Girls Fast Pitch High School Delayed Ball Call

Question
First inning first batter flies to left.  Second batter steps up and on the first pitch the first base umpire approaches the pitcher to discuss her crow hopping on her pitch.  She then proceeds to pitch to the batter again.  The umpire then calls a delayed dead ball and meets with the other umpires.  They then call the first batter out of the dugout and put her on first base and take the out off the scoreboard.  Is this the correct ruling? I've never seen a change after the next batter has received two pitches.  My feeling is it should have been called on the fly ball.  If it wasn't the opposing coach should have appealed before the next pitch.  Other than than the home plate umpire should have refused to hear the call from the first base umpired and continued the game.

Answer
Hi Sonny,

No, no no! There is absolutely no rule to do what they did.  An illegal pitch is a DDB and must be called at the time of the pitch.  If it's not called it never happened.

The 2nd pitch to the 2nd batter is an illegal pitch and those rules apply to that batter.

Time for a protest here as a mis-application of the playing rules at the time the ruling was made.

Mark