legal serve

Is it legal to throw the ball backwards a little? Because I thought you had to throw it straight up. It seems like if you threw the ball backwards and put a little spin on the ball before you hit it (when you threw the ball up) you could get a lot more spin on the ball. Is this legal?

Hi Tanner,

You are right, you do have to throw the ball up near vertical.  The umpires usually allow a bit of leaniency but if you start throwing it back and generating more spin because of it they will pick you up on it.