ZONE ORDINANCE

Among the equipment Tony Gwynn packed for spring training this year was an adjustable batting tee. Now, standing by his locker in the San Diego Padres’ clubhouse, the eight-time batting champion raises the top of the tee to the middle of his chest and says, “If the umpires are going to call this pitch a strike consistently, I think it will definitely have an impact and you’re going to hear some cussing from the hitters. I think strikeouts will be up and batting averages down. It might not be drastic, but the numbers will be off enough to where you’ll see a difference at the end of the year.”

Exhibition games start in Arizona and Florida today with umpires--after a winter of seminars and training--ordered by major league baseball to follow the rule-book definition of the strike zone. No longer, it is presumed, will it top out at the belt line, as evolved over many years, but extend to “a horizontal line at the midpoint between top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants.”

It’s known as the elusive high strike, and amid soaring scoring, longer games, protests from pitchers and complaints by general managers, Commissioner Bud Selig and staff appear determined to respond, hoping to restore a better balance between pitching and offense by throwing the book at hitters.

“I think we had seen enough of an evolution away from the definition that we had lost any real consistency across the board,” said Sandy Alderson, the commissioner’s vice president of baseball operations.

“We’ve had to approach this in the form of a marketing campaign to educate and inform people what’s coming, but I think it will produce a better brand of baseball.”

There are differing opinions regarding the impact, but veteran Angel pitcher Tim Belcher shook his head and said, “Why all the hoopla? It’s been in the rule book for 100 years. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to scream at an umpire, ‘Please, just look in the book. It’s Page 23.’ I mean, how did we ever get away from it? But then that’s a pitcher talking. At this point in my career, if I get the ball to the plate on the fly, I want it called a strike.”

Reached in Florida, Detroit Tiger Manager Phil Garner said: “I’ve never seen it called consistently, and neither have the older-timers I’ve talked to. If they call it where they say they’re going to call it, there’ll be a major effect. Batting averages will go down, strikeouts will go up, and earned-run averages may drop more than a point. It’s also possible we may not have to carry as many pitchers.”

Most teams now carry 11, but if pitchers have to throw fewer pitches because of the expanded zone, and managers have to make fewer changes, teams may be able to carry 10.

However, Mike Scioscia, the Angel manager and a former catcher, thinks it’s an overblown topic.

“The end result,” he said, “is that there should be more called strikes, but you’re also extending the strike zone into a good hitting zone, so it shouldn’t be too big of an advantage for the pitchers. We’ve always told pitchers to change speeds, stay down, and work in and out. We’re not going to turn around now and tell them to pitch up, where the hitter can crush it. I do think it can benefit the curveball pitcher who hasn’t been getting the call on a pitch that at some point may have passed through the zone even if it ends up in the dirt.”

Said Dodger General Manager Kevin Malone: “The issue is consistency. If the umpires are consistent in calling it, and if we exploit it, it adds another dimension to our staff because we have three of baseball’s better sinker-ball pitchers [Kevin Brown, Chan Ho Park and Darren Dreifort]. If you can throw the high fastball and have it called a strike, it makes the sinker even better.”

The attempt to restore the strike zone is not a first. It was expanded in 1963 and 1988. Scoring dropped each time, but the pattern didn’t hold. Diluted pitching, smaller ballparks, stronger hitters and livelier baseballs contributed to an ongoing onslaught. It was seemingly what baseball wanted, what the fans enjoyed, and the expanded zone kept getting smaller again, with umpires reluctant to create a firestorm among hitters by calling the high strike. As veteran umpire Bruce Froemming said when reached at his home in Vero Beach, Fla., “Everyone fainted when you called that pitch, even though I always did because I work high.”

In addition, said Houston Astro Manager Larry Dierker, when umpires switched to the inside chest protector during the ‘80s, they became more mobile and “started moving around behind the catcher. And as the catcher got lower and farther out, so did the umpires, to the extent that when a pitch was up, it appeared from that low vantage point to be too up to be called a strike.”

Now, with umpires under stronger control of the commissioner’s office and the Alderson team spelling out what’s wanted, the sense is that there will be better conformity and consistency, although it’s still a subjective and difficult process tracking a moving object across the pages of a rule book. The understanding now is that the top of the zone, Froemming said, is about 2 1/2 baseballs above the belt as the batter strides into the pitch.

“Obviously, judgments still come into play because you can’t clone an umpire,” he said. “But with the guidelines and the education sessions of the last couple months, I don’t see a major problem on the field. There may be growing pains, but I expect the only gripes will come from the same players who usually gripe or who will use it as an excuse.”

Umpires were brought to Phoenix for a five-day training session in January and have been meeting with managers and coaches in different locations since. Their work will be monitored as always, and baseball has signed a five-year contract with Questec Inc., which has developed technology to track pitches with near precision. Umpires will receive a disk of their calls as a training tool when the system is in place.

“It’s not just the high strike, it’s bringing the entire zone in line with the rule book,” said Ralph Nelson, baseball’s vice president in charge of umpires. “There were two choices. Ask the umpires to comply or change the rule, and there was no real desire to change the rule. We’ll follow it over the course of the season. If there is still a problem, the rule may have to be changed.”

The attempt to bring the entire zone in line could hurt pitchers as much as help them. Umpires have been told to keep the width at the corners and quit giving the pitchers an extra inch or two, especially on the outside. Because most pitchers work in and out instead of up and down, the narrowing of the zone horizontally could aid hitters more than the vertical extension will help pitchers.

In the two years since Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hammered the record book, eclipsing the ‘season home run records of Babe Ruth and Roger Maris, numbers on offense have continued to escalate. A record 2.34 home runs per game were hit last year, when major league batters produced a record slugging percentage of .437. The average game included 10.28 runs, up about three-quarters of a run from 1998, when McGwire slugged 70 homers and Sosa 66. All of that offense was accompanied by the sound of a ticking clock. The average game last year took 3 hours 2 minutes, up five minutes from 1999.

Now?

“Sure, the high strike may help speed up the game,” Philadelphia Manager Larry Bowa said. “But if everybody is up there arguing, it may actually slow it down.”

No one can be certain of the overall impact, but Gwynn would advise hitters to prepare as he has been, using that adjustable tee in the batting cage, getting used to taking that high pitch to the opposite field.

“If they get the call consistently, guys like Pedro [Martinez] and Randy Johnson] might have 500 strikeouts this year,” Gwynn said. “When they’re blowing 95 [mph] and up, it doesn’t matter because you can’t get on top of their high rider anyway.

“It’s guys like [Tom] Glavine and [Greg] Maddux, guys who know how to pitch and work both halves of the plate. Those are the guys who might really benefit because this gives them another option, another place to go, another thought to put in the hitter’s mind. I don’t think pitchers are going to consistently pitch up in the zone, but when you incorporate it with going in and out, with staying down, and now you force a hitter to elevate his eyes, if you’re not prepared you’re not going to hit it.”

Glavine and Maddux, of course, have long benefited from a wider strike zone. They may lose some of that edge now.

Either way, Gwynn said, the hitters need to zone in on who’s throwing it and who’s calling it this spring.

That kind of scouting report now is even more . . . well, strikingly important.