During its eight-team baseball tournament in late May, the Southeastern Conference used clocks on pitchers and batters and on teams between innings.
The Chattanooga Lookouts are glad they don’t play in the SEC.
“I would not like that, because there are times you need to step off the mound to gather your thoughts and think about what you want to do,” Lookouts pitcher Chris Withrow said. “If I’ve thrown two balls, I might want to gather myself and really concentrate on executing the next pitch.”
SEC pitchers had a 20-second limit when nobody was on base to throw the ball after receiving it from the catcher, or a ball would be added to the count. If an opposing batter wasn’t ready in the box with five seconds remaining, he would be charged a strike.
Between innings, league teams had 108 seconds to take the field and be ready to continue.