BALK

Balk

In baseball, a pitcher can commit a number of illegal motions or actions that constitute a balk. Most of these violations involve a pitcher pretending to pitch when he has no intention of doing so. In games played under the Official Baseball Rules, a balk results in a dead ball or delayed dead ball. In certain other circumstances, a balk may be wholly or partially disregarded. Under other rule sets, notably in the United States under the National Federation of High Schools Baseball Rules, a balk results in an immediate dead ball. In the event a balk is enforced, the pitch is generally nullified, each runner is awarded one base, and the batter remains at bat, and ...

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balk

Noun

  1. ridge, an unplowed strip of land
  2. beam, crossbeam
  3. A hindrance or disappointment; a check.
  4. A sudden and obstinate stop; a failure.
  5. deceptive motion; feint
    1. an illegal motion by the pitcher, intended to deceive a runner
    2. motion used to deceive an opponent during a serve

Verb

  1. To pass over or by.
  2. To omit, miss, or overlook by chance.
  3. To miss intentionally; to avoid; to shun; to refuse; to let go by; to shirk.
  4. To stop, check, block.
  5. To stop short and refuse to go on.
    The horse balked.
  6. To refuse suddenly.
  7. To disappoint; to frustrate; to foil; to baffle; to thwart.
    to balk expectation
  8. To engage in contradiction; to be in opposition.
  9. To leave or make balks in.
  10. To leave heaped up; to heap up in piles.

Verb (etymology 2)

  1. To indicate to fishermen, by shouts or signals from shore, the direction taken by the shoals of herring.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: balk
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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