Just throwing up another topic for discussion
We were playing in a 14U tournament last summer, and faced a girl that was only 13, but good sized, maybe a little bigger than my DD, so say 5'7" and 120ish lbs. I know pretty much how fast our pitchers throw, about 52, maybe 54 mph on a good day. Judging this girl by that, she was hitting around 60. She's also a heck of a SS, smashes the ball at the plate, and has good speed...basically a very good ballplayer.
In this game, she started out fine, but by the 2nd or 3rd inning, she was starting to crow hop. They were beating us already, they were a better team and had beat us in a previous tournament with a different girl pitching, and I'm probably too nice for my own good sometimes, so, as I was coaching first, I casually mentioned to one of her coaches that she was starting to hop some. She (the coach) said something like "wow, she is, isn't she...that's not normal for her. We're gonna have to work on that to stop it." I figured that was fine, I'm not one to make a fuss over stuff like that.
Jump ahead to 2 weeks later, and we're playing the same team in the final game of a tournament, and of course she's pitching again. Well, she's hopping from the first pitch this game. I figure, I've already mentioned it to them (and I like the coaches of that team way better than a lot I've seen), so what the heck, I'll mention it to the umpire this time, mainly just to see what he would do.
"Well," he said, "the mound isn't in very good shape in front of the rubber, it's pretty dug out". Now, I agreed with him, it was...but, she was hopping so bad, she would have been doing it in any case. Plus, I pointed out to him that our pitcher was using the same rubber and wasn't doing it. This was after we had batted that inning, so he said he would keep an eye on it.
Well, 4 innings later, she was as bad or worse, and of course, he never even mentioned it to her or her coaches.
So, my question is, is this normal? Do pitchers get away with this all over, or was it a case of us playing a kanawha valley team in a kanawha valley tournament, so the rules were a little different?
What about the 2 foot "alley" established by the rubber? I see girls all the time stepping beyond that boundary, but I figure if you can't get crow-hopping called, the umps probably don't even know about that rule
Just curious what people see in other areas...I assume the rules are similar for most tournaments (other than the one foot on rubber v 2 feet on rubber, which I think varies some).