Does anyone remember a thread that had diagrams from a side view of a pitch flight and how where it lands relevant to different maximum heights and how that translates to the strike zone over the plate?
Last night the other team had a guy watch strike 3 on a pitch that was about 6 feet high and landed about 1 inch behind the plate. He calmly looked at the ump and said "really", the ump responded "did you see where it landed?", then the batter gave him the death glare and said "Where it landed has nothing to do with it!!!"
After the game the ump was talking to me about this and I told him I thought he was wrong and agreed with the other team. I don't think there is any way that a ball that is very flat and just clears the plate was ever at knee height over the plate. The ump responded "whatever, that's how I call them, it's a hitters game and I've been playing for 17 years and I call the black part as the plate also." I said "that's not right, your job isn't to ump however you want, it's to enforce the rules as they are written. He asked if he called it the same way for both teams.
So I had to croos the line and I responded, "Yeah you called it equally shiXXy for both teams!! And he walked away.
Back to the main question am I missing something on my interpretation of the strike zone.
Let's say average knee height is 20" and the plate is roughly 20" from front to back, the pitch would have to be traveling at roughly a 45 degree angle as it crossed the front of the plate in order to be in the strike zone over the plate and land just behind the plate.
I realize many umps only look at the landing spot to determine if it was a strike and although that is wrong in general you could do it if you adjusted the "landing area" depending on the height of the pitch.
Last night the other team had a guy watch strike 3 on a pitch that was about 6 feet high and landed about 1 inch behind the plate. He calmly looked at the ump and said "really", the ump responded "did you see where it landed?", then the batter gave him the death glare and said "Where it landed has nothing to do with it!!!"
After the game the ump was talking to me about this and I told him I thought he was wrong and agreed with the other team. I don't think there is any way that a ball that is very flat and just clears the plate was ever at knee height over the plate. The ump responded "whatever, that's how I call them, it's a hitters game and I've been playing for 17 years and I call the black part as the plate also." I said "that's not right, your job isn't to ump however you want, it's to enforce the rules as they are written. He asked if he called it the same way for both teams.
So I had to croos the line and I responded, "Yeah you called it equally shiXXy for both teams!! And he walked away.
Back to the main question am I missing something on my interpretation of the strike zone.
Let's say average knee height is 20" and the plate is roughly 20" from front to back, the pitch would have to be traveling at roughly a 45 degree angle as it crossed the front of the plate in order to be in the strike zone over the plate and land just behind the plate.
I realize many umps only look at the landing spot to determine if it was a strike and although that is wrong in general you could do it if you adjusted the "landing area" depending on the height of the pitch.