Before getting into the details, one must understand that the modified pitching rules are THE most difficult to enforce in the game of softball. You could travel to various leagues and tournaments that are billed as "modified" yet see completely different pitching deliveries that they deem legal. Then travel to another and that same delivery is called illegal. It has always been the case because leagues and tournaments have adapted their own modified pitch rules to follow. This in turn often leads to more confusion between what is a legal and illegal modified pitching delivery. It is what it is.

Here at M Street Softball, we see it this way - pitchers that bend at the waist are considered "B" straight modified throwers and as long as they follow the preliminaries, are very rarely called illegal. Anything other than bending at the waist during delivery would be classified as open or sling, in our opinion. The difference between the two is velocity and movement - bending limits the whip action in the arm that is needed to generate velocity. It also prevents pitchers from being able to throw the different pitches (rise, drop, etc). Standing erect brings all of those things to the table.

Prior to the start of this season, there wasn't a plan in place or thoughts to change anything. However, as the start date neared it became clear that there were two factors which forced a reconsideration.

The first - Clock Tavern and Fat Baby had a pitcher who wasn't using the "bending at the waist" style and in our opinion, had a distinct advantage over the other teams.

The second - Lincoln Tavern was going to drop out due to them not having a pitcher. That would leave the Moran division with only six teams - not ideal.

The combination of these two issues forced us to step back and reassess the landscape. On one hand, we leave things as is and lose our longest tenured team (Lincoln) and pretty much hand the Moran championship to Clock Tavern. On the other hand, we could try to level the pitching landscape by bringing in some slinger pitchers and place them on the teams in need. We reasoned this move would give us additional contenders in the Moran division.

As the league commissioner, one of my goals is to put teams on the field that can fairly compete with each other. Mercy rule games is not in the league's interest whatsoever.

Before pulling the trigger and announcing the move, we contacted four teams (Sam Adams, Park City, Stew Jays, & Publico) to see what they had for pitchers and to also ask them if they would be open to adding another arm. At that time, we had four sling pitchers looking to join a team. Surprisingly, all but one team declined the help. It was "ride or die" with my guy approach.

About a week before the season began play, I personally offered my pitching services to Lincoln. They accepted and paid the league entry fee. Days later, they informed me that they also added pitchers Mike Garland and Mark Goodman to go along with Jose Bonilla. I then informed them that I would do what's best for the league and find another team in need.

The season began with a couple of slingers taking the mound and then the complaining quickly followed. At first, it wasn't coming from the teams without a slinger but was coming from the top two teams. I guess they felt their pitching advantage was slipping away (that's a good thing).

Week two brought more complaints - now from some of the others but mainly from the team we tried the hardest to help - the Stew Jays. Around this time we also learned that Garland and Goodman would not be joining Lincoln but they would be adding arguably the greatest pitcher this league has ever seen, lefty Nick French. Oh boy!

Ok, adding French into the mix this season wasn't in the plan but it now gave us another legitimate contender, Lincoln Tavern (that's also a good thing).

If we block out the noise for a moment, then we could see that the move has already succeeded as there are now several teams capable of winning the Moran championship. One could make the argument that six of our seven teams could be lifting the Moran Cup at season's end.

Unfortunately, the Stew Jays (1-6) are the outlier and just forfeited their second game of the season which has them in jeopardy of being removed from the league. They claim that it's not fun and want to be moved down into the lower division. Park City has towed this line as well.

I have a couple of thoughts on this matter. First, both teams were offered pitching help to improve their chances of competing in this division and both declined. Second, the lower division was intended for teams that were just beginning their softball journey. It's not for upper teams to move down and put together a string of mercy rule games. This topic "where we are heading" will be discussed in more detail in our next article. You don't want to miss it.

In closing, let's turn our focus onto a game that was played last week which resulted in some heated banter. Note to players, when your opponent is in a heated discussion with the umpire, it's probably not the best time to interject your opinion.

That's what happened here folks - a batter was struck by a pitched ball and the umpire didn't hesitate to award him the base. At that point, the pitcher reminded the umpire that the batter can't lean into a pitch and must make an attempt to avoid getting struck. The batter, now standing at first base, yells to the pitcher "that rule doesn't appear in any rule book." The pitcher barks back and now we suddenly have an escalated situation.

First, let's set the record straight with the rule clarification: "USA Softball (formerly ASA): The batter must make an attempt to avoid being hit. If the batter makes no effort to get out of the way, the umpire will call it a dead ball and add a strike (or ball) to the count rather than awarding first base."

In this instance, our batter doesn't make an attempt to avoid the pitch and actually turns into a slow breaking pitch. Per our governing association (USA/ASA Softball) this could have been called a dead ball/ball. This is a judgement call by the umpire and isn't always an easy call. There will be times where the batter doesn't have the time to avoid the pitch and by all means should be awarded the base. I'm quite sure this will be an ongoing hot topic as we near the playoffs.

It looks like rain is in the forecast and will likely affect the schedule this week. Any lost games will likely be scheduled for an upcoming Friday in July so please keep your eyes on the site for the latest changes. Teams looking for schedule flexibility will be mostly out of luck moving forward as we are simply out of room. Thanks for reading and have a great week of softball!