Balk (BK)
A Balk is committed by any illegal motions of a pitcher during the delivery of the ball to home plate. Any umpire can make the call.
In youth baseball, the balk is not often called due to the fact that pitchers use the windup rather than the stretch delivery. The stretch becomes involved when kids graduate from the Little League and Cal Ripken Baseball league, where the distances are equal to or much closer to those of the major league.
Here’s an example:
There are no outs and a runner on first base. The pitcher balks and the base runner is awarded second base. This Balk situation is recorded as follows:
- A line is drawn from first base to second base in the runner(s) cell to reflect the advancing of one base.
- The letters “BK” are entered in the base runner’s cell, in the space above the line drawn between first and second bases.
- Nothing is recorded in the batter’s cell
- If a base runner scores due to a Balk the batter is not credited with a RBI.
- If multiple men are on base, each base runner’s cell is updated accordingly.
If there are no runners on base and the batter has less than three (3) balls in the count, the batter is awarded an additional BALL. If the batter has three balls and a Balk is called, the batter is awarded first base and recorded as a BASE ON BALLS (BB).
