Where is the strike zone?

[The Man In Blue]

At what point does a post become non-editable? I noticed some critical missing "nots" in my OP ...

 

[BrianTx01]

I can't remember the last time I saw a belly button high pitch...even over the middle of the plate called a strike. I personally blame baseball tv broadcast. They put the box too low and umpires have been trained not to call high strikes by watching baseball on TV.

 

[mmeece]

I can't remember the last time I saw a belly button high pitch...even over the middle of the plate called a strike. I personally blame baseball tv broadcast. They put the box too low and umpires have been trained not to call high strikes by watching baseball on TV.

I call belly button strikes and hear about it pretty often. "That's in your eyes. Don't swing at that." Hard to imagine when that became too high. When I played I would have paid to get that pitch to hit.

 

[Lemond]

Had about a dozen bellybutton strikes today, about another dozen on the rivers, and about half a dozen more at the letters. It was a generous zone, but admittedly, it was our lack of ability to adjust that killed us.

 

[Agcy]

I can't remember the last time I saw a belly button high pitch...even over the middle of the plate called a strike. I personally blame baseball tv broadcast. They put the box too low and umpires have been trained not to call high strikes by watching baseball on TV.

If, when they stand up after the pitch, the ball was at the belt, it is pretty easy for me to call that a strike. Especially for girls that like to duck/squat on 'high' pitches. I think you could extrapolate that to being a belly button strike.

 

[The Man In Blue]

There is another thread where somebody brought up “belly button” as the top of the zone, so I felt the need to fish this thread back out. The most restrictive zone is NCAA and their upper zone boundary is the bottom of the sternum.

This is your sternum:



I don’t know where the bellybutton references keep coming from (other than MLB and the joke that is their “broadcast strike zone” and will be different based on which team’s feed you are watching).

 

[CoachJD]

There is another thread where somebody brought up “belly button” as the top of the zone, so I felt the need to fish this thread back out. The most restrictive zone is NCAA and their upper zone boundary is the bottom of the sternum.

This is your sternum:

View attachment 28070

I don’t know where the bellybutton references keep coming from (other than MLB and the joke that is their “broadcast strike zone” and will be different based on which team’s feed you are watching).

I'm not quite six feet tall and the space between my belly button and the bottom of my sternum is just a touch bigger than the size of a softball.

For a 5'5" softball player, a ball any higher than the belly button is probably going to be too high for the NCAA strike zone.

 

[daywalkerdad]

There is another thread where somebody brought up “belly button” as the top of the zone, so I felt the need to fish this thread back out. The most restrictive zone is NCAA and their upper zone boundary is the bottom of the sternum.

This is your sternum:

View attachment 28070

I don’t know where the bellybutton references keep coming from (other than MLB and the joke that is their “broadcast strike zone” and will be different based on which team’s feed you are watching).

No-one has said the bellybutton was the rule definition of the strike. People have just pointed out typically the zone is called at or below the belly button. I clearly stated the top of the zone is typically called 6-8” below the top zone by rule.
As to why many people from different areas have observed this to be the strike zone as called I would think it goes to umpire training. This is not unusual this happened in MLB, I have attached actual called vs strike zone by rule for I think 2000 or 2001.

 

[Lance Steckler]

the only thing I can ever really ask for is consistent strike zone. If we got Blue calling 24" wide and 36" tall or a 10" circle belt high...fine. It better be that way all game for both sides. and no strikes zones that look like a Rubics cube pattern.

adjust and move forward.

 

[Greatdaytobeawildcat]

the only thing I can ever really ask for is consistent strike zone. If we got Blue calling 24" wide and 36" tall or a 10" circle belt high...fine. It better be that way all game for both sides. and no strikes zones that look like a Rubics cube pattern.

adjust and move forward.

Last night, did 12u rec baseball game. First 3 innings, both teams had travel players pitching - regular book strike zone, everyone is happy, game moves right along. 4th inning, coach brings in someone else. All of a sudden the whining starts, begging me for strikes that are literally 8 inches off the plate. He grumbles at the end of the game about "the MLB strike zone" I had.

It ain't easy out there.