If you work any senior league games, or are a coach at the upper levels then consider this video a must purchase - must see. Rule 8.05, all thirteen parts of it, must rank as the hardest rule in baseball to detect and enforce. Everyone has an opinion, all the way from the pitcher, the umpire, and coach to the spectator in the right field bleacher. Few rule interpretations hinge on the twitch of a muscle, the greyness of a turned foot or the potentially minute shift in distance or direction.

Ten year minor league umpire Al Kaplon and Milwaukee Brewer pitching coach Don Rowe provide 30 minutes of insights into the intricacies of the balk rule from two totally opposite viewpoints: the viewpoint of the umpire who calls the balk, and the viewpoint of the coach teaching the pitcher to walk the thin line..

From the first frame of the video, a balk so subtle you will be pushing the slow-motion replay on your VCR, the explanation of the third base coach and plate, through to the final demonstrations for both field and plate umpire this video is fast paced and extremely well produced. You will not only know how, when and why to call the balk, you will know also what to tell a coach in order to teach the balk rule.

You should however carefully add a study of the "throwing to an occupied base" section of the rule. The examples given apply to first base only. It is possible for a fielder to be well off second or third base and a balk not be called.

This is one video that I could lend to the coach and would guarantee the coach would thank me afterwards.

Consider this one compulsory!

- a four out of five plate rating!

.... reviewed 14 March 1996 by B. McLaren