What I mean is going to the outermost limits of the defined strike zone. It’s especially important to do this in lower levels of ball, where pitchers sometimes couldn’t find the strike zone with radar. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not talking about calling strikes on pitches at shin level or three inches off the plate.
This keeps the game moving instead of degenerating into the kind of snail’s-pace affair I described above. I’ve conducted many clinics, and one statement I repeatedly made that many umpires told me resonated with them was when a pitch leaves the pitcher’s hand, assume it’s a strike until proven otherwise. When hitters who knew me saw me walking to the plate before the game with my mask in hand, they knew to be aggressive from the get-go pitchers started salivating. I gave as much high, low, inside and outside as I felt I could without going counter to the rulebook and putting hitters at a disadvantage. When I encountered teams that hadn’t seen me, batters would leave the plate shaking their heads for the first couple of innings, after which, having gotten the message, they came up intent on swinging the bat. I was a “pitcher’s umpire” throughout my career, and I believe this accounted for much of the success I was fortunate to have. I replied, “Per batter? That’s about right.” Afterward, in the dressing room, my frustration boiled over when my partner said he thought he only missed two pitches. It was a joke, for with all of the walks the score ended up in double digits.
It lasted three hours, 31 minutes, and featured as much head-shaking by pitchers and griping by folks in the dugout as I guess they figured they could get away with without being tossed. I once worked a college game with an umpire with the proverbial postage-stamp strike zone.
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