Baseball Rules Minutia

A small percentage of baseball rules language is straightforward, but a much larger percentage is not.  A perfect example of just how challenging the baseball rule book language can be is the rule number 6-2-4d from the NFHS rule book.

It describes a balk as: “failing to pitch to the batter in a continuous motion immediately after any movement of any part of the body such as he habitually uses in his delivery”.

My personal opinion this rule suffers from diarrhea of excessive wording and the longer the sentence continues the more confusing it becomes. Let’s see how few words could effectively convey the actual meaning of this rule. It is a balk when: “the pitcher begins his delivery then stops his motion.” 

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Without writing a thesis can anyone explain why the second half of this rule discusses the pitcher’s habits of which body parts he habitually uses in his delivery, because I am pretty sure pitchers use all their body parts in their delivery. For umpires young and old this exact type of word minutia in the baseball rule book is what creates confusion and problems in the game of baseball.

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