Effect of One Foot on the Rubber

[ArmWhip]

The rumored rule change that would legalize leaping made me think of the last 'significant' rule change that we had which required only one foot remain on the rubber at the start of the pitch instead of two. I am wondering what opinions people have of how the rule change affected pitching in your area. In my little corner of the country pitchers certainly took advantage of the new rule but the overall effect was not that significant.

 

[Bullseye]

+2mph consistanly. Hard to attribute only to that as daughter went off to college and started working out more routinely with weights. Was throwing 64, 65 now she's throwing 66, 67.

 

[Traps71]

@ArmWhip, I tend to agree with you. The effect has been negligible for my DD herself (though she is certainly more comfortable "starting back") and I haven't noticed/observed/measured anything all that different in our travels. As @Bullseye suggested, it is hard to assess what effect(s) the rule change has had when compared to probably more important variables, such as additional physical maturity, experience, strength, etc.

 

[HunterMO]

The biggest benefit for DD was balance and feel. She was able to start feeling more balanced and as such could better feel the load in her legs. Resulting in less need to use her arm to “power” the pitch if that makes sense. But the rule change happened as she went from 10u to 12u. So take it with a grain of salt.

I’m no body mechanics specialist, but when I look at initial drive from start back/step back versus two feet at the rubber…..the new rule visually puts the pitcher in a more natural and athletic position to drive from. Just my opinion.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Funny how a lot of umps do not understand the rule change and are allowing pitchers to rock back and replant their foot behind the rubber.

 

[HunterMO]

Funny how a lot of umps do not understand the rule change and are allowing pitchers to rock back and replant their foot behind the rubber.

Depending what organization the game/tournament is under that can be legal.

 

[Fluid Fastpitch]

I was wondering - while almost all coaches changed their instruction to teach start back... would anyone change to intentionally teaching the leap? To me it's just something I don't have to worry about if they are doing it. I'm not sure there's any mechanical advantage to the leap.

ETA: a crow hop though - I could see that being an actual teach if that were allowed. Interested to hear some perspective from the men's game.