Harper is the clown

luv baseball posted:

old_school posted:

Teaching Elder posted:

 

Did call some games and went to a clinic run by guys that went to the MLB school in FL.  When we discussed this rule one of them said this:

If the ball is in the batters box that is on the pitcher - send them to 1st base.

Simple and if the defensive coach starts complaining he leaned into it - just say these words:  Coach - the ball was in the batters box - where did you want him to go? 

It happened to me that this argument eventually occurred - and I repeated the words above.  Argument over and no hurt feelings.  The look on his face was hysterical and his catcher said to me after we resumed - Good one Blue.  I had a small chuckle on that.

I never once saw a batter even flinch much less go hunting a pitch over the plate to wear it.  Saw dozens of them hold their ground in the box and get plunked - every one of them went to 1st base.

and the game moved on and we live happily ever after! 

luv baseball posted:

old_school posted:

Teaching Elder posted:

Kinda seems like that's how it always goes Fenway.  It's like what happens when a high school player is called back to the plate for leaning into a curve ball?  Ha ha ha.  There is THAT parent who just knows that the call was rigged and rides the umpire for the rest of the night, bugging the fire out of people who know the rule.  I think sociologists call it confirmation bias.

 

Sorry get off track, yes you are correct. It the stupidest rule in baseball and top 5 for any sport. A really good umpire will never make this call. 

Did call some games and went to a clinic run by guys that went to the MLB school in FL.  When we discussed this rule one of them said this:

If the ball is in the batters box that is on the pitcher - send them to 1st base.

Simple and if the defensive coach starts complaining he leaned into it - just say these words:  Coach - the ball was in the batters box - where did you want him to go? 

It happened to me that this argument eventually occurred - and I repeated the words above.  Argument over and no hurt feelings.  The look on his face was hysterical and his catcher said to me after we resumed - Good one Blue.  I had a small chuckle on that.

I never once saw a batter even flinch much less go hunting a pitch over the plate to wear it.  Saw dozens of them hold their ground in the box and get plunked - every one of them went to 1st base.

There is an argument for both. I think if it is in the batters box it is the pitchers fault but there are also coaches who basically punish guys who duck hit by pitches or even encourage them to lean  into it. This helps the teams on base percentage but isn't great for player safety.

A hit by pitch is dangerous and batters should try to duck it and not "take one for the team". If you are too liberal with HBPs as an ump you are helping coaches who encourage taking one for the team ultimately hurting player health. 

But on the other hand you also don't want to encourage pitchers to throw too many inside (out of the strike zone) pitches which hurts batter safety too.

Dom -  Never umpired anything above HS so safety had more priority particularly in youth ball.  The younger they went the more they worked outside.  Not many 10 year olds have the kind of control to work in - and when they hit someone quite a few get pretty rattled by it.

At HS though most good pitchers are running low 80's to 85 and any breaking ball is mid 70's tops.  I did not see ton of fastballs riding high or too far in - it did happen and batters reflexively bailed.  As I said in my post dozens of hitters did stand fast and 90% were spinners that just kind of started in and never went anywhere.  There were some coaches with the "ATTA Boy!" kind of stuff but my job was calling what I saw and not getting wrapped up with coaches or their style.   I would confess to being a little less likely to be patient if noise came my way from those guys though.

There were a few batters who were looking away and got the fastball boring in and kind of froze in an oh crap kind of way and at the last moment rolled or turned their head away from the pitch.  Blessedly I never had a batter take one in the noggin.  There were a few that got it on the shoulder pretty high.  None of them were so brave IMO that they did it on purpose with fastballs.