As for the common, "He's been doing that all season..." or the garden variety, "This wasn't a problem last week..." well, that's simple. "Coach, this is my first time umpiring your team this season." or, "Coach, I wasn't here last week." You don't say the next obvious thing. You don't NEED to say the next obvious thing after saying either of those statements. The implication is...had you been there, it would have been called then, too. 

As for your illegal pitch, FED 6-1-2...After the pitcher starts the movement to pitch, the pitcher must continue the motion without interruption or alteration.

As a caveat, in a NON-scholastic, NON-tournament, and or NON-showcase NFHS game, I will bring this to the attention of the head coach DURING warm ups. "Coach, your pitcher is not continuing his windup delivery motion without interruption or alteration. With no runners on, that is an illegal pitch and a ball would be awarded to the batter. With runners on, that is a balk and all runners would be awarded one base."

Does your association have regular meetings? Do you have a rules interpreter and or a training director? These kinds of inconsistencies make great topics for association meetings. It gets all the umpires on the same page and calling it the same way.

~Dawg

[Scotty_Ump]

9 hours ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

Does your association have regular meetings? Do you have a rules interpreter and or a training director? These kinds of inconsistencies make great topics for association meetings.

Thanks for bringing that up. I help my local association with clinic training and local association meetings. I'm coming up with presentation topics for next season and one of them is consistent rules enforcement from a coaches perspective - with specific examples. While coaches whining "that hasn't been called all year!" isn't always believable, coaches get frustrated when legitimate and obvious rule violations that have NEVER been called are then addressed by an umpire mid or late season. Then it really can be an issue in the playoffs, especially the later rounds with officials are under added scrutiny.

[Velho]

Balks (hopefully the less egreigous stuff) , hybrids, gorilla arms come to mind

[Jimurray]

21 minutes ago, Velho said:

Balks (hopefully the less egreigous stuff) , hybrids, gorilla arms come to mind

Hybrid stance is legal. 

[Scotty_Ump]

Another FED situation I've had this year.

Pitcher's throwing in the windup w/ pivot foot parallel to the pitchers plate and rocking back with their non-pivot foot towards 1B.

I see this during warmup throws and tell F1 to throw from the windup legally. The head coach did not know why it was illegal "because that was okay the game before..."

[jimurrayalterego]

42 minutes ago, Scotty_Ump said:

Another FED situation I've had this year.

Pitcher's throwing in the windup w/ pivot foot parallel to the pitchers plate and rocking back with their non-pivot foot towards 1B.

I see this during warmup throws and tell F1 to throw from the windup legally. The head coach did not know why it was illegal "because that was okay the game before..."

It might be because previous umps did not perceive it as parallel. I see quite a few almost sideways pitchers with a slight off angle of the pivot foot in the windup. You can tell it's not parallel because when they take the stutter step they rotate the pivot to the full parallel position to push off the rubber. You can also see the difference from their set and windup stance. OR, it might be because they don't know the rule🙂

[Thatsnotyou]

1 hour ago, Scotty_Ump said:

Another FED situation I've had this year.

Pitcher's throwing in the windup w/ pivot foot parallel to the pitchers plate and rocking back with their non-pivot foot towards 1B.

I see this during warmup throws and tell F1 to throw from the windup legally. The head coach did not know why it was illegal "because that was okay the game before..."

This is still so frequent. I don’t get how coaches don’t understand this. They watch the same stuff we do (allegedly).

I try to get it in warmups. Turn your foot a little bit. If I can see it go up and down/move into place to go parallel once you’ve started your windup, you’re good. 

It’s easily the most tiresome one to enforce/fix.

[BigBlue4u]

On 4/24/2026 at 12:39 PM, Scotty_Ump said:

When I walked toward the mound to explain, the HC - a coach I've had a good relationship with over several years - immediately said, "He's been doing that all year!"

And your response will be:  "That may be true coach, but this is what we are doing today!"  The coach is giving you unverified information along the lines of "We've been using that bat all year," "You are the only umpire who has called that all year."

Etc., etc., etc.

[BLWizzRanger]

9 hours ago, Jimurray said:

Hybrid stance is legal. 

We need to remove the term 'hybrid' from ours and coaches' lexicon.  There is no such thing as a 'hybrid.'  It is either a pivot foot parallel to the rubber for a set position, or it is not. And, the pitcher is only allowed to do certain movements from either position (college and pro's with the exception of 'declaring' what movement they will use ).

 

[BLWizzRanger]

6 hours ago, Scotty_Ump said:

Another FED situation I've had this year.

Pitcher's throwing in the windup w/ pivot foot parallel to the pitchers plate and rocking back with their non-pivot foot towards 1B.

I see this during warmup throws and tell F1 to throw from the windup legally. The head coach did not know why it was illegal "because that was okay the game before..."

This is a lost cause in my board.  NO ONE CALLS IT!!!!  I tried, I go to the pitcher during warmups and tell them to move their heels an inch to not be parallel to the rubber and within two pitches, they are back to parallel (which, ok, trying to change your motion at that point in time after you have already thrown 2000 pitches in practice, games, summer league, etc., won't be easy). 

I've gone to coaches and asked for help in getting their pitcher to move the heel an inch so that they aren't parallel and I have almost had to dump the coach because he got heated due to 'he has used that motion 5 or 6 times already this season and no one called it).

My partner with current D1 experience pretty much came out and said... 'their pitcher totally violates the rule' and after saying I will look for it, my partner says, 'and we aren't calling it tonight.' 

So, I have been assimilated into the Borg. Its a lost cause.

[jimurrayalterego]

1 hour ago, BLWizzRanger said:

This is a lost cause in my board.  NO ONE CALLS IT!!!!  I tried, I go to the pitcher during warmups and tell them to move their heels an inch to not be parallel to the rubber and within two pitches, they are back to parallel (which, ok, trying to change your motion at that point in time after you have already thrown 2000 pitches in practice, games, summer league, etc., won't be easy). 

I've gone to coaches and asked for help in getting their pitcher to move the heel an inch so that they aren't parallel and I have almost had to dump the coach because he got heated due to 'he has used that motion 5 or 6 times already this season and no one called it).

My partner with current D1 experience pretty much came out and said... 'their pitcher totally violates the rule' and after saying I will look for it, my partner says, 'and we aren't calling it tonight.' 

So, I have been assimilated into the Borg. Its a lost cause.

I call it by rule in whatever code I'm calling. But what problem is the MLB/NCAA declare rule or NFHS not parallel rule trying to address? Runner or Umpire not being able to tell if F1 was going to windup or not? Once again I will ask for video of a pitcher where you could not discern whether he was going from the windup position or not based on his approach to the rubber and/or runner config. Stroman and Strop excepted as they sometimes did not windup from the windup but you always knew if they were in the set.

[jimurrayalterego]

1 hour ago, BLWizzRanger said:

This is a lost cause in my board.  NO ONE CALLS IT!!!!  I tried, I go to the pitcher during warmups and tell them to move their heels an inch to not be parallel to the rubber and within two pitches, they are back to parallel (which, ok, trying to change your motion at that point in time after you have already thrown 2000 pitches in practice, games, summer league, etc., won't be easy). 

I've gone to coaches and asked for help in getting their pitcher to move the heel an inch so that they aren't parallel and I have almost had to dump the coach because he got heated due to 'he has used that motion 5 or 6 times already this season and no one called it).

My partner with current D1 experience pretty much came out and said... 'their pitcher totally violates the rule' and after saying I will look for it, my partner says, 'and we aren't calling it tonight.' 

So, I have been assimilated into the Borg. Its a lost cause.

I call it by rule in whatever code I'm calling. But what problem is the MLB/NCAA declare rule or NFHS not parallel rule trying to address? Runner or Umpire not being able to tell if F1 was going to windup or not? Once again I will ask for video of a pitcher where you could not discern whether he was going from the windup position or not based on his approach to the rubber and/or runner config. Stroman and Strop excepted as they sometimes did not windup from the windup but you always knew if they were in the set.

[The Man in Blue]

I would add training (or lack thereof) in to your root causes.  Those of us here are more the exception than the norm.  A significant percentage of officials have never opened a rule book, only walk through the required test questions with their association, and sit through the required PowerPoint presentations when forced to.

That can devolve down to three sub-categories:

• willingness/unwillingness
• lack of access to quality training
• organizational failure for accountability

Survey your coaches to get the best answers.  Then you know it isn't the "I want to get away with it, so I feign ignorance" on-field response.  Ask your local coaches what rules are being butchered and abandoned.

Around here, I can't say I see anything consistently falling in the "I'm not going to do that" category. 

Wait . . . yes I do.  GET YOUR ASSES OFF MY FIELD AND IN YOUR DUGOUT.  NO, THE MONKEYS CANNOT COME OUT OF THE CAGE TO CELEBRATE AN RBI DOUBLE.  NO, A "DEFENSIVE COACH" IS NOT A THING ON THE FIELD.  I DON'T CARE IF YOU HAVE TOO MANY COACHES/KIDS AND THE DUGOUT IS TOO SMALL.

[MadMax]

There's a rule in the NFHS rulebook I will never enforce. Sure, I will acknowledge it, and recite it if pressed, but you'll never see me "enforce" it. Never. 

It is the most useless and unnecessary rule in the book. There are several adjacent to it that are real eye-rollers, and when you're an experienced umpire – at any level – you can summarize them as, "Thanks for the reminder, Overlord Obvious". But this one – this particular one – rule is the best embodiment of pettiness, pedantry, and the frankly arcane thinking that members of the NFHS rules committee employed in the past, and its continuance in the book (perpetuity?) just shows me that the current rules committee isn't quite "with the times" yet. 

Here goes... <ahem>... 

Rule 10, Section 1, Article 9 – Umpires shall wear gray slacks, and navy pullover shirt or state association-adopted shirt. 

Are you purchasing the uniform items for me, or providing them to me? No? Until that day comes... 

[JonnyCat]

2 hours ago, MadMax said:

Are you purchasing the uniform items for me, or providing them to me? No? Until that day comes... 

Exactly, even worse when it's a volunteer based organization. I'm looking at you Little League. Until you want to buy the shirt and the patch you want me to put on, there will be no patch on the shirt I purchased. Same goes for our HS association and their gaudy oversized 1970's-esq patch.

Love it how they mandate the uniform we have to purchase and what to put on it. Oh that's right, we're independent contractors. I almost forgot.

[The Man in Blue]

Did we mention we get a royalty every time you make that purchase?

I know I have ticked off a few “hardcore stateys” because I refuse to pay another $15+ to have the state logo embroidered on my shirts.  I bought the hats (4 of them at a time).  That’s good enough for me.

I will say this for my state, they do sell the patches for just $1 a piece.  (Still no.)