Illegal Pitching

[Hillhouse]

I'm still waiting for someone to logically explain to me why the pitching rules have to stay antiquated but the offense is allowed to hit polycore balls, with $400 bats, while slappers are out of the box, power hitters are behind the batter's box, etc. And lets not forget, it's ok that runner's leave early because the umpire was watching a pitcher's tippy toe. Oh heavens no!

It's simply mind blowing to me that people don't want to let pitchers evolve with the game as they've allowed the offense to do it. The sad answer is people want to see more offense. However, as a result they want to hold the pitcher back to allow the hitters to 'catch up'. Give to one side and take away from the other. What did Joe the Plumber call it? "spread the wealth?" Of course, the answer is NEVER to make the hitters work harder. It's sickening.

As a pitcher, I will gladly throw with 2 feet on the rubber and not jump at all... but the hitters should use 1950's equipment too: wood bats and cork balls that get soft. Sound fair?

Bill

 

[cshilt]

I'm still waiting for someone to logically explain to me why the pitching rules have to stay antiquated...

Bill, you ought to know that if the rules were indeed antiquated they would be allowed to step back and leap. The rules were changed in the woman's game to give an advantage to the hitter. Men are allowed to do these things because their rules were never changed!

 

[Hillhouse]

Chris, I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not but factually, you're very incorrect here. The rules for men and women were the same in ASA until the 1970's. In an effort to reduce the dwindling numbers of men's teams and pitchers, ASA opened the rules to make it easier. It worked to a degree but USA Men's program suffered severely. As a result, USA has had a constant recruitment of foreign pitchers. It's very sad.

As I said before, why aren't we asking hitters to use wood bats and cork balls?

 

[cshilt]

Chris, I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not but factually, you're very incorrect here. The rules for men and women were the same in ASA until the 1970's. In an effort to reduce the dwindling numbers of men's teams and pitchers, ASA opened the rules to make it easier. It worked to a degree but USA Men's program suffered severely. As a result, USA has had a constant recruitment of foreign pitchers. It's very sad.

As I said before, why aren't we asking hitters to use wood bats and cork balls?

Aha. Well in the 80's they (ASA) took away the stepback and the leap from the woman's game because it was becoming too 'pitching dominated'.

Who knows. With the judgment recently issued against the baseball bat manufacturer the governing bodies may swing the rules back the other way.

 

[Hillhouse]

Chris

I could be wrong but I don't think women were allowed to step back in ASA. If they were allowed, I can almost guarantee the change occured when they were trying for their Olympic push. It was in the 1980's that ASA/USA was pushing for Olympics very hard. Finally got accepted in the early 1990s. The first US women's olympic tryouts were in St Louis, at the 1994 US Olympic Festival. That tournament also served as the selection for the US Pan Am team for 1995.

 

[Jojo]

I have several of my pitchers that crow hop, it is very minimal, and they always tell me the umpire doesn't care. I keep reinforcing the proper mechanics and explain one day an umpire IS going to care--then what are you going to do? More than likely it's going to be an important game when this happens, you better fix it now.

Interesting note, during one of my DD college games the opposing pitcher was crow hopping severely and getting a definite advantage. Her coach brought it up to the umpires but they had no desire to make the IP call.

This really infuriated my DD, she decided if you want to beat them, join them, and she went out and there and crow hopped. They wanted to see if the other team would say something, because they knew if they did they'd have to pull their pitcher, our pitcher could resort back to legal no problem. They didn't say anything.