Calling ball & strikes

 Someone once said, “To master the obvious is not always easy” and so it is with the strike zone. A part of the definition of the strike zone helps somewhat… “Any part of the ball passing over any part of home plate in flight”. After all, it’s only 17 inches wide right ? And so begins the journey into the “not so obvious” interpretation of the strike zone.

 Let’s examine the vertical plane of the strike zone. A pitched ball, passing below the sternum & above the knee(s) is easy enough to see without a great deal of effort. But, no umpire in their right mind calls the armpit(s) or even the chest. So, we must examine why ? First, any pitched ball much above the navel/ belly button is almost un-hittable. Second, to allow either pitcher to gain “UNFAIR ADVANTAGE” over the offense is against the basic premise of the job of umpiring.  Good umpires lower the top of the strike zone from the rule book defined zone about 1½ to 2 balls, so therefore they have to be given back in some form. Which, leads to very heated discussions in the world of umpiring, over the horizontal plane of the strike zone?

The in & out of the zone although seemingly easy to discern by simply calling the white plate, isn’t that easy. Realizing that we’ve ‘squeezed” the top, we must open something and it can’t be the bottom, unless you have stock in the Calloway Golf Company. So we must open & give back the 1½ to 2 balls. wisely on the sides, adding the extra ball’s width on each side of the plate. In the attached top down diagram you’ll see that the ball is touching the black & not the white. The black around home plate, is not & has never been part of the strike zone by rule.

  In the photo(s) above you can easily see what is expected to be called
Anything outside the red lines is tooo far off the plate

How do we get to a place to call this zone accurately & repetitively?

• We position ourselves correctly in the “slot”
  Put the middle of YOUR body on the inside corner & stay there every pitch
• We correctly position our head height, relative to the catcher ( not batter )
  Make sure YOUR chin is completely above the catchers head
• We watch the entire pitch into the catcher’s glove, including HOW it’s caught
  If the catcher yanks the glove back to the corner after catching the pitch : Call it a ball, because it obviously wasn't a strike to the catcher.
  Why argue with the person who has the BEST look at every pitch.
• We slow our timing down each & every pitch.
  Take a deep breath EVERY pitch -- BEFORE you call it a ball or strike.
  Make you call loud enough to be heard each time

To achieve this “GOLD STANDARD” you must call enough games to see different caliber(s) of pitching at each level & focus on calling this zone & don’t deviate.