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