Dear: Home Plate

It seems to me that you've been pulling a disappearing act when my pitcher's are on the mound.  It is quite frustrating for me, as a coach, to deal with.

To me, you look like you've always looked - a five-sided slab of white rubber with black outline, commonly referred to as "the black".  You're 17" across, but to my guys I think you've been shrinking to around 12"?  Maybe.


From what I remember (and from the rule book) you're 60'6" from the pitching rubber, but again, I think sometimes you scoot back a bit, to somewhere in the vicinity of 62'?  Maybe?

Either way, I would like to get through one game without you disappearing at least 8 times (we're averaging 10 free passes a game, between BB's and HBP's).

I've broken a clipboard and a stopwatch, and we're only 4 games into the year.

I guess I need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to teach pitchers - college pitchers - to throw strikes.  Because when these guys were in high school, they didn't seem to have this problem.  That's why we wanted them to play for us.

Oh well, enough blabbering.  We have four more games this weekend down in Rock Hill, SC.  Winthrop twice and Notre Dame twice.

Pray we don't walk the park and that you, home plate, decide to keep your shape and size the entire weekend.