Keith,
A sudden baseball thought . . .
Sometime the batter swings and the bat touches the ball just barely, not affecting the ball's trajectory, but enough to make the batter's swing a foul rather than a strike. In such cases, the sound of the ball making contact with the bat must be the major clue for the umpire that gets him to decide "foul" rather than "strike."
If a batter had the ability to make a sound that the umpire could not distinguish from the ball just touching the bat, the batter would have an advantage.
Questions: (1) Is such sound-making legal in baseball? (2) Should it be?
One view is that such deception is part of the game, a skill like bluffing in poker. Another view is that a game without such trickery is preferable. I lean toward the latter view.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
Note from KBJ: Let's see what my other readers say, Mark.
