The Balk

Last night, for the first time, a good friend of mine perused my blog. True to his inquisitive nature, he couldn't even read the title without first posing a question. "What's a balk?" he asked.

Rare is the moment when a baseball purist blinks upon being asked a baseball-related question, but the balk rule is a strange exception. I took the simplest approach possible, as I'm still in the process of teaching him the ins and outs of our national pastime.

"Well," I began hesitantly, "it can actually be a number of different things. If a pitcher acts as if he's about to pitch to the batter, but then attempts to pick off a baserunner instead, the umpire will call it a balk if he feels that it was unfairly deceptive toward the runner."

I went on to add the various other provisions of the balk rule: the shoulder twitch, the complete stop, the foot on the rubber, the step and throw, the separation of hands...the list went on and on. Naturally, this produced a dazed and confused expression on my friend's face, so I reassured him "don't worry. It can get really subjective sometimes, so it's just as confusing for everyone else."

Confusing, indeed.

Aside from this recent conversation, balks have figured prominently into my baseball life as of late. A fast-working righty reliever on my team got called for a balk twice in our home opener Friday for not coming to a complete stop in his set position. Prior to that, opposing pitchers had already committed at least three balks against us on our nine-game road trip.

And that inevitably took my mind to the most notorious balk call(s) in recent MLB history:

You be the judge. Good move, or balk?

Ignoring for the moment Joe West's incompetence and lack of professionalism as an umpire, you get a clear glimpse of just how subjectively umpires can interpret the balk rule. It's a pitcher's right (and duty) to be deceptive, but how far is too far?

Today I'll close with a fun fact: this spring is the twentieth anniversary of the 1994 MLB players' strike. That's one type of balk I think no baseball fan on earth would ever like to see called again.

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"The job of arguing with the umpire belongs to the manager, because it won't hurt the team if he gets thrown out of the game."

-Earl Weaver

And So It Begins...

Well, that was a quick offseason.

Let me begin by offering my sincerest apologies for the long posting drought. Academics and other endeavors required my attention for the past few months, but in the meantime, rosters across MLB sure got a good shakeup! Jacoby Ellsbury to the Yankees. Robinson Cano to the Mariners. Curtis Granderson to the Mets. And finally, Masahiro Tanaka to the Yankees in a huge deal that removed the plug from the proverbial drain of the backed-up free agent market.

As for me, I recently returned from a road trip to Honolulu and Los Angeles with my university's baseball team. Lucky you!, one may say. Sadly, that wasn't the case, at least not this time around. Having never ventured too far from my native Pacific northwest (in my lifetime I've traveled as far east as Denver), I encountered a bit of a culture shock upon arriving in the Aloha state. A meal that may have cost ten dollars on the mainland cost at least twenty dollars in Hawaii, traffic congestion while driving from the team hotel to the ballpark was ghastly, and upon stepping out of the airport on arrival, I was covered in sweat within five minutes due to the humidity.

But worst of all were the results on the baseball field: we dropped all five games of the series, after holding the lead at some point in all but one game. Pitching couldn't seem to find a way around the sweet spot of opposing hitters' bats, and hitting suffered with runners in scoring position.

Not all was lost on the trip however, as we enjoyed a day at the beach on our off-day between games and were able to catch a glimpse of the more picturesque parts of the island of Oahu.

The Los Angeles leg of the trip proved slightly better overall, as we recorded our first "W" of the season, behind the strong pitching effort of our senior ace, after dropping the first two of four games. The flight back home was replete with a desire for better results, and this ballclub is eager to turn things around.

League play is still a week away, but our home opener looms just twelve hours ahead at the time of this writing. And with that, I close my first post of the new season.

More on baseball--college, MLB and otherwise--coming soon!

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"You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."

-Joe DiMaggio