Girls Fastpitch Softball

Scholarship Opportunity

2009-06-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

Just got this from a friend:

"I still have scholarship $ for a pitcher if you know anyone who hasn't signed yet.

I still have a rather large scholarship available for a pitcher who is a 2009 grad or transfer with release or juco/CC player if anyone is still looking for a school. Depending upon academics (gpa/test scores), I may be able to cover a significant portion of our tuition, which is $33,000. Our health sciences program is extremely strong -- nursing, nuclear med, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, athletic training. We are a D2 school in WV, located 1 mile from Ohio, and 10 miles from PA. I am looking for solid prospect who can come in and compete for a spot in the rotation. Here is our our web address: www.wju.edu

If interested, please email bvasko@wju.edu

For Love Of The Game

2009-06-23T07:17:00.001-07:00

There's a bunch of girls heading to recruiting combines and showcase tournaments, or otherwise stressing out over their college softball prospects right this very moment. They'll be poked and prodded, measured and remeasured. They'll get great hits, strikeout, look good, look really bad, make great plays and throws, and completely fall apart on routine flys and grounders. Some few will impress coaches from great programs. Some will have lines drawn through their names. And you know what? None of this matters! Why? Because they'll still be just playing softball.

That's right. My message to all the girls with high aspirations on the diamond this week, next, and the one after that is to remember what you are doing. You're just playing softball. I know it is stressful to think that if you botch this pop-up coming at you right now, the coach for whom you really, really want to play might form some very bad opinions about you. I know that you feel you really must get at least one hit against this pitcher. I know you want to get a great jump as you attempt to steal this base. I think we all know all about the stress you are about to go through. But if it is meant to be, it will be.

Instead of staying awake late tonight because that coach you have been e-mailing is going to be watching your game tomorrow against the Shamrocks or whomever, try thinking about what it was like to play this game when you were 8, 10, 12 years old. There was no big deal about who was watching you then. All that mattered was you were going to pitch or catch and get some at bats. You were going to feel the wind whip through your batting helmet as you raced around the bases. You were gonna make some great plays in the field. You were gonna throw out some runners. You were gonna strike out some batters. You were gonna spend time with your friends. You were gonna have fun. That's why you play this game to begin with, to have fun. It is fun. It is great fun.

So as you get into bed tonight, as you climb into the car tomorrow, as you work your way towards the fields, as you stand there waiting for your turn to get up and impress, what I want you to think about is how much fun this game is and how much fun it has been for years. Don't focus on anything mechanical. Don't worry or stress out over anything you have been working on for the past 6 months or 6 years. Don't gfet into any heavy visualization exercises. Instead, think of this as just another game day. Think of this as yet another in a long line of experiences.

The truth is you play better when you are relaxed. You play better when you are having fun. When you get up to bat and you are focused on the fun of hitting the ball, you hit better. When you just love the feel of running around the bases, you run better. When you go all out to catch a line drive simply because going all out and catching a line drive happens to be about the most fun thing in the world, you make great plays. When you just love the way making a great throw feels, you make great throws.

You have been working just about your whole life to be a really great player.
You have fielded tens of thousands of grounders and flys. You have taken more swings of the bat than a human has capacity to count. You've done speed and agility to the point that it takes you months to improve your times on courses by even a hundredth of a second. You have built muscle memory to the point that your brain cannot remember anymore. You've done what you can and there is no more time for study. Now it is time to put a cap on all that work by letting it hang out.

If you weren't good, you wouldn't be going to these events. There are a ton of girls who you have passed by over the years. Still, there are a ton of girls who may be better than you for whatever reason. It doesn't matter. All that matters is you do what you can and do what you want to do, play ball. Prep time is over and now all there is to do is play the game you have been playing since you were allowed to play it. Just play ball. It is only just softball and you do know how to play it.

Bottom line is, this is all about love of the game. If you didn't love it, you wouldn't play it. If you didn't love it, you wouldn't want to continue playing it into college. If you didn't love playing this game, you wouldn't be stressed right now about your college prospects. You would just go and relax because nothing you did would ever matter. Your love of the game is the reason you are stressed but stress has nothing to do with playing the way you know how to play. So go out there, get dirty, dive around a little, drive the ball, run cause its fun to run, throw cause its fun to throw, and just have a blast.

Thor, The Viking Bandit - index page

2009-06-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

I was contacted by the Chicago Bandits of National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) and handed the unique opportunity to conduct an interview with Kristina Thorson ("Thor"), their star pitcher. In addition to leading the Bandits to the NPF championship last year, Kristina pitched in the WCWS three times for Cal, finishing runner-up twice, and was Gatorade player of the year in the state of Washington her senior year of high school.

As you will see from her answers, she is a very intelligent, thoughtful person whose wisdom is very informative for those of us who are just starting our kids out in the game, those who have played and/or coached for years, and those players who are considering college prospects or more. I had high hopes for this interview but those hopes were easily surpassed, mostly thanks to Kristina's thoughtful responses to my questions. I worked pretty hard to develop questions which would provide affirmations or denials of many of the preconceptions I know I had and assume others have as well. I hope I asked a lot of the questions you would ask.

It is always instructive for parents to get the real thoughts of their children. But most of us struggle to get answers to questions like "what happened today at school" or "how did you play at your game?" We cannot ever hope to learn their real thoughts on a host of issues like "do you want to continue playing softball, travel softball," "what do you want to do when you go to college," or "do you want to continue pitching, catching, playing center?" Seeing the world through the eyes of someone who has played youth, high school, college, and professional ball while excelling academically and pursuing other related and unrelated activities, gives us all a little insight into the world our children occupy or will occupy and lets us know what it takes to make it on a bigger stage.

What's more, my entire reason for getting my kids involved with any sport at all had to do with the real world lessons learned by being an athlete, a member of a team, a person who has to make choices about how to allocate their time. Kristina affirmed that for me. But while I understand that sports need to be fun for kids, I think that sometimes I can fall victim to the "if you want to play at this level, then it has to be more than just fun" mentality which pervades youth sports even at the 8U level. Kristina's perspective reminded me that the reason I wanted to be a major league ballplayer at the age of 9 had to do with the fun of the game more than the "rewards of accomplishing something difficult via hard work and dedication."

As I crafted my questions, I realized I had written 5 pages before I even scratched the surface. As a result, this work is rather large. I have published it in 4 parts which I hope are logical. I provide this index page mostly because the order of postings on a blog format essentially puts everything backwards. Questions are in italics and responses beneath in normal type, indented. Without any further ado, here are links to the four parts of the interview:

Part 1 - rec play through high school.
Part 2 - experiences as a college player
Part 3 - experiences as a professional pitcher
Part 4 - future including high school coach, private pitching instructor, and some longer-term possibilities

In conclusion, I wish to extend my thanks to the Chicago Bandits organization, Andrew Phillips, Director of Media Relations, and most especially to Thor, herself.

Thor, The Viking Bandit - part 4

2009-06-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

This is part four, the final piece, of our multi-part special interview with Chicago Bandits pitcher extraordinaire, Kristina Thorson. In part 1, we discussed rec play through high school. In part 2, we discussed her experience as a college player. In part 3, we discussed her experience as a professional pitcher. In this section, we focus on Thor's future including the short-run, during which she will be coaching a high school team and continue her work as a private pitching coach, as well as the longer term which is still up in the air a bit but could include work in public health. We also ask a question or two regarding the possibility that one day she might be a Little League parent!

Q: I see that you are going to be a high school coach during the next season. I know how I would feel about making the switch from player to coach. What are your thoughts about this? What are your expectations?

I couldn't be more excited! I can't wait to share my knowledge and love of the game to a new group of girls. It's a new challenge for me, which I love, and I'm going to learn a lot. I know we're going to have a solid and deep pitching staff, but my only real expecations are that the girls learn a lot, that they have fun, and that they are in every game and play to win.

Q: The high school game is very competitive and a nice level of play. But let's face it, whether coaching boys or girls, the situation is complicated by, well, having to deal with high schoolers, with teenage girls and boys and all that this entails! In my HS driver's education class, we were told to never get behind the wheel after fighting with boy or girl friends. Yet with all the drama that goes on in high school, it is very possible to watch your clean-up hitter stroll to the plate after wiping tears out of her eyes because her boyfriend split up with her last night, then strike out with bases loaded against the 61 mph all-state riseball pitcher. I watched our high school almost get knocked out of the state championships, which they eventually won, by a significantly inferior team when the first baseman dropped an easy toss from the pitcher on a routine play. She had attended the senior prom the night before and hadn't slept very well - our proms always seem to coincide with state playoff games. Do you look forward to such HS drama or is it something you hope to avoid?

I actually kind of look forward to it, because I think I can help the girls learn a lot. I've learned so many life lessons through softball, I want to pass those on to my team next year. It's not going to be easy, but great things rarely are. And yes, high school girls are drama no matter how you slice it, but these girls are going to get a big head start on other girls their age. I don't put up with drama, so they are going to learn to keep that off the field, and hopefully learn how to cope with things better while at the same time becoming more accountable for their actions.

Q:Of all the levels one could start coaching at, youth, high school, junior college, you have chosen to jump into the coaching arena with high school. I know some NPF players have jumped in at the junior college head coaching level or decided to become assistants under established D-1 coaches. For example, your teammate, Samantha Findlay is an assistant with Depaul. Is there any particular reason you chose the high school level?

Coaching college has never really been something I've wanted to do. I don't want to say it will never happen, but it's not a big dream of mine. This coaching job kind of found me. I have 5 pitchers I work with that will be at Cal High next year. There was some drama with the coaching staff this year, and they ended up losing both their coaches just after tryouts. So for a week, their team didn't have a coach. So the players I work with were trying to get me to coach them this year. I tried, but I couldn't free up my schedule enough to be able to do so. However, the man who agreed to coach the team this year said he wasn't going to do it next year. My girls got the idea in my head, and it grew and grew on me, so I finally applied and got the job.

Q: What are your ultimate goals coaching a high school team? Do you think you will coach for a long time? Do you have any aspirations of one day becoming a college coach?

I don't know how long I will coach at Cal High for, but I'd like to say a few years. I really want to try to build a program there, because there are a lot of softball players in that area. I really want to give the girls there a glimpse of what college life will be like, but more importantly, I want to teach them to work hard, be accountable, and teach them life lessons that will help them later on no matter what path they choose. Like I said before, I don't have any real dream of being a college coach, but never say never.

Q: Some high school coaches forbid their roster from playing any ball outside high school for the duration of the HS season. This makes sense to me as they practice a lot and play when not practicing. The wear and tear on the body can be significant. But some HS coaches go beyond this common sense approach, encouraging parents of players to form summer and fall teams (we don't play formal HS ball in the fall where I live). Kids on the high school team might be encouraged, perhaps a little stronger than merely encouraged, to play for these teams rather than local travel clubs. Some kids might argue that their participation with their old travel club actually cost them playing or preferred position time when high school season rolled around. How do you feel about this?

I think that high school coaches should stick to high school ball and let their players play for whoever they want for fall/summer teams. I will encourage my players to find summer teams to play for, but it's obviously not mandatory, and it's really not meant for everyone either. I feel like if you're a high school coach, you should stick to high school and the things you can control, which is your high school team. Let the kids do as they please, they need to be happy.

Q: Your bio includes much discussion about your educational and clinical involvement with infectious diseases as well as your interest in Physiology and Kinesiology. You have expressed an interest in one day conducting research into the "effect exercise has in preventing illness from infectious diseases." Do you see your life's goal as relating more to public health, to athletics, or do you feel strongly that the two are so related that you aim to make that more apparent to others?

At this point in my life, it's really hard for me to say. I am very passionate about both areas of study, and can see myself pursuing both. My plan right now is to apply to different schools, once I have money to pay for school, and see where I get accepted, then go from there. There are many, many things I'd love to study. We'll see which doors open up for me.

Q: I see that you already do some private pitching lessons. From a purely economic point of view, that can be at least as lucrative as many other pursuits. I have no idea what you charge for lessons but, at least in my area, it can be seen that a pitching coach with the reputation that comes from being a Gatorade player, a PAC-10 star and WCWS participant, All-American, and a bona fide professional ace, would all seem to point to long lines of girls standing outside your stable doors begging to come in. What I mean is, given your credentials, you could move just about anywhere in this country, set up a tunnel and fill every waking moment with pitching students at $50 a half hour. If you wanted to conduct group lessons at say $20 a head as some coaches do, you would spend most of your spare time explaining to people why you couldn't fit them into classes. Some people would wonder why pursue high school coaching, which does not pay particularly well, or many of the other jobs you would consider, when just hanging up your shingle and net would provide not only economic well being but also a lot of satisfaction. Any thoughts on that?

I love doing private lessons, and I have been lucky enough to be financially comfortable. I wouldn't say that I have a lucrative job or anything like that, but I can pay the bills and still save up a decent amount of money. I know that by coach high school I will lose money, but that's not the most important thing to me. I love being a part of a team, and it's a new challenge, so it's totally worth it to me. Plus, I can reschedule my lessons so I don't lose too much income either. I think I'll be fine. I try to live life by experiences, not by necessarily doing what is going to bring in the most money.

Q: Do you hope to one day raise a family and if so, would you prefer to have boys, girls, or a mix of each? If you had girls would you try to push them, ever so slightly, towards softball?

I go back and forth between wanting a family. I love kids, I love watching the girls I work with succeed, and I think being a parent would be an amazing thing. But, there's also the part of me that wants to travel the world, help people in all sorts of different situations, and that's not a good environment to raise kids in. If I do end up having kids, I want them to be active, but it'll be their choice what sports and activities they do. I would love it if I have a daughter that played softball, but I don't expect her to share my passion. She's a different person, I want her to decide her passion.

Q: If you had boys, would you look to get them involved with baseball?

Pretty much the same thing, I'd want them to play whatever sport or activity they are passionate about.

Q: If your children were to play several sports as they began high school, do you think you would encourage them to focus on one or two rather than play something different in each season?

That would depend on a lot of things. What are their long term goals? How are their grades? What other activities are they involved in? Are they successful and having fun in their sports? I think that as long as their grades are good, they are free to make their decisions on how they want to approach sports. I made my choices, I want my kids to have the same opportunity.

Thor, The Viking Bandit - index page

Part 1 - rec play through high school.
Part 2 - experiences as a college player
Part 3 - experiences as a professional pitcher
Part 4 - future including high school coach, private pitching instructor, and some longer-term possibilities

Thor, The Viking Bandit - part 3

2009-06-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

This is part three of our multi-part special interview with Chicago Bandits pitcher extraordinaire, Kristina Thorson. In part 1, we discussed rec play through high school. In part 2, we discussed experience as a college player. In this section, we focus on Thor's experience as a professional pitcher, her thoughts on being a female athlete in general, and a few thoughts about the NPF and the future of women's professional softball.

Q: You are known as "Thor," a name which obviously derives from Thorson but which also conjures up mythological images from early Viking and Germanic warriors. What is your family heritage? Is there Viking in your roots? How long have you been known as Thor?

A: "People have been calling me Thor since high school. I am 3/4 Norwegian, so I definitely have Viking roots, just don't know a lot about them. I know tons about the mythology, though."

Q: From a mental preparation point of view, what kind of thoughts run through your head as the adrenaline begins to flow before a game? Do you find that you have to get your adrenaline going or slow it down as you walk to the circle for the first inning?

A: "My adrenaline always starts pumping as a game starts, or as I enter a game. I usually go out there and just try to turn my mind off, so I sing along to the music playing (usually one of my pitching songs) and just let my body work the way I've trained it. I settle right into my routine, and things just fall into place for me now, which allows me to stay relaxed and aggressive as I'm throwing during a game."

Q: Some pitchers do not like to talk to anyone before a game. Others get motor-mouth. Some pitchers have to spend hours visualizing pitches to be made in the coming game. Others like to keep their minds empty and as soon as they step on the rubber, everything begins to flow like hot lava. How would you characterize yourself in terms of what goes through your head hours before a game, right at the beginning, and as the later innings approach?

A: "During pre-game, I just like to have fun. Having fun and goofing off has become more and more important to me as I get older. I used to be very serious and kept to myself, but I'm not like that now. When I'm on the field, I'm in my warrior mode - very serious, very aggressive, kind of anti-social. And I used to not be able to turn that off. But I've learned to turn it off before games, and when I'm in the dugout. Having fun, laughing, and goofing around helps my mental game by letting my mind relax, just like my body gets to relax between innings. I try to treat every inning the same, but the three most important innings in my eyes are the first, last, and any inning after my team scores runs and gets a huge momentum shift. But even still, I just approach it as one pitch at a time, one batter at a time, one out at a time. You can't live in the past or the future, just the present."

Q: I have two daughters who pitch. One hears virtually nothing during games. If the other team cheers against her, she hears them cheering for her. If someone tells her something - as softball parents and fans tend to do a lot - she lets it fly over her head and completely ignores it. She is focused on getting hitters out and closes off almost everything else. My other daughter fits more neatly into the Roger Clemens approach. She pretty much froths, fumes and pitches angry. I no longer coach her but when I did, there were times when I tried to speak to her between innings and I wasn't even sure she saw me, let alone heard me. If another team cheers beyond what she thinks is appropriate, sometimes she'll pick the most obnoxious cheerer or the biggest kid on the other team and drill her with a pitch, or at least breeze one by her. She attempts to make eye contact with the next hitter as she approaches the batter's box. She pitches to beat the other kid, to make her look silly. Both like to win and are pretty successful in their completely unrelated styles. How would you characterize your personality when you pitch? How does it differ from your personality off the field?

A: "I am a totally different person off the field than who I am on the field. On the field I am a warrior and much like your daughter who you compared to Clemens. I'm not necessarily angry, but I have no problem drilling a player, and I love to stare down batters after I strike them out. I am out there to beat them at their game, to make them look bad. I'm not going to pitch to their weakness, I will throw my best pitch and dare them to hit it.

Off the field, I'm easy going, aloof, and goofy. Still driven, but it's not outwardly noticeable. Total opposite as when I'm on the field."

Q: Are you in any way jealous of those who play in the men's game in terms of their ability to earn a living from the sport? What I mean is, right now MLB has just gone through its amateur draft. More than a thousand boys and men from high school to college have been formally asked to play ball professionally. There are a few high school kids who are being handed million dollar signing bonuses and some of these may never rise above double-A baseball, they'll never play a game in the major leagues, perhaps not even in triple-A. Yet they receive enough money to really get started in life merely for agreeing to tryout for the big leagues. Do you wish girls had the same or even half or a quarter of that opportunity?

A: "Of course I wish girls and women had the same opportunity! That's why I love playing in the pro league right now. Our goal is to create that situation so that future generations of softball players can make a living playing this game. I know I'll never be able to, but I want to help create that opportunity for girls later on, and I'm happy that I still get to play. I don't think girls will ever make the same, or even close to, what MLB players make, but I'd love to see a situation where women could just be professional athletes, and not have to coach or have another job on the side."

Q: If you could snap your fingers and make women's professional fastpitch the equal of MLB in terms of financial success and attention from the media and public, would you? Why or why not?

A: "I don't know if I would want the NPF to have the same financial success as MLB. I think the MLB is completely out of control, but it would be so nice for our league to be able to make money at the end of the year, for the players and coaches to make a decent living. There's nothing more that I could ask for than to play in a park with 30,000+ people watching. That's got to be such an amazing feeling. Our game is amazing - it's totally different than baseball. The women in this league are amazing athletes and people, and we all deserve the same attention from the media and the public as the men do. I try to do everything in my power to help equalize things for this league, but there's only so much one person can do. If I could snap my fingers to achieve that, you better believe I would."

Q: Winning the 2008 NPF championship must have been a thrill. But the manner in which the Bandits accomplished that was even more thrilling. The team was swept in a double header late in July and might have missed being in the playoffs, had they gone on a prolonged losing streak afterwards. Instead, they went on a hot streak, winning every game, ending the season with a 12 game winning streak. To what do you attribute that team's resilience? Do you think team chemistry plays an important role in how a team and the individuals on it perform?

A: "I attribute pretty much all of our success last year to our team chemistry. It was unbelievable. We all got along, but even better was at the end of the season, during our hot streak, we never questioned whether or not we would win. We just knew. We just didn't know when we'd push the winning run across. And much of the time, we had late come-from-behind victories. The dugout was calm, there was never any panic or added pressure, we just knew. Everyday, someone new would step up with the big hit. The whole experience is really hard to describe to someone who wasn't a part of it, because it was so unique."

Q: I don't wish to get you in any trouble with the league or team officials but is there anything you think the league could do to experience greater success? If you were calling all the shots, how would you change the way it conducts business and promotes itself?

A: "There are two things that I would really focus on. First, we need national TV coverage. Plain and simple. If fishing and poker can make ESPN, the NPF should be able to make ESPN. Secondly, we need to market ALL the players in the NPF. Not just Jennie, Cat, and Monica, who are all busy with the national team. We need to market other players - non-Team USA members who are at every game for their team, who are big players on their team. We need more known faces in the league, because people, fans don't usually associate with a team, they associate and connect with players. That's why we need to market players more."

Q: Are there any particular experiences which made you into the player you are today? Aside from the experience with your pitching coach, was there any one event, a win, loss, personal good or bad game, which you look back at and think that was a turning point? Do you generally think losing is an important learning tool?

A: "Losing is definitely an important training tool. It teaches you how to be stronger mentally, but shows you your own weaknesses and what you need to do to be successful. There have been hundreds of experiences that have made me the player I am today. Everyday I try to learn something new, try to make myself better. Jim's comment (see part 1) might have been the biggest turning point for me, but it sure hasn't been the only one."

Q: What about the youth and/or high school game do you like most? What do you dislike?

A: "I love that girls can just go out and play. With youth and high school, it's not about recruiting, it's about going out there and just playing your heart out for your team/school. I love that. However, I hate all the safety standards. I cannot stand face masks, especially for fielders, but I don't like them on batting helmets either. They teach girls to be scared of the ball, rather than teaching them to have better reactions and to not be scared of the ball. There's absolutely no way a boy of ANY age would ever show up to baseball practice with a mask. What's the difference? It's ok for a boy to get hurt, but not a girl? No. There's no difference. When you play the sport, you're an athlete. Treat girls like athletes, not like dolls that can't get hurt. If you don't want to get hurt, don't play sports."

Q: If you could go back and relive one particular point in your career, actually play the game(s) over again, exactly as they were originally played, without changing anything, what would that moment, tournament, or game be? What is it that makes this choice the one period you would want to experience again?

A: "Oh man, I'd probably say my senior year at Cal. I was just in a zone all year, and I had a blast. I would choose this time because I was really successful, but it was the first year I really felt like I was a complete pitcher, I wasn't just a rise/curve pitcher. I had a drop and a change up, and I have never felt so comfortable on the mound."

Thor, The Viking Bandit - index page

Part 1 - rec play through high school.
Part 2 - experiences as a college player
Part 3 - experiences as a professional pitcher
Part 4 - future including high school coach, private pitching instructor, and some longer-term possibilities

Thor, The Viking Bandit - part 2

2009-06-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

This is part two of our multi-part interview with Chicago Bandits pitcher extraordinaire, Kristina Thorson. In part 1, we discussed rec play through high school. In this section, we focus on Thor's experience as a college pitcher from recruitment to WCWS participant and runner-up, with a little thrown in about general college softball life.

Q:It is my understanding that the recruiting game has changed quite a bit from what it once was. You would have been playing HS ball and being recruited by colleges at about the point things were changing. How did you approach the recruiting process - did you play showcases or were your travel teams just involved in national ASA competitions and the coaches found you without you looking for them?

A: "I actually got recruited before things really started to change. I didn't start getting recruited until my senior year in high school. I got on a great summer team that went to all the big recruiting tournaments and we managed to get on good fields at those tournaments which helped. But the only reason coaches came to watch me, a scrawny nobody from Seattle (aka softball Siberia at the time), was because my dad and I sent out hundreds of emails to dozens of coaches around the country. We sent out email after email, not letting coaches forget my name, so that they would put me on their list of players to watch. And from there, everything just fell into place."

Q:One would expect a Gatorade Player of the Year to garner a lot of attention. Did college coaches charge hard for you? At what point did it become obvious to you that numerous coaches wanted you to come to their institutions? Was that a positive experience or did it wear you out?

A: "Recruiting is a very stressful and tiring process, but definitely worth every second once you sign with a school. Being from Seattle, no one ever really recruited up there. So it wasn't until after my junior year, with my summer teams that coaches started to notice me and pay attention. The height of it was definitely in the fall of my senior year in high school, during all the showcase tournaments. For being from Seattle, I actually got a lot of attention from colleges, especially schools back east. But I was set on the PAC10, and I'll be the first to admit that I got really lucky to be able to play for Cal."

Q:What were the qualities of the school and/or softball program which made you choose Cal over other Pac-10 schools? Did schools outside the Pac-10 and/or outside your area try to coax you into choosing them? What made you stick to Cal?

A: "Growing up as a kid, my dream was to always play for a PAC10 school. Specifically, I wanted to play for Stanford. I actually went on a trip to Stanford, and then found out afterwards that the school wasn't going to admit me. When I was looking at colleges, I wanted to go to a school that had great academics, as well as a top 25 caliber softball team. That's what was so attractive about Cal - they are the #1 public institution in America, and their softball was a perennial top 25 program.

There were definitely schools other than Cal that wanted me, that offered me 100% full rides and all the bells and whistles, but their softball programs were up and coming. I wanted to come into an established program where I would have to earn a spot as a starter, rather than just be handed the ball. Plus, softball doesn't get any better than the PAC10, and nothing was going to get in my way of playing in that conference."

Q:You played in the Division I Women's College World Series (WCWS) which, to many, is the most well recognized level in the game. That must have been a huge thrill. Was it a whirlwind experience? Did everything happen very fast and you found yourself heading home wondering what hit you? Or were you able to enjoy and covet the experience?

A: "The WCWS was an amazing experience each time I was there. The first two times I made it to the series, Cal made it to the championship game, and lost both times to UCLA. It stung like crazy to lose in the championship. The experience was a whirlwind, but not so much that I couldn't sit back and enjoy it. The last time I went, my junior year, we lost our first two games (to UCLA and Arizona), and were out of there really quick. That was a hard trip to enjoy because it went by so fast. Even still, it was amazing. The atmosphere there and the fan support is out of this world."

Q:When I think of the various stages of my life, high school seemed to drag on forever but college was over in a flash. What are your observations of college life? Did it fly by more quickly than you would have liked? Did playing softball at such a high level put demands on you which diminished the overall college experience?

A: "College definitely flew by. When it was done, it felt like it had flown by in the blink of an eye. But while I was there, there were times where it seemed to drag on forever. I would have loved another couple of years playing for Cal, but at the same time, I'm glad that I've been able to play in Europe and play in the NPF for as long as I have.

Playing ball didn't dimish the college experience in the least - if anything, it made my experience! Without my team, I wouldn't have had a family away from home, I would have missed out on awesome camaraderie, wouldn't have learned tons of life lessons, and I wouldn't be the person I am today. No I didn't have a typical social life, but I loved the life that I lived in college. I had great friends that I had to see every day, and we created bonds that non-athletes can't create."

Q:Many younger girls believe they would like to play college ball because they have difficulty ever seeing themselves putting their gloves and bats away in the closet, permanently. Yet they have no idea of the commitment level required to play college ball. They have no idea about the time constraints under which a D-1 college athlete lives. They've never had to get up at 6 AM to go run or lift weights. They don't know what exam studying pressure is when you have a game to play, a roadtrip to conference championships, or some other softball activity which limits your ability to prepare for a subject in which perhaps you are having a little trouble. They don't know what it feels like to know all your friends are heading off to some frat/sorority party or college mixer while you make sure you get to bed early so you can pitch or play well in an important game tomorrow.

What advice can you give to girls who aspire to play college ball?

A: "It's basically the same as in high school. Softball was always a commitment in high school, and it's the same in college. When you're used to balancing school and athletics in high school, I don't think it's a bigger adjustment for athletes to go to college than it is for a regular student. Both parties need to learn how to be accountable, learn how to study, and most importantly learn how to manage their time. If you can keep up grades and play ball, and still have a little bit of extra time for a social life in high school, you can do it in college. Just remember that level of commitment and accountability go up, and more is expected out of you. If you do that, you'll succeed and love every minute of your college experience, and you'll never look back with regrets."

Thor, The Viking Bandit - index page

Part 1 - rec play through high school.
Part 2 - experiences as a college player
Part 3 - experiences as a professional pitcher
Part 4 - future including high school coach, private pitching instructor, and some longer-term possibilities

Thor, The Viking Bandit - part 1

2009-06-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is part one of our multi-part interview with Chicago Bandits pitcher extraordinaire, Kristina Thorson. In this part, we focus on Kristina's experience as a youth player, rec and club, through the formative high school years. In the parts which follow, we will examine her experiences as a college and NPF professional player as well as private pitching coach and future high school coach, and then conclude with thoughts about career opportunities and general thoughts about the game.

Q: While reading your bio on your web site (http://www.kthorson.com/), I got the impression that fastpitch softball was not overly important to you as a youth. You played Little League ball in the early days, progressed to summer ball and took pitching lessons during your middle school years. Yet it was not until high school that you got serious because, as you say, your pitching coach told you that you "stunk like skunk poop."

Were you a dominant player in Little League or summer ball? Did you experience any rivalries with friends or girls you met while playing either Little League or summer ball? What drove you to become a better player in those early years?

A: "In Little League I was considered a top player/pitcher from the time I started until I quite LL after 8th grade. But on my summer ball teams, I was never really considered a dominant player, let alone pitcher, until I was much older. I think probably during my sophomore year in high school my summer teams started realizing that I was one of their better outfielders, but I only got a few innings to pitch here and there. Really it wasn't until my senior year in summer ball that I was considered a top pitcher for my team. I'd always been on teams where the pitchers were coaches' daughters. But it just fed my fire that much more to go out and prove to everyone that I could pitch with the best of them. The best thing that ever happened to me was that I was told I'd never be good enough to accomplish my dream of pitching and dominating in the PAC10. "

When I think of my experiences as a youth, high school and college athlete, there are certain periods which come back to me now, decades later, as having been my best experiences. Those periods are not necessarily my last years as a competitor. Those periods are not necessarily the years in which I had the most success or was most dominant. Is there any period which sticks out to you as having been your best or most fun years in softball? What made them special?

A: "I think, so far, the most memorable years I've had in softball were my junior season with my high school team, senior (HS) season with my summer team, senior year at Cal, and last year with the Bandits. It's funny, because those were hands down the best team years we've had, judging by win loss standards, but I think that's due to the same reason those are my most memorable seasons. Each team I mentioned had that chemistry that coaches always talk about achieving, and that players/teams dream about achieving, especially my summer team the WA Ladyhawks - that was a really special team. We were small, but had great talent and love for the game, but you couldn't separate us from each other. We never got in tiffs, no one ever talked bad about someone else, and we all loved being around everyone on the team. We always played for each other, and we always played for the love of the game. That's what made those years so memorable and so successful."

Are there any words of advice you might give to an 11 year old girl or her parents about how to make the most out of her softball experience?

A: "First off, the most important thing is that their daughter is having fun. I see a lot of girls playing because their parents want them to, and they end up resenting the game which is a really sad sight to see. Having fun is the most important aspect of the game, regardless of what level they're playing at.

Secondly, when someone tells you that you can't achieve something, or that you'll never be good enough, don't use that as an excuse to settle. Use that as a reason to work harder, to show everyone that you can be good enough, that you can succeed. It's so easy to take the easy path and just give up - but it's SO much more rewarding to work harder than everyone else and to reap the benefits in the end. Even if you don't reach your goals, you know you outworked everyone, and you know you gave it your best shot. You'll never have any regrets that way."

If you were going to coach a youth team and you had limited time to prepare them before their very first tournament or game, what are some of the skills you would focus on?

A: "Throwing and catching. Hitting wins games, but defense wins championships. Close games always come down to who has a better defense, who doesn't make the error that cost the game. Proper throwing and catching techniques make up most of the game. With hitting, it's great to have a nice swing with a lot of power, but even if you don't have that swing, you can find a way to get on base. With throwing and catching, if you don't have the right mechanics, it makes it really difficult to get outs, which is what you need to win."

You played several sports (volleyball and soccer) in addition to softball during your early years of high school. You gave up those sports when your pitching coach criticized you. If you had it to do over again, would you have focused on softball earlier? Why or why not?

A: "I think if I could do it over again, I would have tried to keep playing at least one other sport. But when I look back, I don't regret my decision. I enjoyed volleyball and soccer, but I wasn't passionate. Not only that, I was in band, marching band, national honor society, and I was helping coach the middle school softball team as well as doing weekly pitching clinics. So I had a lot going on, and school was always really important to me, so I couldn't let my grades slip. I would have loved to been able to keep playing another sport, but I wasn't willing to give anything else up, and something had to give. And besides, I have many years left to get back into volleyball and soccer, and all the other sports I want to try."

Did you pitch or play varsity softball your freshman year of high school? What about the other sports, did you play varsity, freshman, JV level?

A: "I didn't really play varsity my freshman year. I was a swinger, and I got the minimum amount of innings to letter at varsity, but most of my freshman year I pitched JV. I was SO mad when I didn't make varsity, but looking back, I'm glad I didn't because I got a lot more pitching time in JV than I would have at varsity, which made me better in the long run. The only other sport I played for Shorecrest was volleyball my freshman year, which I played on the frosh team."

It is difficult for most to imagine a pitcher going from "skunk poop" to state Gatorade player of the year. When you look back, do you think you really stunk or do you think your coach saw talent and he wanted you to be the best you could be in softball? What I mean is, how bad do you really think you were and how does one progress from that low point all the way up to the best high school player in your state? How hard did you work? How many hours per day, week, etc.? What did you do to improve?

A: "I fully believe my coach when he said I stunk worse than skunk poop. It's hard for me to remember how bad I came back, but I know that I was REALLY disappointed in myself. I'm sure Jim, my coach, also said what he said to try and light a fire under me. From that point, and not making varsity 2 months later, I never wanted to be that person again. I finally just had enough of people telling me that I wasn't going to be good enough, that I couldn't make the cut and my focus just shifted. From then on, I threw a minimum of 4 days/week, usually 5-6 days, and most workouts were an hour and a half long. It wasn't enough for me to just workout. I spent the first half hour of my workouts on basic mechanics, but after that the majority of my workouts focused on spins and getting my pitches to move. I was a perfectionist, and expected perfect spin on all my pitches. I knew I would never throw very hard, so that was never a focus. I wanted to have three different speeds between all my pitches, but more than that, I wanted/needed all my pitches to spin and move. With pitching practices and team practices, I probably averaged about about 10 hours of practice/week. But more than the time I put in, which was really important, I credit my growth as a pitcher more to my focus on details, spins, and the small things that got me the success I ended up with. I lived and breathed by the quote, 'Champions do uncommon things, things that are boring and tedious to others.'"

Thor, The Viking Bandit - index page

Part 1 - rec play through high school.
Part 2 - experiences as a college player
Part 3 - experiences as a professional pitcher
Part 4 - future including high school coach, private pitching instructor, and some longer-term possibilities

Psychological Obstruction!

2009-06-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

A reader writes in to ask:

"I was wondering if you might share your thoughts/understanding on interference and obstruction. I am a coach and league official for 8U softball. I am trying to figure out how to deal with what is a minor problem, girls standing in the base path when not involved in a play.

For example, a runner is on second, another one on first, and SS is directly between the bases. The ball is hit to 2B who tries to make a play at third to force out the runner from second. SS never moves and runner has to go around her. Does that constitute obstruction?

Another example happens when runner is on second, SS in the baseline again, and ball is hit to 2B who makes a play at first. Even though there is no play at third, the runner has to run around SS get to the base. Is that obstruction?"

There are any number of scenarios we could draw up where a fielder stands in the basepaths and, thereby, theoretically forces the baserunner to go around her. The particular circumstances don't really matter. There are only three items that matter: whether the fielder does, in fact, obstruct the runner; whether the umpire calls it; and what we want to teach 8s, 10s, etc.

First of all, there is no such thing as an obstruction where the fielder's position causes a runner not to run because she wants to avoid confrontation. There is no such thing as psychological obstruction! Obstruction, the act (or inaction) by a defensive player which hinders, impedes, or prevents the opffensively player from doing hitting the pitvched ball or advancing between bases, must actually occur. This is probably a more important differentiation at 8U where a girl at second might not even go towards third because the SS is in the way. But if she goes, is forced to go around the SS and is put out before reaching third, at least theoretically, the umpire should call obstruction and award her the base.

The scenarios which the reader presented do constitute obstruction. Anytime a defensive player impedes an offensive one without making a tag on her (having posession of the ball), that would constitute obstruction. -; But just because something constitutes obstruction does not mean it will result in a call and even when it is called, there can be no need of enforcing it.

In order for an obstruction to be called, the baserunner must, in the opinion of the umpire, have been able to make it to the next base but for the obstruction. The umpire sees the obstruction; judges that if the runner were not obstructed, she would have been safe at the next base; calls delayed dead ball by holding out his fist; and, if the runner is put out before reaching that base, awards it to her, negates the putout.

If the runner is not put out, if she gets to the base where the umpire thought she would and is safe there, the call is not enforced since there is no need. In fact, the umpire will most likely not say another word about it. Say he/she puts out his hand in a fist and says "obstruction" but the girl gets to the base safely. He/she will put there hand down and never explain to anyone what it was he called.

More importantly, an obstruction call depends on the umpire seeing the obstruction to begin with. I don't think I have to tell you that obstructions sometimes occur without umpires witnessing them and go uncalled. Just like anythihng else in life, if it ain't called, it ain't an infraction.

Further, umpires cannot see what doesn't happen. So, if a runner is at second when a grounder is hit to 2B and she doesn't go because the SS is in the way, most likely no call will result. I think it is important to make young girls understand that a fielder standing in their way should never cause them to not run to the next base. That can be a difficult hurdle, particularly in rec ball. But we need to make them understand what obstruction is. They should be taught not to stand in basepaths and, if they are running the bases, to not stop merely because someone is in the way.

Very often at 10U, 12U and, yes, even at 14U we see players unintentionally blocking basepaths. Say a ball is drilled past the outfielders. Many times I have seen a third baseman carelessly watching the outfielders retrieving the ball while she is standing right near the bag. She isn't focused on her position yet because she is not in the play until the ball gets back closer to the infield. Runners trying to round third sometimes are forced to alter their paths. Actually, I've seen that at all age levels. That fairly frequently gets called but often yields no change to the play as the runner easily makes it to third and then home.

Another scenario which can frequently result in obstruction occurs when there is a runner on first, the 2B has positioned herself in the baseline and the runner attempts a steal of second without the 2B noticing. I see that all the time in 12U. In 14U, generally girls are more aware of the base stealer. And this almost never gets called.

I have also seen numerous kids intentionally obstruct baserunners. There is a local 14 year old travel first baseman who must have been schooled in how to be an aggressive defensive player. She frequently gets in the way of base runners when she does not have possession of the ball. She commits other deliberate aggressive acts too but we haven't got time for those today. In any event, girls mostly shy away from her blocking of the base and umpires seldom call her for obstruction. This has encouraged her to increase her tendency to obstruct.

I have seen other infielders, particularly 2Bs who appear to intentionally get in the way of baserunners. They too give off the appearance of having been schooled to play aggressively. And umpires also seldom call them for their deliberate actions either because they don't see them or because they don't feel the fielder is actually impeding the runner.

It is important to note that deliberate/intentional is not any part of the definition of obstruction. So it doesn't matter if a fielder is performing a deliberate act or not. But I mention deliberate obstruction, whether called or not because what this little piece is really about is what we teach players. And while, for example, whomever taught the first baseman to block the bag without the ball is probably pretty satisfied with the results, my sense is one day they may be forced to rethink that.

Almost every 8 will play 10U ball at some level. Almost every 10 will play 12U ball at some level. Almost every 12U travel player will play 14U and a good portion of those will play ball in high school, 16U travel, and perhaps beyond that. One of my main themes, in case you haven't noticed, is we should always give kids the tools they'll need at the next level. We don't really want to teach 10s only how to thrive in 10U ball. And teaching kids to do things like intentionally obstruct or failing to teach kids to get out of the way when they should can have some drastic consequences down the road.

Teach kids not to play 2B in the baseline. They should be behind it or in front of it. There's no real reason to be in it. We're talking about a couple feet either side of the direct line. The same is true for SS. For players who cover bags including all the infielders but probably outfielders as well, teach them where to stand, not where not to stand, with respect to the bag so as to not ever be called for obstruction. And let's drop this notion of teaching "hard nosed defensive play" to youngsters by having them deliberately block bags. That stuff might yield an extra out or a few outs at 10U or 12U but as soon as girls start playing this game for real, the kid is going to lose some teeth, break a leg, get severly spiked or receive a concussion.

For example, the first baseman I discussed is certainly going to get away with blocking the bag for a few years. She's a big strong kid. But soon she is going to find herself playing varsity high school ball in a league which has many Gold players. Those girls are going to get to know her tendency. They're going to talk about it and decide they need to teach her a lesson. Hard nosed defense is going to meet "sophisticated" offense from girls who can play this game at a high level and have seen these kinds of bush plays before. And whomever taught her this is going to realize it was a bad idea.

Similarly girls who unintentionally or intentionally get in the way of baserunners are going to meet kids who know how to deal with that. Players talk about this kind of thing all the time. And many recognize an opportunity to draw an obstruction call when they see it. The problem is, when girls who can run a 2.9 or 2.7 decide they want to hit that girl because she's in the way, real harm can be done.

As an additional thought, interference, the act of impeding or confusing a defensive player attempting to make a play should also be taught and understood. The most common scenario in which this is called happens when a middle infielder is making an initial play on a batted ball and the baserunner runs into her. I watched a game recently in which this happened and none of the players seemed to understand what was being called. I looked at the coaches for the offensive team and they too appeared to not understand the call. The coaches actually gave off the impression of being happy when their runner ran into the SS. I have to think they believed this to be obstruction. It isn't. It is interference, the runner is out and the batter-baserunner is awarded first base.

Too many of us think the baserunner is required to stay in the basepath when running the bases. The only time this is actually an issue is when a defensive player is trying to make a tag. That is, if a player is attempting to tag you and you leave the basepath to avoid the tag, you are out. But leaving the basepaths when nobody is trying to tag you is never an out. So if you are on second and a grounder is hit to the SS, you should go behind her so as to avoid interference. If she is deep and you cannot possibly run behind her, go in front but do not run over the grounder or otherwise do anything that can cause an umpire to think you caused her to be confused or otherwise impeded her making a play. That sounds complicated but it is not. If you do anything that causes her to have trouble making a play, you can be called out for interference.

I don't know if I have ever watched 8s play where the fielders don't get in the way of runners. I don't recall an obstruction ever being called at such games. Less frequently the same sort of thing happens in 10U and, again, it is seldom called. But I have seen as many as ten obstruction calls in a single 12U game. I have seen fewer in 14U because the girls are more experienced but I think I have seen more injuries due to an obstruction there as well. In 18U and high school ball, I see lots more injuries from offensive and defensive players colliding. And girls who deliberately or unintentionally get in the way are often not only the victim, but also get the worse end of the bargain. So teach your 8s and 10s to avoid obstructing runners. Don't teach them where not to stand. Teach them where to stand. And don't forget to teach your baserunners not to shy away from fielders in their way. Yes, we all should avoid contact of all kinds whenever possible. But bumping into the 2B when stealing is sometimes the only way you'll get the call. In teaching this, d0on't forget to go over interference. A runner who does not shy away from a fielder standing in the basepaths should be equally cognizant of the fact that if she is making a play on a batted ball, it is you who must stay out of the way.

Put The Rules Online, Now!!

2009-06-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

There are a couple rule changes which have come to my attention. Here they are with the reasons I was interested in them.

I) Pitching Arm Rotations

A reader wrote in to ask about a pitching rule change which effected a girl she saw pitching in a Pony qualifier. The rule at issue involves limiting a pitcher to, as she said, "a maximum of one and a half clockwise revolutions." She noted that the motion was picked up by the umps who explained it to the pitcher and coach but allowed her to finish the inning.

I had not read or otherwise heard about this change so I went online to look. I was able to find reference to the new one and a half circle rule with respect to the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS) but, while Pony publishes its rule changes online, I do not have a current Pony rulebook so I cannot verify what the rule is. My understanding is the Pony rule prohibits "two revolutions."

I have to tell you that I find it annoying that all the large sanctioning bodies do not simply publish their rulebooks online. I've said it before and I know I will say it again but this is absurd. The year is 2009. Almost anything important can be found online. But Pony and most other organizations still do not publish their rules on their web sites.

Someone once suggested that perhaps sales of rulebooks are a money raiser for some organizations. OK. Pony charges $1.50 for a copy of its rules. Just how much could they possibly raise after costs of printing, packaging, etc.? They could hold a one day bake sale at one of their national tournaments and make the same amount. Some organizations charge more but I cannot imagine anyone is getting rich off the rulebook business.

Maybe it would cost too much to convert the book to an online version and then to keep it on a server. Anyone who tells you that does not know how modern books are published. They also do not understand how little web server space actually costs. The fact is there is no reason any organization would keep its rulebook offline unless it affirmateively wanted to keep the rulebook out of the hands of others. That's not a very good reason since anyone could have, for example, Pony's rulebook for a buck fifty. There is no good reason why all these organizations, Little League, Babe Ruth, Pony, FAST, USSSA, NSA, ASA don't all have their rulebooks available online. Lest I confuse anyone, of course, some groups, like NSA, actually do put their rulebook online.

In any event, I was not able to locate any Pony rule change for 2009 which referred to the NFHS change language. I don't recall such a change for 2008. So I have to assume the older rules are still valid. My 2007 Pony rulebook contains a prohibition against "two revolutions."

The high school rule change is here. It reads in relevant part:

"Change the pitching windup requirement to a maximum of one and a half clockwise
revolutions.

ART. 4 The pitcher may use any windup desired provided:

d. the pitcher does not make more than one and a half clockwise revolutions of the arm in the windmill pitch.

...

The ball does not have to be released the first time past the hip.

...

Rationale: More and more pitchers are pushing the rule to the limit in an attempt to gain an advantage by deceiving the batter. The change will make an illegal pitch easier to identify and enforcement more consistent."

Making enforcement consistent is a nice objective. Yet it almost never happens. We have seen some blatant sorts of illegalities committed by pitchers in high school for several years. Possibly the most common one occurs when the pitcher takes a little teeny-tiny step forward with her pivot foot, off the rubber, just like you-know-who does in international play. Another common prohibited pitching motion involves the archetypical crow-hop where a leap is followed by obtaining a new point of impetus. Leaps are less frequently seen but do happen. The leap, where the pivot foot becomes airborn before ball release rather than dragging away from the rubber is not my favorite call. The reason I don't like it is it is often precipitated by poor pitching area conditions. It's not the pitcher's fault.

This brings me to a story I want to tell but wasn't sure where or how to bring it up. This year a coach was awarded conference coach of the year by a local newspaper. That paper, of course, published an article explaining its choice. The sited a game in the earlier rounds of the conference tournament. I have a problem with that because I saw the game.

Due to rainy weather, the game had to be played at night. The host team, the higher seed, had it moved to a local recreational complex. The field on which it was played was a LL baseball field, complete with grass infield and a smallish mound. The pitching rubber was up on a hill and the conditions around it were poor. To me the game should not have been played on a baseball field. To me, the pitching circle conditions were illegal and unacceptable. yet I suspect that the coach of the year picked the field not merely because it had lights, if you know what I mean.

During the course of the game, the coach of the year twisted up the umps and complained about illegal pitches. The opposing pitcher was obviously struggling with the subpar pitching area. Finally the umps called an illegal pitch on her. That was with the first runner to reach third base. That as all the offensive "production" the coach of the year's team needed. The winning run scored on an illegal pitch called with a runner on third, such pitch being caused by the winning coach's choice of illegal pitching area on a baseball diamond, a field unsuitable for softball play, not to mention his badgering of the umps for the pitcher's difficulty acclimating to the illegal pitching area. ABSURD!

To go a little further, it is interesting to me that the person who wrote to me also included photographs of the motion which was called illegal. After reviewing the rule change as well as the motivation behind it, it is clear to me that this girl's motion offended neither the spirit nor the letter of the rule. The umps were quite wrong. Further, they were enforcing an NFHS rule in a Pony game. I understand that this can happen but it is a bit ridiculous.

But that's enough of that.

II) Pitcher's glove

My daughter got a little annoyed because her coach took a permanet marker and colored in the insignia on her glove. The coach told me he had done this because the ump had complained to him and I pretty much ignored it. The problem was the insignia, a very small item, was "optical" yellow in color.

I understand that umps can sometimes make up rules and require them to be adhered to. I've seen this done many times before. I figured that's what happened and who cares anyway. I'm not big on things like this. My daughter would just have to learn to live with it.

I was a little annoyed since this glove was purchased fairly recently and I had no idea why the ump had complained. But in researching other potentially bigger changes, I discovered something on Pony's site. For 2009, they made one rule change which would necessitate the umpire's action. That change reads:

"Page 24 Gloves/Mitts

Rule 3 Add: Optic yellow to the circle colors not allowed on gloves"

Another change I noted was:

"Rule 3 Added: A pitcher shall not wear any item on the pitching hand,

Sec 11 wrist, arm or thigh, which may be distracting to the batter."

I get both of these but had heard nothing of them just as I had not heard of the NFHS pitching revolutions change. I am most likely to blame for not keeping abreast. I'm usually pretty good about these sorts of things. But it does strike me that these organizations are not doing a great job of getting the word out to the softball public.

One of the leading principles of our system of government in this coountry is a concept which has been with us since the beginning. It says ignorance of the law is no excuse. That's rich! In this day and age, almost everyone is ignorant of some laws.

Recently I heard someone talking about a change to the booster seat requirement in my state. I went hunting for it but found nothing. I did find one interesting item however. A police department had this to say about the state's existing law:

Boosters are required for "passengers who are younger than 8 and weigh less than 80 pounds." The only problem is, that's not how the law reads!

The law says "passengers who are younger than 8 or weigh less than 80 pounds." (emphasis my own) There's quite a difference between the two. In one case, the actual laws tells you that if your child is very small for his or her age, say 75 pounds at age 16, she has to be seated in a booster seat! Try to enforce that one with your 16U slap hitting speedster!! But no worries mate, the cops won't enforce it either since they apparently have it wrong!!!

Ignorance of the law is no excuse!

We are coming perilously close to anarchy in this society. It matters not how many laws there are, nor how specific those laws are, when the body of knowledge is too large for anyone to possibly retain, let alone understand, let alone keep up with changes to. We all need a little help and the news outlets, well the news outlets do a poor job of reporting actual facts. They are far too interested in pushing their own agendas. But enough of reality, let's get back to softball.

Softball rules are not all that difficult to understand, I guess. But you really need to study them to have a full understanding. For instance, a few weeks ago, I pointed out that a batter-baserunner who stops while running to first in order to prevent or delay a tag can be called out if she takes a step backwards to slow or impede the fielder from tagging her. This is very impotant since, the ball is dead and runners must return to the last base occupied before the pitch. If you hit a ball to the 1B while your baserunner races home from third, the last thing you want to see is the batter-baserunner stop and take a step backwards. If that happens, all runners return to their previous base, before the pitch.

That's simple enough. I checked out the rule, digested it, let you know what's going on and went on my merry way. I haven't seen that play since, nor any discussion of it except the next night in the WCWS when it was briefly mentioned. But in my kids' games we had a somewhat similar play develop with a runner who was already at first and a grounder hit to the 2B.

I told the team coaches about the rule but I had not thought the whole thing through. I got it wrong. It only applies to a batter-baserunner and the commentary speficially talks about running towards first. The same is not true of a runner at first heading for second, and for good cause. If the fielder were to throw to first, the baserunner would no longer be forced and could return to first (with liability to be put out along the way). The same is not true of a batter baserunner who, quite obviously, cannot return to home.

This just goes to show you that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I misinterpreted the rule to include a prohibition of backward steop by any forced runner. That is, of course, not the case. You have to be careful in understanding the rules of the game.

My point is really only that in a world as filled with rules as ours is, it becomes more imperative for organizations such as NFHS, Pony, ASA, Little League, etc. to make a greater effort to let us all know what the rules and rule changes are. We shouldn't find out via casual conversations with umpires or in pregame meetings. It should be patently obvious to anyone who plays the game that "optic" insignia are no longer allowed, that pitchers cannot make two and a half circles, that smallish 17 year old sons do not have to be placed in car seats on the way to be dropped off at the Marine Corps recruiting station.

We nbeed the rules online now. We need to have all rule changes distributed out to the playing public as well as umpires. Umpires should know that they must apply the rules for the type of game they are calling, not cross apply rules from one body to another's game. Cops should double check their written work, particularly interpretations of laws, before they send it out to the public or put something online!

To all you softball sanctioning bodies, put the darn rules, the actual darn rules, online!

Thanks For The Thankless Efforts

2009-06-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

I ran into a friend and neighbor of mine Sunday. He looked bad. His back was killing him. He was exhausted and wanted to go home to bed but he couldn't. He told me he had worked for 3 hours to get a field ready for his son's two hour long game of 14U travel baseball. This guy is a triathlete but no amount of running, cycling, and swimming could put him in good enough shape to work the fields this past weekend. He was not alone.

If I say it was wet Saturday, many in my area would laugh. It has been "wet" for weeks. We have been rained on at most tournaments. High school season was extremely compressed this year, thanks to the weather. The grass is doing great sans irrigation. Bugs are living in bug heaven. Carbon dioxide has been sequestered at record rates thanks to the out-of-control growth of brush and trees.

We were at a fastpitch tournament Saturday and knew that there was a decent possibility of rain beginning around 3:00 pm. Unfortunately, our last seeding game was scheduled for 3:30. After game 2, the girls did what tourney girls do and the parents ate lunch while sitting around watching the clouds build off in one direction. At about 2:30-45, the girls went to warm up while we kept vigil over the gathering storm clouds. As 3:30 approached, a few drops were felt, then a few more. Gradually the clouds slid over our heads and a steady rain began to fall just short of our scheduled start time.

The girls came back over and got beneath portable awnings. We watched while teams continued to warm up on outfield grass at 3 fields. Coaches with towels dried balls. [; Players threw soggy ones over each other's heads. Our girls stopped warming when they noticed umpires congregating beneath other portable awnings at and after the scheduled start times. We imagined that the forecast had changed for the worse and we waited to have our afternoon cancelled.

Some few of us checked forecasts on car radios and mobile phones. We reported back that most likely things were going to break up shortly and then the sun would come out. But we noticed a sheen forming on the fields as water began to build. Puddles began to grow in outfields. It wasn't looking good. As the rain continued to fall, perhaps harder as time wore on, eventually word came that we would cancel the remainder of the day and reconvene Sunday morning, early of course, to play one seeding game and then the elimination round.

The rain never ceased overnight. I suppose by 3:00 AM, it let up and then stopped. But by 4 or 5, the air continued to sweat. I could feel beeds of condensation form on my skin as I checked out the sky before loading up the cooler for what figured to be a long day. We packed up the car and headed for the fields about 6:15. When we arrived at the complex, we saw men standing around staring at what looked from afar like swimming pools filled with brown sand. The fields, the tournament, everything, was under water. The forecasts hadn't called for it but we received essentially the wringing out of a very damp atmosphere for about 12 hours overnight.

I don't know how much rain fell but it was a lot. There was no repairing these fields. You could have had one hundred or more human beings involved in the project. You could have shipped in bone dry clay and resurfaced the darn things. The ground was so wet, nothing could have made these fields playable. And nobody tried.

Instead, we were shipped to the "one good field" in town, probably the county, if not the state. There, no fewer than 7 men worked the entire thing as best they could. We played one game and then the remainder of the tournament was called. Oh well, you really cannot fight Mother Nature. Many tried but few succeeded.

Later that day, in early afternoon, the sun finally came out. I took one of my daughters out to work some pitches on a real field, if it had dried enough. Afterwards, we noted some baseball games at far off fields so we went to see what was going on. That's where I found my friend rubbing his back, calling pitches and watching his son play.

There were any number of baseball and softball events scheduled for this weekend in places all over a tri-state region which shared the rainfall. In most spots, no games were played. In a few, fields had good enough drainage to allow elbow (shoulder and back) grease enough to make them playable. I imagine that the same sort of thing I witnessed played itself out in many locations. Fathers and mothers worked rakes, emptied bags of quick-dry substance, dug holes in which to use shop vacs to draw out the water, etc. Parents who just wanted their kids to have the opportunity to play worked themselves into spasms of varying muscle groups to prepare fields in an effort to just get in a game or two.

There are no thanks for these hardworking folks. The kids don't overtly appreciate their efforts. They won't benefit in tangible ways far into the future just because they were able to play this weekend. Probably more parents of players like me wished they could have stayed in bed beyond the rooster's crowing Sunday. You just cannot look at a single day like yesterday and think, "gee aren't we lucky we got to play."

But the truth is, the kids did benefit. There is such limited time, though it doesn't always feel like it, for kids to get out and just play ball. My kid got to pitch 4 innings and while it was not a character builder from which she'll draw for years to come, she did get a little better for the experience. She learned something yesterday playing that one game. I don't know exactly what it is but she got something out of it. It may just barely be incremental. It may not matter much in the long run. But she did get something out of it. And that's really what parenting is all about.

On a moment to moment basis, it is difficult to identify what it is you have taught your kids. They'll never thank you for what you do teach them. Many times, you are fighting things bigger than yourself. Sometimes, no matter what you do, it doesn't do any good. Often, even if it does some good, it costs you more than you can spare. But you do it anyway because you want for your kids. You want them protected. You want them to get exercise. You want them to learn important life lessons. You want them to avoid drugs, bad grades, trouble with the police, trouble with other things, etc. So you put out.

You drive them to softball practice. You take them for extra help at school. You rearrange your life for your kids' benefit. You undertake a huge assortment of things you would rather not do, all for the benefit of someone who will probably never say thank you. But you do it because you care more than words can ever show. You do it because you are biologically and psychologically predisposed to do it.

So, here is your thanks. I know it isn't much. I know it doesn't begin to repay you for the degree of effort. But thanks, nonetheless. And, in closing, I would like to remind you that not everyone does what you do. You may see yourself as one of very many but that's just a perception. Not everyone got up yesterday morning before 10.

We may not often take notice but many parents could not care less what their kids have to do. They aren't willing to go out and rake mud, spread drying compound, get up before the dawn, drive all over the kingdom to tick-infested jungle encircled, uncomfortable places to provide a ball game or three. You did it. And your kids ultimately will benefit.

So, thanks. That's it.

Get! Out! I mean it!!

2009-06-10T10:04:00.001-07:00

Too many folks claim to know really good softball yet never go to watch top events. I often hear misperceptions about higher level ball from folks who have never seen anything but a couple 14U games played in between their own 10U or 12U tournaments. You really have to get out of the house every once and again to see what the top people in this sport are doing, thinking and saying.

If you coach, you can learn a lot about pre-game warm-ups and perhaps get a couple drills you didn't know about by going to some NFP, college, showcase or big tournament games. NFP is available in only limited locations. College is done. But right now is the real season for showcases, NFCA camps which often have a tournament associated with them, and ASA qualifiers.

I'm really not just talking technical aspects of softball drills here. There is so much more to be learned by watching and listening that it boggles the mind. For example, if you are really quiet and sneaky, you might find yourself sitting within earshot of a couple college coaches talking about prospects. You could hear things like "I really liked her technical skills but her personality (and that of her parents) just didn't mesh with my team, if you know what I mean." If you're really lucky, you'll hear some very specific discussion about some of the things college coaches have experienced in the recruiting process, what they like and what they won't tolerate.

You might hear a showcase team coach approach a college coach and ask them to take a look at this or that pitcher. You might hear the college coach complain about this kid's 56 mph speed. You might hear a showcase coach tell a college coach that he has an 8th grader who is near 60 and then hear that college coach complain that if he does, in fact, have such an animal, her school won't even be in the kid's considerations. You might, if you get lucky, hear a college coach ask the showcase team coach to justify some kid's mediocre grades. The possibilities are endless. I've overheard a ton. My wife has overheard far more than I. Combined we haven't even scratched the surface.

You will also see the full spectrum in terms of softball skills, coaching methods, interpersonal relationships between players, coaches, and parents. You'll see things completely unexpected. You'll learn more than I can possionly hope to tell you.

I recall a conversation I had with a fellow I coached with. He lamented the fact that our team, between games, was always just fooling around. When he played, he would have been talking baseball the whole day. He would have watched games and then talked about different techniques and strategies employed during those games. Our girls are talking about songs, video games, and other non-softball related things. He said he believed that at the top levels, the girls are more focused on the game itself. I told him of an experience I once had at a showcase tournament which refuted his opinion of higher level players.

I was walking around and had left my chair someplace else. I came face to face with an interesting game and a high quality pitcher. So I sat down in the stands to watch. Along came a group of girls with their lunch selections, cheese fries, fruit, and assorted other healthy and unhealthy foods. They sat down nearby. These girls wore their uniforms and because I owned a program which listed all the teams' rosters, as well as where many of the kids had committed, I knew that this batch of girls consisted on a number of prospects headed to the Pac 10, Big 12, SEC, etc. This was no band of mediocre players.

But these girls were not even a little interested in the game in front of them or softball in general. They were more interested in what each other was eating. One girl was made fun of because she had a very limited diet and had entertained them all with something she had refused to eat the night before. The conversation went in all sorts of directions including favorite candies, gross foods, what some friend from afar had texted, etc. There was absolutely no discussion of softball other than perhaps an occassional comment about liking that team's uniform or disliking this one's. These girls were at least as unfocused as our young team was between games. They could have been an 8U team waiting to play in another two hours.

Other interesting interactions happen in every direction when you are at a big time tournament. You just need to be open to learning, and of course, you need to be there. This is as true for actual young softball players as it is for their parents. I have brought my girls to watch showcases for several years. Mostly they want to just run around with their friends and have fun. They don't seem to care that there is softball going on all around them. They want cheese fries, ice cream, seeds, etc. It was, at first, kind of disappointing to me. But months, even years later, one of my kids turned to me and made some comment about a good or bad play made at one of these things. I was shocked. I really didn't think she was watching. But she was and had learned something useful.

You may not know how to locate these higher level tournaments but like everything else, it can all pretty much be discovered via the internet. Go to SpySoftball and peruse the summer schedule.

There are events from now until mid-August. These events are all over the country. There are: the Pennsbury Invitational, attached to the NFCA recruitment camp in eastern PA; Team New Jersey Showcase in Edison, NJ; Colorado Firecracker tournament in Aurora; NFCA DWI in Binghampton, NY; Rising Stars Summer Showcase in Florida; Elite showcase in Texas; and various ASA and other nationals at sites all over the country, just to name a few events which draw big time players, coaches and others. I'm sure that if you compare your tournament and vacation schedule, you can find something that fits in. You really need to get out more often. Make plans to broaden your horizons!

Bullpen Catcher

2009-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I gave you a tip on improving your hitting. It was self-serving at the time but I honestly felt it could make a huge difference. Recently, a friend of mine ratified my tip and explained what it had done for his daughter, a top level player being looked at by major universities.

My big tip for you, the average softball player, is to don the gear, get behind the dish, and play backstop for pitchers, during their workouts and lessons, whenever you can.

Look, I'm approaching 50. My knees are shot. My quads are not what they were 10 years ago, let alone when I was 15. I have tendonitis, probably arthritis, in my shoulders, elbows, wrists, neck, back, etc. I could probably use rotator cuff surgery in at least one of my shoulders. My vision is not great. My daughter is 14, needs to throw 4 times per week for an hour, throws in the upper 50s, near 60, has good, sometimes slightly unpredictable movement. Her drop is pretty good but the idea is to bounce it in front of the catcher, me, and while I have managed to survive so far, my days are numbered. The other kid is also a pitcher who needs to throw 4 times per week, etc. But at least she's just 13 and does not have the speed or movement of her big sister.

I am able to fool my daughter into believing that we are throwing from 43 feet through the winter because one day she'll have to pitch from that distance. During the summer, I try to work in long toss, from the outfield, several times and she knows this is an effective practice technique. But I'm speaking frankly here. My primary reason for using these techniques is self-preservation.

I could always use a little help from a volunteer catcher.

But that's besides the point. That is the self-interest part of the equation. It says nothing about the benefits to the catcher. Those are significant.

My friend's message to me went something like this: "one other thing, aside from the other important techniques she is learning, she started catching pitchers. She goes to pitching practice with local pitchers, puts on the gear and catches for them. This helped her with spins, hand/arm/body positioning and just seeing/tracking pitches. That was big for her."

If you think of the early years, say 10U and 12U, most of the success of pitchers has to do with quirks. That is, frequently we see very successful pitchers who have odd motions and release points. They don't throw a lot of movement and their location skills are not yet well developed. But they are successful because kids have trouble picking up the ball out of their hand. People, especially pitcher's parents, don't like to admit it but much of the success of young pitchers has to do with these quirky deliveries.

I remember several years ago a team I coached having loads of trouble with a particular pitcher who didn't snap true. I thought she was throwing a drop curve. That's certainly not unheard of with 12 year old pitchers. And this kid was throwing a ball that moved like a drop curve. When I approached her father to ask what she was throwing, he informed me that she has not been pitching for very long and had had little formal instruction. She only had, according to this father, one pitch, the fastball. Later she hurt her elbow due to her quirks. She never regained her stature as a pitcher but that too is besides the point. This kid was successful because kids had trouble picking up the ball out of her hand and because she had funky movement, however slight. I imagine that if every kid on our team had caught this kid enough to really get comfortable with her release and the trajectory of the ball, which was always pretty much the same, they would have had no trouble hitting her.

In later years, say at 14U and 16U, real pitchers remain and those who merely possess quirks start to disappear. Pitchers mechanics are much improved over 12U ball. They throw harder, of course, but the batters' nervous systems are better developed and speed doesn't thwart that many hitters. These more developed pitchers throw far superior location and their movement pitches are actually doing what they are supposed to do. The tricks to hitting them are 1) seeing the ball out of the hand; 2) judging the trajectory of the pitch based on the visual clues; 3) knowing what a ball is going to do, subconciously, based on spins visible in a very short period of time; and 4) judging the location as quickly as possible.

Don't be confused by my emphasis on seeing and judging the pitch. Hitting mechanics are still king. But assuming a certain level of skill in this regard, picking up the pitch, knowing where it is going, and understanding movement make for better hitters. I also put a ton of stock in visualization but I'm assuming you are doing everything right and now need to be better at the rest of the hitting game.

I have watched a number of kids with outstanding mechanics, etc. struggle at the plate. I often hear complaints from parents about how the hitting instructor is great but uses the tee, some other device or a pitching machine, and cannot offer the opportunity to hit off live pitching. My daughters have, from time to time, been asked to pitch batting practices so hitters can get to face live pitching. Teams we have been involved with have run entire practices, sometimes multiple ones each week, at which nothing else was done aside from live pitched batting practice. Yet, seeing a single pitcher and taking a few hacks so everyone can get through the workout just does not provide hitters with as much experience as catching a full stable of pitchers often, frequently can.

If you hit at a private workout with a pitcher available, chances are pretty good that you'll get 10 to 15 minutes of drills, another couple spent on techniques, and then perhaps ten minutes worth of pitched practice. You'll see maybe 25 - 50 pitches. If your team of 12 rostered players shows up for an hour and a half batting practice, chances are pretty good that you'll see even fewer pitches. On the other hand, if you catch a pitcher's workout, you will be catching pitches for a half an hour. You'll probably get to catch as many as 150 pitches of all sorts and to all locations. It is a much more full experience.

At one of the lessons my pitcher-daughters go to, the pitchers all have to spend half their time catching other pitchers. They rotate through so they each, at one time or another, catch every pitcher in their group lesson.

While not all that many dedicated pitchers have the time to also take batting instruction, many of the local pitchers are among the best hitters. Of the very best pitchers from this stable, those who attend lessons at the highest levels and see almost every good local pitcher, some are absolutely the best hitters around. Why is that? Are they just better athletes than all the other girls at other positions? I doubt it.

Another thing that is evident is many catchers from local travel ball also happen to be among the best hitters. They get to catch a bunch of different pitchers during their travelo experiences over several years. That experience makes them better hitters. Of those who are not pitchers and catchers, many once were. I think that speaks for itself.

You can figure out how to get behind the dish at pitching lessons and practices merely by asking around. If the pitcher on your team goes to some privates with a coach, ask to attend and volunteer to catch. Then, when you are there, give that private coach your phone number and tell him or her that you would be willing to catch other pitchers. Somebody should bite and give you a call when the usual catcher is ailing or when dad or mom finally decides they don't want to do this anymore. When you are practicing with your team and the coach is looking around for catchers, volunteer. It might take you a little time to get used to the gear but it will be a worthwhile experience.

If I have not convinced you that catching pitchers is a great way to improve your hitting, at least let me convince you to give it a try. Then judge the results for yourself. Don't get hooked into always catching the same pitcher. Try to get behind the dish for as many pitchers as possible regardless of skill level. See as varied an assortment of pitchers, motions, release points, and pitches as you can. I know I will thank you from the bottom of my back, my shoulders, my face, etc. And I believe in the end you will be the one giving the thanks to the pitchers who allow you to catch them!

Free Market Economics

2009-06-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

I've been watching and listening for any mention of the current administration taking over the softball showcase world. There just does not seem to be anything out there. That means we are all at the mercy of the free market. So it is strictly a buyer beware proposition.

Some months ago, perhaps a year or more, I received disturbing word from a softball acquaintance of mine. This guy's daughter had joined a showcase team to get in front of college coaches. The team was playing a showcase tournament at which there was no elimination round playing to an ultimate champion. The thing was organized purely to get college softball aspiring kids in front of college coaches. The guy's daughter had done her homework, identified several schools she would be interested in, and contacted the coaches to get information and, ultimately, to get them to take a look at her. One of the coaches was in attendance but the girl was not in the lineup for that game.

I'm not sure if I remember this perfectly straight but either the college coach or the kid asked the team's coach if she could be inserted in the lineup for a few innings. The reaction of the showcase team's coach was somewhat odd. That coach informed the kid not only that she would not be inserted into the game, but also that the coach would always make all the decisions about who would play where and how much. He/she did not appreciate being approached to put some player in. The coach said he/she would always play to win and play whomever gave the team the best shot at winning, always, under all conditions!

That is disturbing to me. The best shot at winning a showcase game at a non-competitive tournament? Who is zooming who?

The world of showcase ball is very expensive with kids (parents) paying more to play on these teams than on run of the mill competitive travel teams. Typically, we are talking thousands of dollars before we even look at travel expenses. If you want to participate on a showcase team, you are definitely in for at least a thousand more than other teams and then, once you want to go to the full complement of events, well, by the time you are done, you may be out of pocket as much as ten large. At least one parent told me he had spent closer to 15 one year because he wanted to travel and watch his kid play. That's fine, if you can afford it but, well, you can go to college for less, especially if you get some academic and/or financial aid.

When I refer to "non-competitive" tournaments what I mean is, the world of showcases is varied. There are those with a set schedule at which winning games means absolutely nothing. There are some which conclude with an ultimate champion. There are many others where the only trophy is bragging rights to some sort of best record in bracket title. I suppose you could participate in the ones which end with a champion just like you would any other tournament, that is, try to win the things. I also suppose there is value to an organization which earns the bragging rights for winning a bracket. Perhaps you can earn games on a field where there are actual college coaches next year. Perhaps you will find an easier time recruiting players next year. But the ones which do not have any sort of winner or loser are an entirely a different matter.

When parents go into their pockets to pay for showcase teams, they are looking for exposure. Most of the time, they are choosing a team based on the salesmanship of the coaching staff rather than their technical softball skills. They want guys and gals who are on a first name basis with the college coaches. They want people who schmooze targeted coaches, take them out to dinner, know their kids first names, etc. They want to be on teams with good reputations, good reputations for placing kids. They frequently are not interested in the team's chances to sport an undefeated record or otherwise lay claim to best in state titles.

To be sure, sometimes kids join these teams with an eye towards earning a berth to ASA "A" or Gold nationals, perhaps even competing well once there, if not winning the whole thing. It can be a bit of a fine line. But while ordinary travel ball coaches have an allegiance to the full roster to get the maximum number of games for each and all, showcase coaches have that added duty to get the best possible exposure for all the girls who are paying the freight. Whereas a typical travel coach fields his or her lineup to get as deep into the tournament as possible, the showcase coach must also serve the more important goal.

I remember sitting through my very first showcase game. The pitcher for one team was rolling along nicely. She was truly outstanding, a likely D-1 prospect. I was mesmerized by her skills. Then came the fourth inning and the coach pulled her for a much less impressive kid. The team was in the lead something like 2-0 but the next pitcher quickly yielded some baserunners and then a couple runs. Neither team seemed to take much notice of the pitching change. Nobody seemed very upset or happy about taking or relinquishing the lead. I was dazed and confused. Why had the coach pulled her? Was she hurt? Had she pitched to some pre-arranged number of pitches or innings and now was her time to rest? I didn't know what was going on. But that coach had 4 pitchers to get in and just two games to do it that day. The games were time limited so he pulled his pitcher after 3 and put the next kid in. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

More recently a fellow wrote to me to complain that his daughter had joined what was called a showcase team. The team had brought several pitchers onto a slim roster. They went to their first couple of tournaments and had used just two of these girls. The other pitchers never so much as warmed up. His daughter was one of the "other pitchers." He wondered if he was getting upset over nothing. He wanted some advice. I told him to find another team and leave. But don't just leave and move on. Tell all your softball friends and acquaintances to avoid the team like the plague. Tell them exactly what happened. The rest will take care of itself.

That is the way the showcase world gets policed, by you and me, by buyer beware. The softball world is very small and if a team holds itself out to showcase girls but plays every game as if their reputation demanded victory, well, the next time they conduct tryouts, the talent pool will be significantly reduced. Who, in their right mind, with a full set of facts, is going to join a so-called showcase team which feels no loyalty whatsoever to the goal of actually showcasing their kids?

The truth is, this particular team does not play many true showcases. Rather they play a few real showcases and then mostly compete at run of the mill tournaments which call themselves showcases. These do not draw a lot of college coaches. They do not draw the best possible teams even from the local area. They are showcases in name but they are not showcases for bigger time talent. And the teams which attend are usually pretty petty, choosing to put winning over showing their kids.

A friend of mine told me about how he had his team playing showcases. I tried not to ask the critical questions about which college coaches he saw there. He noted that the teams they had played were very good and his team had done poorly. The second day of the tournament, they were stuck in a bad location due to their poor performance the day before. But I wonder how many college coaches were at the good site and I wonder how many of these teams were just there to fill out there schedule or tune up for the time when they will be playing national qualifiers. This guy's team was very young. And he was new to the very idea of "showcase" tournaments. He had signed up for this one merely because the organization running the tournament had called it a "showcase."

Showcases, like all products, run the full spectrum of quality. There are showcases which are really just dressed up 18U tournaments. They don't really draw any coaches. There are those affiliated with skills assessment camps with throngs of coaches in attendance. There are those which exist purely because they bring in droves of college coaches and the best teams year after year. Before you choose a showcase team and shell out your limited sheckles, you really need to educate yourself on the big, important showcases and learn which of these a particular team plans on attending.

If a team has a schedule made up up Jason's Car City Softball Championship and College Showcase, ASA/NSA/PONY A or B states, PBA softball extravaganza, etc., I would hope you wouldn't be mesmerized by the term "showcase" in their name. I would hope you wouldn't shell out $3,000 to play a bunch of pretty good tournaments within driving distance of your home. if you are going to pay more than regular travel, you;ve got to go to at least 2 to 3 bigger name events.

On the other hand, let's face the fact that many of us do not have the spare cash around to put our 6th graders, no matter how good they are, on a team which plans 6 out of state treks via airplane this summer. For many, a lesser interstate experience is appropriate. But I hope the prices are commensurate with the experience. If on one hand I have a team headed to 3 Gold qualifiers, 4 true big time showcases, and 3 other events, and on the other a team playing mostly dressed up regular tournaments, I would not expect both teams to cost $3,000 before travel expenses. If a team charges you $3 grand to play local showcases with no coaches around, maybe you're being taken.

In any event, if my daughter is involved with a true showcase team, I expect full lines of communication between myself and the team's manager. We all understand that our daughters need to stand up on their own, learn to deal with coaches on their own, and generally make their own way into the real world. But those fine and noble goals go out the window when we are talking about $10 grand for the year and multiple years going forwards.

The kid cannot enter into a legally binding contract. If I'm essentially purchasing an automobile, well, I demand lines of communication. And whereas I would not ever approach a coach to discuss my kid's playing time on a competitive run of the mill travel team, I'll be damned if my dollars are going to go to showcase 9 other kids while my daughter rides the pine and bides her time. Don't tell me that she needs to learn to pay dues and she'll be the beneficiary of other kids doing the same as she ages up. That's not the way it works. Check out your competitors.

In softball, as in other human pursuits, it is buyer beware. Showcase ball is no different. But showcase comes with a higher price tag. So before you buy the horse, look at the teeth. You want to know exactly the tournaments you'll be watching. You want somewhat firm commitments about playing time and an understanding that if a college coach comes around specifically to see your kid, the team's coach will be considerate enough to do what he or she can to get your kid in there.

You want to be able to talk to someone if you are not happy with the situation. Don't tell me parents must stay in the background with respect to this aspect. Yes we need to be neither seen nor heard when the college coaches are around but we have full right to talk to coaches and representatives of the organization about any topic. This isn't the high school team. This isn't 14U NSA ball nor any sort of regular travel team. This is showcase. Lots is riding on the opportunities here. There are alternatives to your team. I'll trust in your expertise but I am an active participant. This is a partnership.

Baserunning Fundamentals

2009-06-08T09:08:00.001-07:00

When the word "fundamentals" is used in a softball or baseball context, most often the images conjured up have to do with hitting, fielding, or throwing the ball. We don't often think of anything to do with baserunning as "fundamental" per se. In baseball, where the important parts of the running game don't emerge in the early years - leading off base appears in late stages say at 12U travel (50-70) or when the bases move to 90 feet at 14U - it is understandable that base running fundamentals are not taught at 8U or 10U levels. In softball, the bases and most of the rules remain pretty much the same from 10U on up. And we really do need to teach these fundamentals as much as any others.

There can be restrictions at 10U regarding bunting and stealing but for the most part, what remains unchanged from 10U through the highest levels are 1) you can't leave base until ball release, 2) after the ball is released until it is back in the circle, you can pretty much do anything you want, at risk of being put out, and 3) once it is back in the circle, you must proceed directly to a base (referred to as the look back rule).

I'll take a moment and explain the "look back rule" which is what compels the runner to proceed immediately to a base once the ball is back in the circle because I think sometimes folks can get confused about this. Obviously, in softball, we don't have leading the way they do in baseball. So, after the pitch, when does the runner need to be on the base? The runner needs to be on the base for the period of time leading up to the pitch. So, once the ball gets back into the circle, runners have to go wherever they are going so the game can proceed.

There is not an obligation that a runner return to the base last occupied. She could attempt to move up a base. But the time to decide and go is now, once the ball is back in the circle. So, a runner could lead off base on the pitch and then stand there while the catcher fakes a pickoff throw. But once the ball gets back in the circle, she must proceed to the next base or go back to the one she's gonna stay at. If she does not, the ump can call her out. The only exception would be if the pitcher were making a play. A pitcher is considered making a play if she has the ball in her throwing hand and is threatening to throw, like holding the ball in a cocked position.

There is no requirement, express or otherwise, that the pitcher "look" the runner "back" but sometimes people around me have expressed that this is precisely the meaning of the "look back rule." It isn't. A baserunner waiting to be "looked back" to base stands a decent chance of being called out for failing to return!

The reason I harp on this subject is because it plays an important part in the baserunning fundamentals I'd like to see you all teach. That is, a very important part of baserunning fundamentals is returning to base. But I suppose we should get on base and then lead off first.

The first element of baserunning fundamentals is necessarily the movement from batter to baserunner. The "easiest" way to get onto base is via the walk. What I want my hitters to do when they walk is drop the bat immediately and then run to first as if they are trying to beat out a grounder. I do not want them over-running first but I want a full out sprint to get to the bag. We often see habits from rec days of girls getting concerned about their new bat being put away properly or they do not wish to make the coach get up off the bucket and retrieve the bat. So, when the ump says "take your base," they smile and then start looking around for a nice place to put the bat down or for a coach or teammate to reach out and grab for it. That's no good. Drop it and go.

Another less popular way to get on base is the ole strike em out drop the ball play. I want my batters to, after striking out, be told by the first base coach that they are out. I don't want anyone to ask questions, look back at the plate ump or anything like that. Drop it and go. Coach will stop you if you are out. This is critical for a number of reasons. First off, the rules are, the batter is allowed to try to make first provided that the base is unoccupied with less than two outs or at any time there are two outs.

This rule is actually more complex than it seems. Think of it this way. If there is a runner on first and she steals right before you strike out, is first occupied? Yes it is and the batter is out via the K. But grab hold of anyone, particularly the catcher and ask them this question while telling them they have 2 seconds to respond and what you'll typically get is a throw to first to make sure the batter is out. In other words, your runner from first gets to steal for free.

Further, at the moment of the K, it is somewhat unusual for the catcher to know automatically how many outs there are while also contemplating the rule about when the batter is out. If there are two outs and first is occupied, there is some chance that she will grad the ball and then roll it out to the mound while neglecting the runner headed to first. Or better yet, there is a chance she'll try to throw out the runner stealing from first at second. I've seen it happen dozens of times.

OK, here's one final thought on th9is subject for you. Let's say it is strike three but the pitch hits the dirt as the batter swings at it and the catcher, thereafter, makes a clean play on the ball - she does not drop it. What happens then? This may seem a bit pedantic to some of you but I have heard at least one person get this wrong once a year for the past 30 years. The answer is, if the ball touches the dirt, it isn't a clean catch - you have to tag or put out the batter before she reaches first. All that has to happen is the ball has to hit dirt. It doesn't matter how the catcher deals with it so long as she doesn't snatch it from the air before it contacts the ground. But that's enough of that.

A final way to get on base involves hitting the ball into play and reaching the bag before being put out. What I have seen taught is running through the bag and then curling into foul ground after reaching the bag or, alternately, if the ball is hit into the outfield, curling into foul ground and then rounding out towards second. I want neither.

As a first consideration, I want everyone to understand the use of the safety base at first. If the ball is hit into the infield, the runner should use the outer base, the one in foul ground. If the ball is hit into the outfield, you should use the inner base, in fair territory. On balls hit to right where the RF seems like she might be making a play on the runner at first, I would stick with the outside bag unless the 1B was using it. But this gets tricky. Technically a ball hit to RF is in the outfield and the inner bag should be used. But because this play seems more like an infield one, I think runners should be taught to use the outside base.

Another consideration is the run through the bag and then curl into foul ground thing. There are some popular misconceptions in this. First, particularly at very young ages, there is a misunderstanding of the rules which tells beginners that the runner at first needs to turn clockwise into foul ground. There's no such rule. You can over run first and turn whichever way suits you so long as you don't make a movement like you are going to go to second. Once you make towards second, you have to go or get back to first - it doesn't matter which way you turned.

More importantly, I don't want girls in practice to run like the wind through the bag and then slap the coach's hand out on the outfield grass. Rather, at the moment of striking the base with their foot, I want runners to work towards coming to a stop. "Breaking down" is the term usually used. You reach the base and then do whatever you can to stop while taking a glance towards your right into foul ground, just in case there is an overthrow, you may see the ball go flying away. Otherwise, you stop and then turn on your bionic hearing in case your coach tells you to go.

If the ball is hit into the outfield, except right, our batter-baserunner should easily reach safely without having to over run the base. I want her to turn and get slightly off the bag, stop, look and listen. I do not want her to round big time, and then see what is going on. This is softball not baseball. The distances are closer. If you enter high school ball with the idea that you should round the bag when you get a hit to center, well, you're gonna get thrown out at least once before your career is over. I want girls taught to round slightly but not take big lead offs of first following a hit. If there is any chance the ball is going to get by the outfielders, the base coach should see that long before the runner gets there and then, hopefully, direct her to go, go, go!

But so much for just getting on base. Those are important fundamentals but not the ones I want to focus on. The ones I want to focus on involve being on base, leading off and getting back. The first element we encounter is the proper stance to take at the bases. Often coaches will use the baseball stance which is basically your old athletic 'ready position" with weight evenly distributed and the butt low. But this stance is intended for situations with leading in which the baserunner is just as likely to have to go back to the bag as he or she is to proceed to the next base. That doesn't work as well when the objective is to get off the base - one directional. here we want to put weight on the pivot foot and take it off the stride foot. We want to explode off the base at the precise moment the ball comes out of the pitcher's hand.

The pivot foot must have a solid base from which to push as the runner strides towards the next base. If the bases are anchored to the ground as most are, using the base itself as a sort of starting block is fine. If they are not, it is preferable to put the foot next to the base and use solid ground to push off of. If you come to fields and notice that bases are not anchored, I suggest asking the umps during the pre-game meeting, if it will be ok for your kids to put their feet next to the base - while of course still making contact with the bag.

Most girls stride strongest with their right leg so it is the left foot which should be firmly on the ground and bare the majority of weight. The right leg should be back behind the base. The arms should be coiled. And as the pitcher begins the downward journey of her arm through the windmill motion, the arms should come forward and the stride leg explode into running position. In this manner, the runner is into a full stride, though she has not lost contact with the base, as the pitcher's arm comes down to the release point. Thereafter, she pushes off the base, hopefully, at the exact moment the ball comes out of the pitcher's hand. The more practice a kid can get with an actual pitcher pitching, the better. But you have to go over technique first.

Let's be clear that the runner is not allowed to lose contact with the base before the pitcher releases the ball. If she does lose contact early, she can be called out. But if you are playing a preliminary round game with just one ump, or if there are two umps and other runners on base they are watching, it would seem to be ok to come off the base a little early. That's true when it is unlikely to be called. A single ump behind the plate is almost never going to call out a runner at first for leaving early. The same is true with two umps and the field one concerned mostly with the runner at second or third. We want to teach girls to be aggressive so it is important to teach them to recognize when they should more quickly leave the base.

Along the same lines, I once took my team aside and asked them if they understood when to leave base. There was some minor confusion but for the most part they understood. So then I asked them what happens if you leave early. Everyone said, "you get called out." I said, "no you don't. You get called out if you leave early and the umpire sees you do it." That's gonna sound like cheating to some but I suggest to you that it is not. It is merely being aggressive. My next question to my charges was, "if you get called out for leaving base early, is that: 1) always really, really bad; 2) no big deal; or 3) it depends. They loooked at me funny and then concluded that it was always bad since you get an out and have to leave base. One girl said her father would "kill her" if she ever got called out for leaving base early.

I told the girls that if nobody on this team ever gets called out for leaving base early, that would be a bad thing since we aren't being aggressive enough. I also let them know that if they're on third in a tie game, in the last inning, well, then getting called out for leaving early is a bad thing. But generally, I do want my girls to be aggressive enough to sometimes get called out for leaving early. We talked at length about situations in which it would be good, those in which it would be bad, etc. But I didn't want the point lost that I want them to be aggressive. I want somebody at some point to get called out for leaving early.

So, that's getting off and the next question is, what do you do once your right foot is striding and your left has left the bag. Well, that too depends on the situation.

I want my runners at first to get a 3 stride running lead and then stop in the old ready position, weight balanced, ready to go in either direction ... unless the ball is contacted. If it is contacted angle down, I want them ready to proceed to second. If it is angle up, I want them to freeze unless there are two outs (and we'll get to that).

I want my runners at second to get a 5 stride running lead and again stop in ready position. That's because the fielders are further from the bag. If the 5 stride running lead puts them in front of the SS, the strides are too long and I want them to shorten up. If a girl is not stealing, I never want her all the way out to the SS. The opposite is true as well. If the SS is cheating so far towards third that you find yourself miles away from her, I want you to go a bit further, unless the 2B is creeping in behind the bag. So generally go as far and no further than the closest infielder to second. I would say you want to be a full running stride closer to second than the closest fielder so you can get back before they even get there. Of course, if you are trying to pull a delayed steal, then perhaps you should go out all the way to the fielder. But delayed stealing is a subject for another day.

At third base, you are far too valuable of a commodity to play around. I want a two walking step lead and no more than that. I want you off the bag and ready to head for home but I don't want you to make yourself a target for a pickoff play, despite the piece I just wrote about catchers not trying to pick off runners at third. There are certainly situations and baserunners who i ant to try to draw a throw to third but I'm talking broad generalities here and in general I want no more than a two step walking lead at third. i don't think I need to discuss the fair ground/foul ground aspect of the lead at third. I think that's obvious.

So we're off base at whatever distance, depending on which base we occupy, and now what do we do? Go back, of course! But let me be crystal clear about this. This is really the crux of what I have to say today. You get on base, get into a good lead off position, lead on the pitch, somewhat aggressively, see what's up and then GO BACK. I don;t want dancing. I don't want taunting. I want you to be ready for action and barring any developments, I want you safely bag to the bag ... NOW. You have to be heads up just in case something happens like a wayward throw back to the pitcher. -; But there's no point in being off base if all that is happening is the catcher is throwing the ball back to the pitcher and getting ready for the next pitch. So go back. Get on the bag.

I have had some kids play for me who stroll back to the bag. I've had many who feel the need to taunt and dance. I've had some who like to saunter back as if some predatory cat looking to show off its athleticism. I don't like this as a general rule. I think this is just too showy and not about getting business done. I want you back unless we are going to try something like a delayed steal.

If we are going to try something, we aren't just going to stay off the base and make it obvious since everyone else is continually rushing back to get on the bag, we are going to set it up. We are going to try to play with the other team's head. But 90% of the time, I want you off and then back. We need not get into the other aspects. We're talking fundamentals.

It is absolutely critical that girls on third not saunter back or lounge around. When you return to third, you turn your back from the ball. So you need to get back immediately and leave no opportunity for the opponent to pick you off while you're napping.

Lest I forget when I say go back to base, I am of course forgetting about the situation with two outs and any sort of contact. I suppose I have seen more players at high levels not go all out on hit balls when there are two outs, than any other mistake. It is important to explain to girls at length that when they are on base and say the ball is popped out to the OF, you gotta go. The onyl two out situation during which you shouldn't go is when you are on second, not forced, and the ball is hit right in front of you. Then you have to hold and as soon as the ball is thrown, you proceed to third and turn the bag in case the throw gets away.

On a 3-2 pitch with two outs, runners who are forced must go as if they are stealing. Of course, we always want girls to try to pick up the ball in order to avoid interference. But all forced runners must go on the pitch with a 3-2 count and 2 outs. Sometimes, when runners go all out with two outs on struck balls, fielders make mistakes. For example, I have seen shortstop throw the ball home to head off a run. I've seen pitchers do this too. I've seen infielders who had to chase a ball down turn to make a force out throw at a secondary base because they didn't think they could get the batter out at first. If runners proceed immediately with two outs, sometimes this very event can open up an inning.

I think that is enough information for one posting - probably way too much. We touched on some important fundamentals of base running. We've talked a bit about look back and some other rules. I mention this stuff today because I watched a team break almost all of my cardinal rules this past weekend. I saw a situation in which one run was going to make all the difference in the outcome of a game. One team had a runner on second who took a two step walking lead. I'm not sure why since neither middle infielder was covering the bag after pitches. And both were cheating towards the foul line. This girl could have taken a 7 step running lead and never been challenged. But she didn't. So when the first pitch was thrown into the dirt, she didn't go. Her coach yelled at her to come unless he stopped her. But he never questioned her lead. When the next pitch got away, she started towards third but stopped when the coach realized she would never make it in time and held up his hands. Had she taken the lead the defense had given her, she would have made it without a throw. When the next one got away, she finally ran but she was off to such a bad start the catcher easily threw her out. I heard the coach talk to the kid about deciding to go sooner. He never noticed that her lead stunk and was the primary reason she was out.

Later that same game I saw the same thing again. the girl failed to advance until a grounder was hit to second for the second out. Had she advanced as she should have, she would have scored on that play. Later as that game went into ITB, there was another girl on second. A ball was hit to the SS and this kid, who also got a bad lead raced towards the kid making the play on the ball. From what I could see, she intentionally made contact with the SS. Obviously the umpire called interference. The kid was out, ball game over.

I saw this play develop in slow motion. I turned to see what the coaches looked like in this moment of losing. They had no idea the ump would call interference. They all had looks of jubiliation on their faces. They thought something good was going to come out of this play. Had I been able to quiz them at this moment, I believe they would have said they thought obstruction would be called against the SS and the runner would be awarded third. In the moment after the call, as the other team left the field happy they had just won the game, I saw these same coaches look puzzled. Nobody understood the call!

Preparation is critical. Coaches need to know the rules. Players must be steeped in fundamentals, not just fundamentals of hitting, fielding, throwing but also fundamentals of baserunning. No kid should get a two step lead at second. No kid should be ignorant of rules regarding what they can, should, or are prohibited from doing on the bases. Fundamentals are the key to winning games.

Who Is In Charge?

2009-06-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I wrote some commentary having to do with several topics, one of which was about catchers who had free reign to chase runners regardless of the situation. At that time, I suggested to you that good teams do not just allow their catchers to throw at runners whenever they please. I received a little pushback from a friend who thought I was talking about very young catchers and felt we need to encourage these girls to make the throws at a young age because they're going to have to make them when they get older. I was not writing about younger catchers. I was referring to all catchers from very young but including those in college. The specific examples I referred to were all at high school level and up. I agree that sometimes you need to encourage a catcher to make certain throws in order to develop their skills. But allowing catchers to just throw whenever and to whichever base can be as bad for their development as it is for the team.

Without going back over the specifics I wrote, what I suggested was for any interested party to create an experiment through which to judge the success and failure rate of "aggressive" catcher-made throws. I feel the results of a real examination of certain throws we often see catchers try to make would be enlightening.

Typically, we see catchers try to throw out runners at first when those runners take liberties by getting a little too far off base. That can be a very valuable tool for certain situations. Depending on whether you have a righty or lefty batter, the catcher can have a great look at the runner, the fielder covering, and the outfielder backing up the play. First is the safest base to throw to.

Second is a bit tougher because the throw is quite a bit longer. There is also the fact that the pitcher has her back to the base runner and is not necessarily in on the gag. I have seen numerous times when a catcher tried to pick off a runner at second and the pitcher made a great play to get her glove on the ball and prevent it from flying into the outfield. She didn't know the catcher was throwing to second. Sometimes, despite herculean effort, such a pitcher can only manage to tip the throw and then the ball sails someplace where there is no back-up. This alone can make the throw to second a low percentage one.

Also, because fielders need to be in position to make plays if the batter hits a grounder up the middle, the 2B cannot always get to the bag timely to take a throw down to second. Obviously, during most of these situations, the SS is concerned with covering third on steals so she's not going to be the one covering second. That's as it should be anyway because you really want the covering fielder to come from the back side of the runner on a pick-off. If you happen to have your 3B covering third and your SS is freed to take the throw at second, it is still a bad idea to have her covering since she is coming from the same direction as the baserunner. But I'm hoping most of you realize your 3B needs to be in for the bunt and the SS should be covering third.

So the difficulty of getting a runner at second do to the fielder perhaps getting there a little late, plus the distance involved, plus the fact that the pitcher may misread what is going on, makes the pickoff at second difficult and a low percentage play. Add to this that generally, the baserunner at second gets off a bit more than one at first or third, that she may deliberately try to draw a pickoff throw in order to advance to third, and the fact that a throw from second to third to get the runner who moves on the pickoff attempt is made all the more difficult by the covering SS probably being in a bad position to take a throw from second. What's more, the secondary throw to third, should the runner attempt to advance on the pickoff, is a really bad proposition since a bad throw will sail out of play and therefore hand the baserunner home. The ad hoc pickoff at second is not something we want to encourage.

The pickoff throw at third, however, is my personal demon. I absolutely hate it. I have seen more runs score as a result of a pickoff at third than for any other type of play. I've seen catchers strike the batter with the throw - once a game was lost when the ball struck the batter's helmet and sailed out of play. I've seen balls many times strike the helmet of the baserunner diving back in and then fly out of play. I've seen SS's get struck in the face and other places by such a throw as the ball comes in right past the diving baserunner. The SS never saw the ball until it was on top of her as the runner just barely missed being hit. I have seen catchers stumble as they went to release the ball and throw it past the LF backing up on the play. And I have seen very, very few runners ever caught off base like this.

The overall point I ewant to drive home is NOT => don't ever try to pickoff a runner. of course we want to pick off runners. But it cannot be an ad hoc decision by the catcher. It must be called by someone else. And just about everyone on the defensive team should know it is coming.

If we're going to make a pickoff attempt at first, I think I would rather try to lure the runner into complacency by having the 1B up for the bunt and not rushing back to cover the bag. If the baserunner belongs to me, and she sees the 1B rushing back to cover, I want her back on the bag. That's the way all runners should be trained. But it is just possible that the 2B can sneak in behind the runner without the base coach realizing and catch everyone sleeping. So, at the very least, the C, 1B, 2B, and RF have to know a pickoff is coming. It has to be a called play. The catcher can call it. The 2B can call it if she thinks she can sneak in. The RF, at least in theory might be the one who would notice the opportunity so she should be able to communicate to 2B, etc. if she thinks it should be tried. And of course, a coach should be able to call it.

If we think of it this way, it should work. There has to be a verbal call like "Red Rose" or some such where the catcher is letting the 1B and 2B know she is going to throw. 2B should let the RF know, if the C can't be heard. Alternately, the C could have a hand signal for the various fielders but it can't be something that will be confused with other signs. Bottom line is everyone must know it is coming, everyone except the runner and base coach!

If the pickoff is coming at second, like I said, I want the 2B covering that so my SS is covering third. You cannot do this in standard bunt coverage situations since the 2B has to cover first. But if you want to run something like this, I think I want a pitchout anyway. In fact, if you suspect a bunt, the runner on second is expecting the SS to cover third and the 2B to cover first so she's likely to be vulnerable. She's also more concerned with moving to third if the batter gets one down. She believes nobody will be covering second so she may be lazy getting back to the bag. Call a pitch out, have 2B cover second while SS runs to cover third, and pick her off, if you want to be aggressive. I've seen this play wreak havoc in ITB a few times. Most importantly, I would limit my catcher trying any pickoff at second to these types of plays. And I'd want it called from the bench.

With respect to third, I have more trouble identifying the situation in which I want a pickoff attempt. I have absolutely no doubt that many of you can come up with certain situations perhaps you saw this past weekend. But I also have no doubt that I cvan see the situations differently, that I'd be less prone to try a pickoff in those. I do realize that having a runner on third with no or 0one out, the game tied late, etc. can really cause stress. I realize that you'd be willing to trade almost anything, except a run, to get rid of that girl. I just happen to think the pickoff from C is the lowest percentage play.

I'd almost prefer a play in which the C throws immediately and hard back to the P who wheels and fires to get the lazy runner out. That's a 40 foot throw with a clean line. But most well schooled base runners are not going to be vulnerable to that sort of thing. If a coach or say the 1B were to notice that the runner at third were off the bag more than a full stride and a dive, and then be slow or lackadaisical getting back to the bag, then I think a pickoff 2 to 1 to 6 ought to be attempted. I'm sorry, I just don't want the throw to come from the C.

This is a really important issue to me for many reasons. I've been lucky to have had the opportunity to watch a lot of very good catchers. Almost all of them are very aggressive players. They'd like to get every runner out, whether they steal or simply lead. Several girls I've watched have cannon arms. I've seen quite a few with sub-2 pops. And yet, I've seen more bad throws, costing a run at a critical time, than I have seen runners actually picked off.

Recently I watched a young catcher ply her trade. She's very good. But I believe she is overly aggressive and I think I know why. I don't want to get into the reasons why. But I think this sort of behavior needs to be, if not controlled, at least tempered, even aty a very young age. You don't do a kid any favor to build up the notion that she should throw to every base, every time, if when she gets to Gold level, high school, or college, her coach is going to take pickoff decisions out of her hands. And in the meantime, if she costs her teams more games than she wins by being the hero, especially on elimination days, well, you get the idea.

OK, I don;t want to go into this any further. I just want everyone involved in this game, particularly coaches and perhaps, to a lesser extent the catchers themselves, to consider the percentages when doing a pickoff play. I want you to assess this realistically. Its OK to pickoff but let's have specifically designed, called for and executed plays for this.

That Time Of Year

2009-06-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. What time of year? The time of year when school ball ends and recreational programs shutter their snack bars, collect up equipment and plan family vacations. Softball is over! Really? No, not really!

Before I get into details, let me explain why, on June 5, I start out proclaiming the "end of softball season." Every year, right about now, I start getting an endless stream of e-mail from folks whose kids play exclusively rec. Their season is done and they are sad. They are sad because they want more. Their daughters discovered a love for the game this past spring and right when they hit their stride, the rec season was over.

These parents turn to their daughters and tell them, "Its OK. We'll get you into fall softball. It'll only be a few months without the game." Then they look around and start asking questions to see if they can locate a fall ball league. If they are unlucky, they won't find any. If they are lucky, their town, or the next one over, will have something. They'll sign up, practice some during the summer with dad hitting grounders and playing catch with the kid. Then they'll go to fall ball and discover it isn't as fun as spring ball was.

I remember the first time we did exactly what I'm describing. At the time, I think I had a 10 and a 9 year old. We signed up for fall ball one town over from us since our league offered nothing beyond spring. We signed our kids up and then whenever I could, I went out in the yard or drove out to the fields to practice by ourselves. Then fall ball finally got going after a long boring summer. We were assigned to a team and then learned that the entire league was a combined 10U and 12U, there were just four teams, and the whole thing was a bust of boring walk filled games without any pitching and with few decent hits.

It was at this time we simultaneously entered travel ball but that's another story. The point is, right after spring ball is over, kids and parents are almost always left wanting more until they find a little more and realize it is quite a bit less. So at this point, I find I must delve into the issue of travel ball more deeply.

There are many towns across the fruited plain which have quite a bit more than what I describe as the typical rec experience. Most towns are involved with Little League, Babe Ruth or some such. Right now those organizations are putting together their annual tournaments. This consists locally of some sort of selection process for the "all-star" team. Let's face it, however, that many towns' "all-star" selection process is that thing under which coaches' daughters are deemed to be the best players regardless of any actual talent, training or commitment. I recall looking through player evaluations for some all-star team I was involved with and the only thing I could think of when I saw the ratings next to players' names was "you have got to be kidding me."

The typical all-star experience involves a team of would-be superstar coaches' daughters whose skills are wanting. They begin practicing in earnest as soon as school lets out, perhaps play some scrimmages, and then participate in whichever tournament their league is involved with. They play 2, 4, or 7 games and that's it.

If the coaches are really ambitious and disappointed by only having 2 games with which to stretch their team, they look around and try to get involved in some tournaments, assuming their players all want this, they can get into a tourney, and there is money for such. Then they go to these tourneys and get smoked. They wonder where the softball genetic engineering lab or fundamental skill factory is located where these players come from.

Some few rec programs are very advanced and knowledgeable. They have well developed travel programs under which they pick their teams back when rec drafts are done. They may practice indoors during the late winter months. They may plan a full slate of tournaments. They may participate in ASA B stuff. They may very well be better than local travel teams. But unfortunately such programs are few and far between.

Typically girls softball is feast or famine. There's the rec program which ends about now, maybe puts together an all-star program, and then plays a couple games. That's all you get until the next player evaluation day at the local school in January/February. Aside from this, the only option is travel/club.

The typical club team conducts tryouts in late August. They pick their team and begin practicing regularly right before school starts. Then they organize a series of scrimmages, perhaps play a tournament or three, and maybe participate in some travel ball league. After this, many teams have a break of a couple weeks to a couple months. Some teams don't take much of a break after the end of October when fall ball is usually done. Some give the kids a month off and then get into the gym or other facility for practices a couple times per week. Still others give everyone off until the winter holidays are done. Then everyone works until school ball begins.

Where I'm at, school ball begins sometime around the beginning of March. We have high school ball which involves kids at 14U and up. We also have fairly extensive middle school ball which means even many of the 12Us are tied up. In some places, there is no middle school ball which means only the 14s have anything really competitive to do in March so 12U travel teams do more. Teams which have a lot of school ball players will usually suspend practices for a while, getting together maybe only on Sundays during March, April and May. Some keep right on going regardless of whether they are thick with school ball players or not. In any event, when there is substantial participation in school ball, it is difficult to field 9 players much of the time so teams usually limit play to Sunday triple-header friendlies. Then, when school ball is over, the tournament season goes full force.

A full all out travel season usually consists of two-day tournaments every weekend from late May through June and July with perhaps a fairly long trip coming in at the end of July or beginning of August. Some travel teams will get involved with a league which plays during the week, especially after school is out. Some will conduct scrimmages on weeknights. Still others will prefer to practice intensely during the week to prepare for tournaments on the weekend. But the overall experience is full-immersion softball.

The options are really rec spritz or travel ana-baptism for most of us. Yes you few out there with full immersion rec all-star programs are the lucky ones, especially early on before your daughters have decided to become softball nuns or monks. You get more than the rest of us without having to go full bore. For the rest of us, it is either underwhelming, disappointing rec ball, perhaps underwhelming, disappointing rec all-stars or full immersion travel.

I remember when I knew rec ball was longer a viable option. We were playing all-stars and I looked out at the field, then at some parents, back to the field, and I realized this was not what my kids meant when they said they wanted more. There was a girl playing third base who had been rated a 6 on a scale of 1 to 5 but she could barely reach the pitcher, let alone first base. The first time a team bunted on us, somebody screamed. Later with a runner on third, our pitcher walked a batter and the girl ran to first, then proceeded to second. Some parent began yelling "you can't do that." I knew not only that the team was in trouble but also that we, as a family, needed to run as fast and as far away as possible.

If you watch poor all-star play, you can easily see the folks you will see years later in travel. They are the ones who get it. They have sad looks on their faces as their daughters get upset about how badly their team is playing. They like the kids on their teams but they wish the girls would practice a little more and they wonder if they live in an inferior town since the other towns are so much better.

That's an experience at a pretty young age. That's also one in a town which, believe it or not, is really not particularly bad in the sport. Our all-star teams do better than many towns. Lots of our girls move over into travel. Our high school team is very good. But our rec league is something of a disappointment and there doesn't really seem to be anyway of improving it at this point.

I recall many years ago being misled when it came to travel vs. rec. Lots of people were willing to hand out free advice. Most of it was wrong. I believe I've told you most of those stories. And the bottom line is, at least where I'm at, rec players with very few exceptions don't start on our HS varsity team. Everyone who starts varsity has at least a couple years of some sort of travel experience. We have a number of Gold players. The kids who didn't play travel by the 12U ages, 14U at the absolute latest, usually sit the bench, play JV and then quit, or simply don' go out for the sport in HS despite professing love of the game at the age of 10, 11, or 12.

Back when my kids played rec, I was told girls who really stand out in rec, I mean REALLY stand out, get asked to join travel teams. That's not the case at all. Then I was told that the route to really making the high school team good was to keep all the girls together in the rec league and have them play all-stars together for years and years. That's not how it works. Heck, out of any given group of HS freshman, the HS coach is going to pick one or two for varsity, a couple for JV, and the rest will play together on the freshman team. So there's no point in "keeping the girls together" since the HS coach will rip them apart anyway.

Another sage bit of incorrect advice I received involved the issue of pitching. This was long before I became more sophisticated. I was told that the critical issue in girls softball was control. It didn't much matter if a 10U pitcher windmilled or not, threw hard or not, just so long as she threw strikes. That's complete nonsense. Yes a kid needs to throw strikes or the walks will kill you. But once you get past the most rudimentary level of play, if a pitcher throws 25 mph lollipops via some modified or sling-shot style of pitching, your opponents will tee off on you, strikes or no strikes.

I contemplated the sage advice while watchiong a team with a modified pitcher get their heads handed to them. I knew there had to be more which the fellow who gave me the advice was missing. I learned the right answers from a pitching coach. I resolved to share that information with whomever would listen and have done so via this blog and other avenues.

The truth is, the progression of pitching is: 1) mechanics, 2) speed, 3) some level of control gained through voluminous repetition while continuing to throw hard, 4) real location - throwing off the plate or on the corners at will with fast pitches, 4A) change of speed, 4B) pitches that move, 5) command over some of your pitches, 6) craftiness of changing speeds and movement while pitching to locations, and 7) deconstructing popular types of hitting mechanics to break down hitters. There may be more but the point is, nowhere in there is room for "just throw strikes."

I want to emphasize this because I have seen more mechanical breakdowns occur due to the desire to throw strikes in order to please anxious parents or rec/all-star coaches. I've written whole diatribes about this but it never fails to amaze me when I see the youngish pitcher bending at the waist or throwing with bent arm, all in the name of just throwing strikes. That's what the sage, incorrect advice I received long ago yields, ex-pitchers.

But travel ball is tough. It's a grind. You have to get your kids to do their homework during the week, even if it's not due until next Thursday. You have to work skills on your own. At some point, you probably need professional coaching. Your "spare time" is shot. Its exp-ensive, time-consuming, a total grind.

Recently, we left our house at 5:45 AM on a Saturday and arrived back at home about 10:00 Sunday evening. We hustled off to work and school Monday morning, got our errands done, to the extent possible, during the week, had the kids doing homework between chores, and then got back into the car at 6:00 AM the following Saturday. I'm not sure if that was feast or famine but it definitely wears on a person whether they play the game or merely watch.

So this is the time of year during which I am reminded of my rec experiences. This is the time of year I am reminded of why we chose to go the travel/club route. This is the time of year when all the disappointed rec parents begin writing to me to see if I have any advice for them to get a little more softball for their kids. The answer is, I can't get you a little more softball. I can only make a suggestion which will get you a lot more softball. Take a look at travel ball. There does not seem to be any decent middle ground.

Business

2009-06-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

It is make it or break it time for the women's National Pro Fastpitch league. The season opened last night with games streamed live on MLB.com. Read about that here:

"National Pro Fastpitch league set to start"

You can see the schedule and watch games from here:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/mediacenter/npf.jsp

There is a game to watch just about any given night from now until the middle of August. These are apparently free. It's an interesting concept but I really don't see how this is going to make a huge difference to the success of the league.

I wish I knew absolutely what would be needed to make NPF successful. I say that not as a person wishing to profit from professional softball but rather as one who wishes it was widely available the same way baseball is. We tune into baseball almost every night out of habit. If there were something else to watch, I suspect we might watch something else. But let's face it, TV pickings are pretty slim these days.

Still the NPF seems to lack that special something that would make it compelling. Some believe the issue is talent which is resolved this year with many of the Olympians and top ex-college players now in the league. But I do not believe that is the issue. When I first saw an NPF game, I was impressed with the talent despite the fact that name players were not necessarily involved with the league. But I didn't know any better. I was impressed with the talent despite some of the country's top talent not being in the league.

So I do not think women's softball missed a potential huge success in years past because they didn't draw top talent. It has to be something else.

I'm not entirely sure anybody is making money at anything these days. I work with a guy who is involved in the music industry. He plays and produces for his own record label. His group had the number 1 reggae album on the Billboard music charts for 6 weeks and then dropped down to number 3 this week. The band is travelling the world right now promoting the album and playing before large crowds though he cannot because he has an infant daughter. He has played before crowds as large as 50,000 on 4 continents. He needed to take some time off the other day on order to do some national TV show. This is the guy's second successful album. But he has to work with me to pay the bills. He'd like to purchase a small home in which he and his wife can bring up their daughter. But he can't get a mortgage because he doesn't make enough money!

The dearth of worthwhile TV and film ventures shows that nobody is experiencing particularly much success at anything in the entertainment business these days. I received a phone call from a TV producer a few weeks back which pertained to one of my web sites. The producer is starting up a show on ABC and she wanted my site's help with some of the content. My partners and I agreed to help in whatever way we could. Our compensation for such help was exactly zero. The only thing we would get in return was basically promotion of our site, from which we make very little despite its relative high popularity.

That's not particularly relevant to girls softball in general or professional softball in particular, but the point is, it's tough to make a living out there. I'm not sure any new venture is going to be successful no matter how good the product it has to offer is. There just has to be an angle.

So I'm wondering what angle NPF can find to make its product compelling. There are a number of, shall we say, structural infirmities NPF experiences which keep attendance at games down. For one thing, most games are played at the height of tournament season. We would love to go watch some professional games but we're on the road most of the time. We play all day Saturday and then as long as possible Sunday, while never knowing if we'll be on the road towards home at 9:30 am or pm. Then its back to the grind Monday through Friday with another tourney next weekend. We just don't have the time nor will to get into the car and drive the hour and a half to the closest NPF venue to go catch a game.

For another structural problem, games are typically very low scoring which does not appeal to the general public. This year's college game definitely seemed to have more run production than in years past and I expect that made the games more interesting to outsiders. Purists are just as intrigued by 1-0, extra inning games as the average person is by 10-9 slugfests. But folks who are not rabid softball fans fall asleep through multiple side-strike-outs. Having top pitching talent in the league is a means to accomplish the ends of having even more frequent low scoring affairs. That can't be good for commercial success.

Finally, while the league tries to get the word out about their games, I do not feel as if anyone outside the softball community really knows about NPF. NPF was mentioned during numerous telecasts of the WCWS games which draws a more general audience but it wasn't shoved into our face with a snazzy, flashy commercial assault. Instead we were force fed commercials for five hour energy, take-classes-in-your-pajamas spots, NCAA athletes are going pro in lots of things besides sports, or whatever ESPN could sell in packages. We weren't attacked with NPF commercials. And that's probably because the league couldn't afford to do that.

If I were a business person trying to craft a successful strategy for professional softball, I think I would look to a couple items. First of all, while there is some question about the commercial success of the WNBA, there is no denying that their attendance far surpasses our sport. I would try to emulate whatever I thought they were doing right to draw spectators. If you get a fan out to the park, the probability that they'll tune in to a telecast goes way up in a hurry.

The WNBA runs at a time when men's basketball is pretty much in hibernation. That could be one factor for success. NPF deliberately begins its schedule right after the WCWS. That's pretty smart since not only do they not have the college game to compete with, they also take advantage of the immediate drop off in softball games viewable on TV. Oh, but wait a minute, NPF games aren't on TV, they're on the web.

I dunno about you but we have a place we go at night after dinner. It has comfortable chairs and a TV. Our computer screens are someplace else. I expect that one day in the not too distant future, our TV will interact with our computers. But today it doesn't, at least not really. We go sit and watch TV and if we want to use computers and the internet, we have to get up and go over there. That would break down our normal routine.

Secondly, I do not think the internet is the potential money maker everyone supposes it could be. Streaming games is no substitute for broadcasting on TV. You've got to work towards television and stay away from the internet unless you have a money making model there. I may be missing something but I don't see where the cash flow is going to come from on the MLB webcasts.

Third, the most successful softball broadcasts seem to be the WCWS, the Olympics and the World Cup. The WCWS has special appeal because folks like to cheer on their old school; they dislike that conference; or they just get attached to certain teams while watching games on the various cable networks during January - April. When May comes around and moves towards the WCWS, everything sort of builds to a climax. We care who wins the WCWS.

With respect to both the Olympics and the World Cup, its always us against them. People find it relatively easy to cheer fdor their own country, that is, they cheer for the US against whomever, regardless of who those ladies are on their team. Then they get to know the players on their country's team and then they really start caring. I'm not sure you can say that about the NPF.

I would like all the real softball fans to stand up and step away from the crowd. OK, now just you fans, quickly, without any thought at all, take the following multiple-choice quiz and write down your answers on a piece of paper as quickly as possible:

1) How many teams are in the NPF? 8 / 4 / 2 / 5

2) On which team does Michele Smith play? New York / Los Angeles / Miami / None

3) Which softball sanctioning body sponsors a team in the NPF? ASA / ISA / NSA / USSSA / ISA / None

4) If you went to a typical game on an average night, how many other fans would you expect to be there? 200 / 500 / 1,000 / 2,000 / 7,000

5) How long does the typical game last? 1 hour / 1.5 hours / 2 hours / 2.5 hours / more than 2.5 hours

OK so that's kind of a fundamental quiz focusing on the types of knowledge any baseball or basketball fan would know. If you asked the same sort of questions about MLB, most likely several million people could answer with approximately the correct answers. Yet I doubt if even just a few thousand softball fans were chosen at random, as many as half could get half the answers correct.

I can't say that I knew before today how few teams there were in the league. The first time I went to watch an NPF game several years ago, I had heard about some gal named Michele Smith and I expected that she was really something to see. I expected to see her play for the local NPF team. She didn't.

Right now I have no idea which teams include Cat Osterman, Jennie Finch, Monica Abbott, etc. I could go cheat and look through the article and perhaps others to learn the answer but my softball-only playing daughter can tell you who Manny Ramirez plays for, how many games he has been suspended, who his team's manager is, that the Dodgers have the best record in baseball right now, that the team used to be based in the New York area, etc. AND, please understand that we don't watch National league games in our household.

If I went to watch an NPF game and saw a team sp0onsored by USSSA, I would assume the game was an exhibition. I wouldn't think it was an official league game. But USSSA is sponsoring a Florida team this year in NPF. That's like Little League sponsoring the Montreal Expos. Nuff said.

I went to watch a game several years ago which had I think almopst 2,000 fans in attendance. That's not too shaby. But it does not compare to the 8,000 folks at the low class A minor league baseball games we go to. The worst crowd I have ever seen at a minor league baseball game was probably 4,000 on a rainy cold night, at an unaffiliated team, etc., etc. The 2,000 at the NPF game was probably one of their top crowds for the year. I know they couldn't have exceeded that by much because there was no place to put any more people. Another game I went to had closer to 400 fans. I've been to many high school games with bigger crowds than that.

I happen to be a fan of college basketball. I don't like the pro game at all. But aside from the style of the game and the attitude of the players, the one thing I know I can count on with college hoops is the games are always going to be about 2 hours from start to finish. Baseball is always a crap shoot. I grew up in the era of 2 hour plus MLB games. Sure, many went longer. But it would have been strange to see anything go 3 hours or longer. On one night, we almost decided to go to an NPF game. We were a little miffed that we couldn't get it together in time to go. But you know what? That game went something like 22 innings and lasted well into the night. We would have had to leave early. Ordinarily, I would think that's a good thing, a great value for the entertainment dollar. But this game had very, very few baserunners. It was a pitcher's duel. If I'm not mistaken, both starters lasted most of the game. The majority of outs did not involve a ball hit into play. The win was determined by an error. Even the biggest purest would say that was a bore, a long bore. That game wore on for well over 4 hours.

I really wish the NPF well. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this sport cannot really grow up without a professional league. I would really like to have some sort of outlet for watching fastpitch softball, preferably in person but I would take TV. My internet device does not interface with my TV. We sit in front of the TV at night. I want to watch great players but not just great strike-out pitchers nmowing them down, one after the other. I want to be compelled to watch professional softball games. I want there to be large crowds, 5,000+, at these games with everyone whipped into a frenzy. I want to care about the outcome of these games. If it would take shameless promotion, I would accept that. If it involved antagonists from Japan, Canada or wherever, that might make it more interesting. If the league's schedule did not conflict with my kids' tournament schedules, that would be best.

I want the NPF to succeed. But I really do not think they are right now. And if they don;t succeeed right now, I expect they'll be gone at the end of the year.

Hare Of The Tortoise Who Nipped Me

2009-06-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

Softball is life. Girls fastpitch softball is a long-duration sport. There's plenty of quick twitching and sprinting but, as my wife frequently reminds me, softball is a marathon, not a sprint.

Jeff wrote in for advice about how to bring his daughters up in the sport. He was asking about how to teach an 8 year-old and her 5 year-old sister the strike zone - how to swing at mostly strikes. His older daughter is currently in a slowpitch-coach-pitched league but next year she'll enter 10U fastpitch, mostly-kid-pitched ball. She swings the bat pretty well but his concerns involve the transition from arc ball to flatter, faster pitches.

He is also concerned because his older daughter is not very discerning at the plate. She "refuses to lay off pitches at all." As he said, "for the life of me, I cannot remember how I learned the strike zone (when to swing and when to take) when I was a kid. He thinks perhaps there is a way to teach her the strike zone and he wonders if putting her into a pitching machine will help her to adjust to the faster, flatter pitching.

I told Jeff to relax. I'm not saying that he is unusually tense right now. I'm not saying that he should "take a pill and chill." I am saying that if he thinks he has serious questions now, just wait. I am saying that he is going to get very tense before much longer! So relax now or prepare to get ever more tense!

The basic advice I have for anyone who has a child, or several of them, just now beginning to play baseball or softball, is to relax and have fun. Don't sprint to the point where your kid is some sort of 10U wunderkind. Sprinting leaves you short of breath and in no condition to think clearly.

If your child is starting into softball, just make sure it is fun, tons of fun. Practice with her all the time, all the time she wants to practice. She will eventually come to the point at which she wants to grab you anytime you are available to go out into the yard and play catch. In the purest sense, that is really what baseball and softball are all about. They are about a kid wanting to get their parents' attention for a half hour game of catch.

Let me put it this way. I am almost 50. My father passed away over 3 decades ago. Right now I can picture him in his grass-stained, cruddy shorts, with nobby knees, squatting down to catch my pitching in the cul-de-sac. That didn't happen often. My dad was always working. The number of times he caught me is probably something I can count on my fingers without resorting to my toes. But I can clearly picture it in my mind.

The other day my oldest, my wife and I were at some fields where my youngest's team was practicing. We brought our equipment and my wife hit grounders to my oldest while I took throws and gave instruction to her at all the infield positions. This was a very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. And my wife and I will eventually recover from our injuries.

My fondest hope is that my daughters will grow up into the kind of parents who will want to spend great quality (as well as quantity) time with their kids. We will each pass the torch onto the next generation to really care about each other and have fun together.

I also hope my kids grow up to excel at the sport. But my reasons for wanting that have more to do with their development as people than they do anything to do with scholarships or getting their names in the paper during high school. I want them to look back at the time they spent in softball, the time they spent with us, and remember that they persevered and got better at a game they loved.

I completely get the line of thinking which Jeff exhibited via his questions. I just think that if you put fun first, the rest of it will fall into place. Yes, of course, there will be times when the lessons about hardwork and achieving your goals will be more important than "fun." But fun will never lose all its importance and before you can love something, you have to like it.

Right now, at 8, the like is more important than anything else.

As far as specific guidance for teaching the strike zone, I think I have some wisdom to share. First off, Jeff doesn't remember how he learned the strike zone. Neither do I. Do you?

My guess is none of us really remembers how we learned the strike zone because it didn't happen in a single moment of revelation. We learned the strike zone over a long period of experiences. We swung at a ball over our heads which we could not possibly hit. We were slightly embarrassed, more so when we heard the crowd laugh or act weird about our swing. Our parents complained to us. We failed, we learned, we got better.

To introduce the concept of a strike zone, I suggested to Jeff that he try to get his daughter out to watch some game involving older kids. Buy her an ice cream. Sit and watch at least a half hour of some game. Be by yourselves, together. Then when some kid takes an outside pitch, poke your daughter. Tickle her. Then say, "hey, why didn't that girl swing at that pitch?" See how she responds. Most likely, she'll giggle and say, "because it wasn't a strike." Ask her to explain what she means. "What do you mean not a strike? What's a strike?" Let her do the teaching.

All you are doing with this is having a great time and getting her to think about the existence of a strike zone and what area constitutes it. Later, like four years later, you can get into all those other concepts like umpires strike zone, the "black," etc. For now, all we want to do is make sure she knows there is a strike zone and that you don't have to swing at pitches you cannot possibly make contact with. You need teach nothing more than that. The rest will come via experiences she has in the game. If she has questions or seems confused about the exact dimensions of the strike zone at some later date, she'll ask you or you can ask her and then teach her.

But, if instead, you write down the rules of the sport on index (flash) cards and you make her memorize the precise dimensions of the zone and then pass daily quizzes on the subject, if you get out and throw her a bunch of pitches and demand that she, rather than swinging at the ball, yell out "ball" or "strike" for hours on end, each and every day, well, great. You will produce a very weird kid who thinks softball is approximately the same thing as piano lessons. That's just what we need in this world.

Jeff noted that he purchased a hit-n-stik which has helped her learn to make consistent contact but worries that he should be using some other tools, devices and drills to improve her hitting.

I would continue to use the hit-n-stik and also get yourself a tee and a net to hit into. I wouldn't worry very much about the trajectory of the ball, either now or in the future. If she loves the game and has fun doing it, those things will come on their own. Just hit the stick, off the tee, and soft toss.

I believe that if you give your daughter a good, short stroke with which to hit, you hold the stick for her, you have her hit off the tee and via short toss, everything else will fall into place. She'll learn the zone and eventually become a selective hitter, etc. If she has fun playing ball, she'll want to figure out all these things and then you can teach her what she already has the desire to learn.

If you want to, you certainly can take her to hit the machines. Heck, that's fun! Why not do that? I would start at the slowest speeds available (25-35) and then move up when she seems to have mastered it. Then, if she fails at the higher speed, go back to the slower one. We don't need to challenge her at this point. We need her to have fun swinging the stick.

You don;t become a great game hitter by hitting off machines. The speed has nothing to do with it. You become a good hitter by having a good swing, building the strength in your arms, torso, legs, etc., and by having lots of game pitch experience.

It fascinates me when people get worked up either because their town or team doesn't have a pitching machine or when it does, their kid takes loads of batting practice, and then can't hit. You do not learn to hit purely off a machine. You have to face real pitching in game situations in order to perfect your hitting. And before you are ready to do that, you have to take lots of swings - stick, tee, soft toss, etc. There is nothing magical about a machine just because it throws about the same speed as a pitcher or because it can throw drops, curves, rises. No matter how good your machine is, it does not have all the quirks that a real pitcher and her windup offer. There is no way to mimick hitting off a real pitcher even with all the elaborate video equipment some places use. If there were, major leagyue baseball players would not rehab in the minors, our Olympic team wouldn't have played all those games before the real games began.

So hit off the machine if you want but don't do it to prep your 8 year-old daughter for flatter, faster pitching. Do it because it is fun.

Too often I think we forget a basic fact. That fact is human beings are made by evolution or our creator, by birth in any event, to have difficulty vectoring slow moving objects. If an object were to enter your field of vision, way off in the distance while moving very slowly, initially we would have trouble following it. If the object were to enter our field of vision while moving quickly, we would have no trouble. That's because human beings are made for the hunt, to be able to follow the fast stuff we want for dinner.

Think of it this way - if I ball up a paper towel and throw it to you, at first you perceive an object moving towards you at, you presume, a certain speed. You reach up your hand to catch it. But the paper towel opens and encounters friction with the air. It slows down. You can't catch it. By contrast, if I whip a ping pong ball at you when you can just barely see it out of the corner of your eye, you turn, perceive it and make the catch cleanly. The ball started fast and continues fast but you made the catch easily.

In baseball and softball, kids have a ton of trouble hitting those first few years because the ball is so slow. They actually do better when it starts coming faster. Even really good hitters have trouble with the slow stuff, with movement or not.

Several years ago there was a study about this. I think I referenced it at the time. But the scientists determined that humans had an optimum speed at which they easily vectored moving objects. 25 mph was too slow. 50 was easier.

So to all you parents whose kids are playing 6U, 8U, 10U rec or travel ball, if they aren't hitting very well, it is not time to take drastic measures or quit the sport altogether. Instead, pick up the fun quotient. practice but have fun doing it. Take lots of swings but don't get stressed out. If a kid has lots of fun swinging at balls, she'll figure it out. She'll learn the zone because she wants something to hit, because she knows she can't succeed swinging at balls out of the zone, and because she doesn't want to end her at-bats with called strike threes.

I've said this many times before and I'll say it many times more in the future. The softball scrap heaps are full of kids who were fantastic at 10 but who didn't get it, didn't have fun at the game. Their parents were sure they would be the next Jennie Finch because they were just so gifted naturally and because they could really hit the ball at 8, 9, 10. But the kid didn't like the game and learn to love it enough to want to go out there and face the 60 mph pitchers. Just keep on keeping on. Just have fun and everything else will fall into place.

Can't Fight City Hall Or Bad Calls

2009-06-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

I've seen some pretty bad calls lately. So have you. I guarantee it. But, as I constantly must remind myself, you can't fight them. Worse, by arguing them or mouthing off from the stands, you very well can make matters worse. I advise against arguing calls. I hope you hear me on this. I hope I can take my own advice!

Recently, one of my daughters played a tournament in which the championship game was played against the host team. For years I have sung the praises of the tournament's umpires. I felt they were consistent, fair, and generally as talented a crew as any I had ever seen operate under any organization's sanction. This tournament was, with a few exceptions, not any different. But, man oh man, when we got into the championship game against the host, everything went out the window.

Our pitcher had a pipe into which to pitch. Their pitcher had a dumpster. I was thankful it wasn't my daughter doing the pitching. And ... then ... our young, inexperienced pitcher started to lose her cool and in came my daughter. Oh, no!

My kid is very experienced and understands that umpires have different strike zones. She also understands that sometimes the umpires are very close to being against you and for your opponent. We played against a host team at Pony nationals several years ago. I wrote about that at the time. My kid had learned a big lesson back then. Too bad I'm not as good a student as she is!

So my daughter adapted to the pipe, our kids swung at anything close, hitting many, and we were able to pull out a win thanks to an error by one of their outfielders. There's an important lesson in this experience. You can expend a large amount of psychic energy to get angry at bad calls. Alternatively, you can keep your boil down to a simmer and just keep going. If the softball gods are on your side that day, you can overcome some pretty bad umpiring.

Importantly, if you allow your emtoions to get the btter of you, if you give yourself a handy excuse on which you can blame your future loss, tyhe chances of experiencing a loss go up dramatically. Take the WCWS now underway. Danielle Lawrie has quite a good drop curve. Thrown, as it is, around 70 mph, it is pretty much unhittable. An extremely disciplined crew might lay off that pitch. You're not going to hit the thing. You might just as well take it. But if it is being called for strikes, what the heck are you gonna do then?

The camera angle which ESPN uses for its broadcasts is sometimes that great view of the pitch over the shoulder of the umpire. While, geometrically speaking, there is some room for error in perception, I think you get a pretty good idea of where the pitch is. Lawrie threw several drop curves which I feel comfortable claiming would get the ring up, a good 90% of the time. But yesterday, she got not one of these. The umps were pinching her east to west. I'm pretty sure she was getting upset with the zone but she didn't let it show that much. And she found a way to get through while not costing her team a shot at the overall title. She struggled for sure but she didn't let it take her out of the game.

A local HS team purportedly faced a similar pinching. I saw a few of these pitches late in the game. I wouldn't ordinarily say that the ump's pinching was egregious per se. But I also happened to witness the strike zone when the other team's pitcher was chucking. She through several pitches which were between 2 and 4 inches further outside and up and out of the zone to boot that were called strikes. nbsp; There was definitely something going on here but I didn't see enough of it to be 100% sure.

Several weeks ago, we were watching one of several games out in the outfield by some stands that had been set up. One of the umps from an earlier game took up a seat by us. She's a nice lady who is very good about handing out advice for parents of softball players so we struck up several conversations while we watched a game. She made some important points about plate umps and making the adjustment to their zone rather than getting upset. She told of an acquaintance who has a very low zone, remarkably low. Another has a very high zone. Some are big east and west. Some like the inside corner but not the outside. Some umps are very large north and south but want to see the whole ball come over white. There are nearly as many strike zones as there are umpires.

And there is nothing you can do about it. You can't go into warm-ups, realize that your inside stuff is working best today, and then dial up the ump who gives the inside but not the outside. You have to fit into whatever you happen to get on the day where your XYZ pitch is moving the best.

This is the primary reason why I think pitchers should NOT really develop two or three pitches. We discussed this a few months ago but the leading wisdom suggest something left or down, something up or right, and something with a chnge of speed. I think you really need to have something up, down, right, and left, and, and, and something with a change of speed, or two somethings.

You never know what you are going to get. You may get a guy who normally has a very broad zone and today his feet are swollen, his shoes pinching him, maybe his blood pressure is up or he feels a little queasy. Maybe the plate ump wants to get back home to put medicine on his pet parakeet's beak. Maybe he or she really has absolutely nothing to do later and privately hopes this game goes 4 hours. Who can say what the mental or physicval state of the umpire is going to be? Who can say which ump will show up at the biggest game of your year. You've got to be ready regardless.

So tyhe first lesson today, boys and girls, is you cannot control the plate ump no matter how badly you would like to. Getting mad serves absolutely no purpose. OK? Do you have that, Dave?

There was a contentious game the other day at which there were any number of bad calls. I didn't see that much of it because I was at another game. I stopped by in the 8th or 9th inning. The fans for one side were getting pretty ugly. In the end, they felt that the game had been stolen from them. I can say neither that I agree nor disagree. I believe the game was badly called. I believe it is within the realm of possibility that the umpires harbored some resentment against the one team, or some sort of motivation to call against them. I really did not see enough to make an informed judgment ... until someone associated with the team uploaded a video of a few bad calls to the internet.

There were a host of calls which the one team objected to. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to really make judgments on most of these while watching the video. But one of the calls was absolutely horrendous. The issue of watching it in real time is not in any way relevant. It is not very much a matter of judgment or of positioning of the umpires. It was just a horrendous call, it was horrible. The ump who made the call had no business making any call. He demonstrated unfitness for duty - a complete lack of understanding of the rules - in making the call. It was just that bad. I defy anyone to watch the video and draft up a memo, under the rules, supporting the call. This guy was experienced though I think at this point, he should not be permitted to gain any future experience. I felt so strongly about this call that I took time out to write to the state athletic commission to have this guy's actions examined. I hope they pull his certification. I hope they prohibit him from ever calling a high school game again. And I was a disinterested party at that game.

It occurs to me that the call in question, while definitely a rally killer, really did not determine the outcome of that game. The team could have overcome it. They could have sc ored runs at other times, played a little better or smarter, or some hoe pulled this game out. They were evidently the better team. But I believe they lost that game because they allowed the ummps to take them off their game.

Conversely, I think Danielle Lawrie could have had a near meltdown, had she chosen to, given that the umps were pinching her. She's far too experienced - having been to the WCWS and Olympics before - to allow that to happen. Do you think she got mad when one of her drop curves really hit the zone and the ump called ball four? Of course she got mad. What else could she have done? But she didn't let it show and she didn't let it effect her subsequant performance.

There's a lesson in that. See if you can do anything with it.

Happy Tears

2009-05-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

Gary wrote in yesterday to, among other things, request "an update on the girl's condition, the one that you wrote about last year who was fighting the good fight?" The girl is Ashley Runion. And she has some news for those of us who have not kept abreast of all her developments as she fights against Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

When I responded to Gary's e-mail, I noted that I was reluctant to stand as a representative of Ashley because I do not know the family. Originally, I was contacted by a man who was one of her current or former coaches or who knew her story (I'm not sure) and requested I publish something about her condition. I agreed.

I don't do very well with serious childhood diseases. I have great difficulty controlling my emotions with these, especially cancer, more especially aggressive cancers with a poor long-term prognosis.

I would not dare express real empathy with what a family suffering through a disease such as AML could be experiencing. How could I? None of us has any real understanding of what that would feel like unless we were going through it ourselves.

So I simply published the facts of the story to the extent I knew them. Then, when this past Christmas was approaching, I checked back on Ashley's Caring Bridge Page and saw that she really wanted to come home for Christmas. I requested that everyone who comes to my site (regardkless of any religious persuasion) pray for her to get this one wish. At the time, I suspected it would be her last Christmas. I'm actually getting a little teared up now as I contemplate this.

You see, AML is very aggressive and has a low cure rate. According to Merck's site, "without treatment, most people with AML die within a few weeks to months of the diagnosis. With therapy, between 20% and 40% of people survive at least 5 years, without any relapse. Because relapses almost always occur within the first 5 years after initial treatment, most people who remain leukemia-free after 5 years are considered cured."

How would you feel if you were told your kid will die within a few weeks to months without treatment and if she receives treatment the best she can hope for is a 20%-40% chance? I don't like those odds. But the reason I'm writing today is to tell you that Ashley has beaten the odds thus far. And without any further ado, here is her most recent news:

"She went for her monthly doctor's appointment last week and all was well ... This weekend is her travel teams first tournament of the spring/summer season and she is planning on going to it in uniform. She will mainly be there to help coach as she is still working on trying to build back the strength in those legs ...

I will be crying happy tears this weekend when I see her step out on the field in her uniform. Almost, one year ago on June 7, 2008 is when I received that call to take her to Fairfax Hospital immediately because they thought she had leukemia. What a year! It truly is a miracle that she is here with us and that she is able to be back out on the field doing what she loves. Thanks for everyone's support and prayers this last year."

Let's continue to put Ashley in our prayers. Let's get her back on the field of play so we can all cry happy tears.

Backwards Batter-Baserunner

2009-05-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

A reader writes in to ask the following question while specifically stating the context as women's college softball.

"Runners on 2nd and 3rd, batter hits a slow roller toward 1st baseman; she fields the ball and runs towards batter-runner coming from home; and batter-runner starts back towards home. What happens to the 2 baserunners?"

Before we get to the baserunners, let's get past the batter. According to rule 12.4.11, the batter is out if "she steps back towards home plate to avoid or delay a tag by a fielder." I think that is a pretty obvious call for any umpire.

Secondly, the ball becomes dead at this moment. And the effect mandated by the NCAA rulebook is "each runner must return to the last base legally touched at the time of the pitch." (emphasis added by me)

The reason I chose to post this very simple rule is because it is a critical part of the game. If you are batting and you've got runners on 2nd and 3rd with one or no outs, you've just got to do anything in your power (anything legal) to get at least one run home. As I implied the other day, we should train girls to hit the ball into play in these situations. We should also train baserunners to look for any bat and ball contact, angle down, that is not hit directly to the pitcher, and go immediately from third on such contact.

From a defensive point of view, the related play I like which I have seen top 20 Gold teams perform involves the first baseman coming down the line to take a throw from another infielder in order to apply a tag before the batter-runner reaches first and, thereby, put her closer to home to throw out the runner from third. This play is used on any infield grounder on which the runner at third does not immediately break for the plate. That shouldn't happen except on balls hit right to third or the pitcher but we have all seen runners at third freeze on infield grounders hit directly at any infielder from time to time.

When infielders field a grounder and the runner at third is frozen, the first baseman is well advised to position herself somewhat down the line to take the throw, apply a tag and make a shorter throw home. This is very useful on balls hit back to the pitcher or 3B when the offensive team has a quick runner at third. Most of the time, the runner from third can be nailed.

Obviously, first basemen who field a grounder directly at them, should, after fielding the ball, sprint towards the batter-runner with both hands on the ball, apply a tag and, if the runner from third breaks, throw home. Also, pretty obviously, the runner from third is the important out most of the time and that has to take precedence unless you are already up by a large number of runs. In those relatively infrequent cases, getting the batter-runner out would take precedence unless your pitcher is going for some sort of shutout record!

Another reason this rule is important is because sometimes we find ourselves in a first and third situation in which a hit and run or run and hit play is called. On those, the runner at first either goes immediately or gets a larger than normal lead and goes on contact. if the ball is hit right to the first baseman, she attempts a tag, and the batter-runner retreats to avoid or delay the tag, not only is the runner from third prohibited from attempting to score due to the dead ball condition, but also the runner from first heading to second must return to first.

As with all rules, it is critical that our players understand them in order to avoid unintended consequences. Everyone on your team should be instructed to not back away from a tag when becoming a batter-runner headed to first on a fair batted ball. If a runner merely proceeds slowly, there is a decent chance she can delay the tag and thereby allow the runner from third to score. If she simply stops or goes very slowly, the rules do not address this. But take a step back and all bets are off.

The Lefty "Handicap" At Catcher

2009-05-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I received an e-mail seeking ammunition for a father whose daughter had been told to forget about catching because she is a lefty. I wrote a lengthy e-mail to this father explaining to him that almost everyone in the softball and baseball worlds is anti-lefty when it comes to catchers. The typical person sees a lefty catcher and thinks, "I guess they couldn't find a righty catcher" or "that poor kid's parents just didn't have the sense to teach her first or the outfield." So strong is the prejudice against lefty catchers, expecially at the youth level, that it is almost insurmountable, almost but not completely.

Into the fray comes a blog piece by Dave Weaver of the New England Catching Camp, one of our favorite softball training web sites. Dave breaks down the classic misconceptions in his piece entitled "Lefty Catcher….It just ain’t right!" Please read this whether you are interested in catching or not. We need to understand our prejudices and break them down when they don't hold water.

The father I wrote to had expressed frustration because his daughter's travel coach, somewhat inexperienced travel coach, absolutely refused to even consider a lefty at catcher. I pointed him in the direction of Jenny Topping, a left handed catcher for Team USA. Jenny is quite obviously one of the best catchers ever to have played the game. And she is a lefty. Right there and then, I think I can safely say "nuff said." But I'll go one further.

Dave Weaver points out in his blog piece that "I have college coaches contacting me asking if I have any left handed fast pitch catchers of recruiting age. They do not see any down side to the lefty." Again, nuff said. The top of this sport is the college game plus Team USA. If both welcome lefty catchers with open arms, then certainly the rest of us are wrong.

In short, the lefty catcher's only handicap is the prejudices against lefty catchers which many in the sport hold. Let's shake those misconceptions free.

Get Dirty

2009-05-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Is there a coach out there who doesn't like it when his or her girls lay out and get dirty? I remember once complimenting a high school coach on the development of her team. I watched their first game of the season in which they played what I would describe as a superior team. The game went to the seventh inning, tied 0-0. The opponent got a couple baserunners and then there was one of those unfortunate hits, a bloop, a bleeder, behind first but out of reach of the second baseman, which just barely found fair territory. I think two runs scored on that. Later in the day, when I saw the coach at another game, I told her, "you've got a good team - they played with that team for 6 innings. They are much improved." She reacted by saying that the game had been a tough 0one to lose. I suggested that it was just dumb luck that the ball had found the ground on that play. She agreed but added "I would have liked a dive."

I once had a girl who liked getting dirty so much that her entire goal in any practice or game was to find the situation in which she could dive. It became kind of a joke or game between us. If we were practicing and there was no opportunity for her to get dirty, towards the end of practice, she would ask me sheepishly if I could give her "something to dive at." There's a lot of wisdom in this which I don't think I realized at the time.

The first time you dive after a ball, you are likely to be somewhat uncoordinated. It ain't gonna look pretty. The reason for this is you do not really have the experience to know how to dive properly nor the timing as to when exactly to dive. Like everything else, you have to practice it before you can perfect it.

There are some kids, boys and girls, who, from the first time they can walk, like to slam into walls and to find the ground, particularly dirty ground. With boys, I believe this is a relatively common phenomenon though I certainly have known many boys who disliked terra firma.

I incurred quite a bit of ridicule once for diving after a ball. Of course, that was situationally questionable but I had been programmed to dive after balls. The reason I received so much ridicule for diving was because I dove during batting practice ... and we were playing on blacktop ... and I was 36 at the time ... and I got kind of cut up. My reputation as a sober, stayed tax executive - I was a manager or about 8 others at the time - was not enhanced by my dive that day. But my conditioned response from youth was to dive after any ball I could get my glove on, even at practice.

With girls, I think this tendency to desire getting dirty is usually found in those we come to refer to as "tom boys" though certainly I know several girly-girls who enjoy falling to Earth. I suppose this observation is true of almost any behavior, some girls and some boys do it naturally and some do not. But, also like anything else, I believe anyone can be taught to accomplish the task.

If we are coaching girls softball and have any affinity for seeing our girls "get dirty," we simply must teach it. It is prefereable to begin this with easy falls that are unlikely to injure anyone, however slightly. So head out to the grass and make sure the ground is suitably soft. If you want real fun, wet the ground and make sure it is very soft, even muddy, just as you would for an initial sliding practice. You may want to forewarn parents to dress their kids appropriately, if you plan this for a particular practice.

Next get yourself a bucket of balls. Then set up each kid, one at a time, into a good ready position. Then throw balls which are just out of reach and require a dive just to make contact. It isn't really important that the balls be catchable. It is more important that each throw require a dive. At this point, we are looking for a dive from a standing, ready position - no steps required.

Throw balls to the right first since this is a more natural play. Then throw some to the left while teaching backhand plays. After each player has had 5 or more reps with each side, randomly choose the side for another 5 or 10.

Once you have performed plenty of standing dives, move on to dives after a single crossover step. The player gets in ready position, and you throw it so that it cannot be caught with a mere dive. throw it so the player must take a single step before diving. Then move on to situations in which the player must take multiple steps before diving.

Did I have to say that you should teach the girls how to dive? We don't want girls diving all over the place while slamming their bodies so hard into the ground that they suffer injuries to internal organs. We are looking for dives which are performed low to the ground with the weight shifted forward. They are much more akin to what you would see with a baserunner diving into a bag than one would see of a swimmer diving into a pool. But you knew that and I didn't have to tell you.

I think I'll elaborate on something that is important to consider when teaching diving. The typical dive, especially when players are performing it early in their diving career, does not involve a dive in which the ball is reached towards the end of the dive and hopefully caught. Rather what is usually involved is a play in which the ball is caught when the player is way off balance and cannot recover to a standing position. Very seldom is a ball caught by other than a highly skilled, well-experienced player at the end of a dive. I think you can see this in as much as 90% of all softball and baseball dives, even at high levels.

What typically happens when a player is seen to make a play and end up on the ground is, she does not fear falling to Earth and, therefore, she extends herself beyond her comfort zone to make the play. She can 't recopver to a standing position and she goes down after she catches the ball. It is important within this drill to teach girls how to land so as not to break or otherwise injure their wrists or arms. You land on your palms or forearms, not your fingers or elbows. And these parts of your bodies are sliding forwards, not abruptly striking the ground. the motion is sort of like what you would do when using a slip and slide from a standing position, face forward.

OK, so once you have taught diving after a ball on wet, soft ground covered with grass, it is time to move back over tougher ground, like in the infield. The play I think I would like to see used in such drills are those that would be accomplished by a corner infielder on a ball she cannot get while standing. For example, a third or first baseman would dive for a smash hit down the line. The third baseman would necessarilly dive to her right, the first baseman to her left. It is best to practice both of these.

After this, it is also advisable to teach girls to dive on the infield when they are going after grounders, right outside their reach. Your middle infielders often go after balls that would be just out of reach if they tried to stay on their feet. Practicing grounders just beyond reach which require a player to get dirty is an excellent skill to teach. Additionally, outfielders should be taught in drills certain situations in which going to the ground can turn a basehit into an out, a double or triple into a single.

Lest I forget, one of the most important skills when teaching getting dirty is the recovery to standing position skill. This is not necessarily natural for any player. Typically, in youth softball, we see a kid go to ground to make a play on a ball, get the ball, and stop right there. It is a less frequent play in which we see a kid go to ground, get up and throw the runner out. But this, as much as the general diving skill, should be practiced. Why go to ground if the outcome isn't any different? A successful dive ends when the player recovers and makes a throw.

If you like to see your players get dirty, you may get lucky and get a girl like the one I coached several years ago. But if you aren't so lucky, perhaps you should consider teaching the skill. Start with the basics - just getting used to diving. teach how to land. Move on to dives after a step or several. Then build to actual in-game skills. Make sure you teach recovery to a throwing position after the dive. Teach the pieces of the skill, show its application, and then turn your charges loose. I believe you will be satisfied with the results.

2 Strikes, Time To Bunt!

2009-05-27T05:34:00.000-07:00

How many times have you seen this: a girl tries to bunt but fails twice. Now she's down 0-2, 1-2 or something like that and she swings away. Why? Why not try to get one down with 2 strikes?

There is an obvious answer to my question. It is the one which always comes immediately to mind. The reason many coaches and players do not bunt with two strikes is, if the ball is hit foul, that results in a strikeout. We want to avoid the K, so we stop trying to bunt. Makes sense, no? No, not necessarily.

Before we move on and address my strategic suggestion, let's define a few terms and discuss the rules a bit. The term "bunt" is not necessarily a very well understood one. The 2009 NCAA rulebook defines the term as "a legally batted ball not swung at but intentionally tapped with the bat." That is an inadequate definition since "slapping" pretty much fits within this definition unless a relatively full swing is taken. In another definition, the term "bunt attempt" contains a further elaboration which reads, "holding the bat in the strike zone is considered a bunt attempt. In order to take a pitch, the bat must be withdrawn — pulled backward and away from the ball."

So a bunt attempt really consists of holding the bat in the strike zone as the ball enters the hitting area. This definition distinguishes between a true slap in which the bat should at least theoretically be run through the strike zone, not merely held like a swing and placed into the zone to tap the ball. In other words, the archetypical beginner youth or high school slapper who merely puts the bat into the zone, though not in the classic bunting mode, is actually bunting rather than slapping.

One's hand placement on the bat does not determine whether a bunt attept has been made. We know that there is a style of hitting which involves splitting the hands rather than having them in contact with one another. We also know that there are bunting styles which do not require the hands to be split. The determining factor over whether a "swing" is a bunt attempt or not is whether the bat is held in the strike zone or not. And this becomes rather important with two strikes when a foul ball is hit.

Another NCAA rule notes, "A strike is charged to the batter ... when the batter bunts foul after the second strike." In other words, if you have two strikes and bunt the ball foul, you're out on a strike out.

I have seen a number of instances in which a self-described "slapper" has been called out for a fouled third strike. This almost always precipitates a discussion between coach and umpire as well as catcalls from the batter's father and mother claiming the umpire doesn't know the rules. Generally, the umpire has ruled the "swing" a bunt attempt and, therefore, the foul is a third strike. The ump is right. The coach and parents are wrong.

OK, so a bunted foul with two strikes is an out. Sometimes, that thing some people call a slap is actually a bunt, not a true slap. A slap really involves more movement of the bat than a bunt. The NCAA rulebook says a slap is a "short, chopping motion rather than with a full swing." If you leave the bat in the strike zone as the ball travels through it, I think what you have is a bunt. If you swing the bat through the zone in a short, chopping motion, what you have is a slap. And, importantly, "A ball that is slapped foul is treated like any other foul ball and shall not result in an out unless caught in flight."

But enough of the rules, I think you get it. Let's get back to the strategy.

I do not believe I know of more than a handful of people - players, coaches, and parents - who think bunting with two strikes is a viable strategy. It is almost never called for by the typical coach. I do know some high school coaches and a few in travel who will do it as a strategy. I also know of some including me who would call for it as a sort of punishment for girls who deliberately bunt the ball foul, sometimes because their fathers who don't understand softball have suggested it as a strategy to get a "real" at-bat. But, for the most part, bunting with two strikes is avoided like the plague.

Without looking at any cold and hard facts, let's instead talk about this anecdotally. How many times have you seen this: bunter fouls off a couple and has two strikes after which the defensive coach instructs the corner infielders to move back because there are two strikes. That is common, probably to a 95% rate. And it is a safe approach since 95% of all coaches won't call for a bunt in this situation. But the good and aggressive ones will!

OK, so how about this, how many times have you seen a former bunter, now with two strikes, finish herself off with a third strike. Let's face it, softball is filled with strikeouts. Now that is a legitimate plague in our sport. If the pitcher is a contact pitcher, then you don't see so many Ks but, ordinarily, there are a ton of them in the typical, well-pitched game. And if the former bunter has put herself into an 0-2 hole, the strikeout is an all too common event. The high percentage event on an 0-2 pitch, or at least shortly thereafter, is a K. And yet, we do not even attempt a bunt because we are trying to avoid a strikeout! It makes sense to at least consider bunting a kid with two strikes since what we are trying to avoid when we don't is probably going to happen anyways.

Therre are advantages to bunting with two strikes, if you can get it down. The field situation for an 0-2 bunt is often a lot better than it was prior to this point. The corners are back. Just about everyone on the field will be surprised if the batter bunts. If she can get one down in fair ground, it is almost always successful. So in a tight game, why not give it a try?

As a corollary to the two strike bunt, I have another suggestion which is probably only applicable to youth games, though sometimes presents itself in higher levels. At the youth level, it is fairly common to encounter a "slapper" who is just learning. She steps over to the left side for the first couple of pitches but if she fails to execute a slap into fair ground, she moves back over to the right side for the next couple of pitches. This is fairly common in youth play but I have seen it as late as high school, where often a coach identifies a fast kid and tries to teach her to slap for the first time.

(I want to add one rule element here because I have seen it called. When the batter steps across the plate while the pitcher is holding the ball inside the circle, perhaps while in contact with the rubber, some umps will call her out. Before a batter crosses the plate, she should call time out to avoid this. You are allowed to cross the plate when time is out. You're not supposed to do this while the pitcher is on the rubber.)

I understand that a girl may want to try out the new skill she is working on but, after failing a few times, wants to go back over and take some real swings. I'm not going to criticize this approach. It's a learning tool. But what I want to suggest is a strategy which may catch the defense off guard.

When a kid who throws righty steps to the left handed batter's box, not very many people are fooled into believing she is a natural left-handed batter. The defense expects a slap or a drag bunt. Either the corners move in or the defense takes up one of the defensive positionings we refer to as slapper-D. After those first couple of pitches, after which the batter decides to go back over to the right-handed box, they move back into standard positioning. This is the perfect time for a right handed drag bunt!

As a final strategic point, I want to bring up the situation in which it is far more prefereable to tap a grounder to one of the middle infielders than it is to take a full cut and strike out or otherwise accomplish an unproductive out. We've been over the offensive perspective when you have a runner on third with one or no outs. In that circumstance, we want our girls to be conditioned to run home if the ball comes off the bat angle down and not directly back to the pitcher. This is more true when we have runners on second and third but anytime there is a runner on third, we want the batter to hit the ball into play rather than try to drive in the run with a hit.

There is a technique I have seen many well-experienced batters use. I refer to it as a "two strike swing." the batter starts out looking as if she might be thinking of bunting, with the bat out in front of her in the strike zone. Then, as the pitcher begins her motion, the batter draws the bat back but not to a full cocked, loaded position. Basically, she pulls back to perhaps the halfway point, possibly as far back as three quarters. Then she attempts to hit the ball into play with less force than she might have during other pitches. What she is trying to do is reduce the liklihood of a K and increase the probability of hitting the ball into play, preferably on the ground. The reduced swing provides the batter better bat control. This is an effective technique which when well practiced very often produces the desired result.

My strategic suggestion for this technique is, why wait for two strikes? Anytime you have a runner on third, I think the situation dictates a "two strike swing."

I think we often get caught up in the illusion that baseball and softball are essentially the same game. We do many of the same things in one that we learned in the other despite the fact that there are pronounced differences between the games. Not bunting with two strikes is something which I learned in baseball - though even there, it can be effective. In softball, with its relatively lower scoring, bunting is a more important tool. And in softball, with its higher rate of strikeouts, I think attempting a bunt with two strikes makes more sense than it does in baseball.

In softball, the difference between the winner and loser, especially in championship games, often involves the winner catching the loser off guard. Aside from two strike bunting, moving from the left to the right and yet still attempting a drag bunt can be an effective strategy. Aside from these, practicing so-called "two strike hitting" can be an effedctive way to push a run across. And it works even when the batter does not have two strikes.

Bunt D, Geometry, Time and Distance

2009-05-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

I know I've written about this in the past but I find I must write about it again because I saw this issue change the outcome of games this past weekend. Also, I saw some mistaken comments on a forum which demonstrate a little bit of confusion. So I must address it in a manner which explains the whys and why nots. The issue is bunt defense.

The classic baseball bunt defense with a runner on first involves the third baseman crashing in to cover anything to the right of the pitcher, the pitcher covering the first base side of the field, the catcher covering anything he can get to, particularly out to be about 15 feet, sometimes more, and the first baseman staying at his base to take the throw. Teams can have 2B cover the second base bag and the SS cover third in case the runner from first decides to try to take another 90 feet. Or the player (pitcher, 3B or C) that does not field the bunt can cover third.

This generally does not work in softball. Why? Mathematics. Don 't believe it? Examine the geometry, time and distances involved.

First of all, as we talked about, it takes a baseball runner at least 4 seconds to reach first. Good softball runners get there in under 3. That's a heck of a big difference. To explain this a bit more, in MLB, the average time to first is about 4. In softball 3 is the minimum standard for a relatively slow runner in D1. I have seen sub-3s at 12U travel, though they are somewhat rare except when a team is designed for speed. At 14U travel, 3s are far more common. At 16U, you see a fair number of them because less athletic girls have dropped out of the mix.

Secondly, the typical first baseman in baseball stands behind the bag on most plays, though he may come in, even with the bag, perhaps in the cutout, toes touching the lawn, when a bunt is expected. In baseball, 1Ds often play almost as far back as the outfield grass. In softball, it is relatively infrequent to find the 1B an ywhere behind the bag. With a big hitter who has the tendency to hit the ball to the right side, sometimes the 1B stands behind the bag but this is somewhat unusual except at very high levels. Most of the time, at most levels, she's about even or up 5 - 15 feet from even.

When a softball 1B expects the batter to bunt, it is not unusual for her to position herself about 40 feet from home while charging on the pitch. The same is true for the 3B, although some girls seem to get close enough to smell what the batter had for breakfast. If you saw the Olympic team play any games in which Bustos was at third, you know what I mean. The batter's were actually complaining about her breath. (Yes, I'm kidding but I've never seen anyone play closer than Bustos.)

With the 1B charging, she can easily be closer to the batter than the pitcher is after delivery. You figure that the pitcher is somewhere around 35 feet from home when the ball arrives to the batter. The two corners should be closer to 30, maybe as close as 20 feet away, when a bunter makes contact. For this reason, the P's responsibility is generally for a straight bunt, right back to her, which gets by the other fielders. She is almost a backup to 1B and 3B.

It is certainly possible that the corners are crashing too hard. Very good teams will see this and then have their batters fake bunt while pulling back and taking an almost full cut. This can be referred to as a slap bunt, depending on how you define "slap bunt." And while many tournaments prohibit this at 10U, most above that do not. Offensively, this is a decent strategy to get the defensive corners to stay off the bunt for at least a half second since even these players mostly value their lives. When I talk about right handed slaps, this is specifically what I'm talking about.

After the bunt is down, usually you will see the P take coverage of third, assuming she doesn't field a hard bunt. There is certainly some room for debate over who does precisely what. I have seen college catchers take the 3B coverage but I don't really like this as much as having one of the bunt fielders, the one who doesn't retrieve the ball, 1B or 3B, take third. I feel that way because I know what it is like to run with shin guards. I'd prefer my hard working catcher not have to do that.

Lest I forget to mention, expecting your catcher to field a bunt beyond an arc about 5 feet from the plate is also wrong. Why, the 3B and 1B are already there. On anything beyond five feet, they have to be able to beat the catcher there. And they don't have all the extra backage of shin guards, helmet, etc. which makes an errant throw possible. That is not in any way to suggest that your catcher is less than a great athlete. Rather, I'm merely suggesting that if your 3B and 1B can't beat the catcher to a bunt 6 feet in front of home, they aren't being nearly aggressive enough. If you get caught off guard on a surprise bunt - not a plain vanilla sacrifice - certainly you want anyone who can get there, pitcher, catcher, whomever, to make the play and get the out. But I'm thinking that you won't be surprised very often.

What I feel is non-negotiable is the 1B's role. I don't see any way around it. She has to cover the bunt because if she doesn't, a smart bunter is going to bunt the ball down the first base line and there's no way the pitcher is routinely going to be able to make this play.

In rare circumstances, perhaps you do not have a 1B who is athletic enough to play bunt defense. I've seen this before. But if thet is your situation, you have to devise something different. You cannot merely tell the pitcher to cover bunts. The best alternative is to essentially switch your 2B and 1B. You pull your 2B in parallel to the pitcher like perhaps you do on slap D. Your 1B plays back behind the base line and over to her right so that if the batter pulls back and hits one in the empty hole, she can maybe field it. Otherwise, your 1B has to field bunts.

You can disagree with me if you like but I am going to respond by asking, "have you ever coached baseball," "do you think the games are pretty much the same," "what is the relative time to first in the two sports," or something else along these lines. I do not believe I have seen the coach yet who tries the classic baseball bunt defense and who can answer the appropriate questions the right way. Most of those who try this have also coached baseball. Most of those who try this will not guess correctly what the times are to first in the two sports. Most of those who try this do not have a lot of tournament experience. Most of those who try this would never just go watch a fastpitch softball game which did not involve their kid. They haven't observed enough to realize that not that many softball teams have the 1B hang back to cover the bag. They haven't had the time and experience to realize that if I'm the only one keeping my 1B back, maybe I'm wrong. if the teams still playing in the semi-finals of any tournament crash both their 1Bs and 3Bs, I suppose that does it for me.

I watched a couple teams play some games over this past weekend while using baseball bunt coverage. I saw several bunts placed down the 1B baseline. This happened because the opposition observed their coverage and immediately noticed that the 1B did not charge the bunt. I saw coaches talking among themselves while pointing to the opposition's 1B. Then they talked to their girls while again pointing in the direction of 1B. Sometimes their girls did not get the bunt down, sometimes they didn't get it towards first, but when they did, they were successful 100% of the time. About 75% of these attempts resulted not only in advancing the runner but also the bunter reaching firsty safely.

To be quite honest, when I walk out to coach 3B, the first thing I do is watch the 3B's arm. I want to know whether she is going to be able to throw out batters if we bunt. The next thing I look at is the arms of the infielders and outfielders. 3B coaches who don't come out early and watch the infielders warm-up are missing an opportunity to learn the defensive capabilities of their opponent. I watch as the 1B rolls grounders but I also want to see her make a real throw across the diamond, if that's possible. If the opposition is on the third base side, I hope for her to have to throw the ball to the 3B when the ump calls "balls in." The 1B's arm is as important to the defense as the 3B's.

After I have observed the infielders throw, I usually try to take a look at the outfielders. I want to see if they are athletic, can catch, use two hands when they catch, and have decent arms. I also want to see the catcher. I don't so much want to see the throw down since this is not game situation. I'm more interested in watching how she catches and blocks - I want to see what her habits are. But I will watch the throw down because I want to see what her accuracy is when she is relaxed. If she's inaccurate in warm-ups, she may be inaccurate during the game.

After all this, when the game is going to be played, I would like our first batter to pretend to bunt on the first pitch. Obviously, there's nobody on base and it is possible I won't get a look at their actual bunt defense but I want to see what everyone's, especially the 1B's, tendencies are. Later, when hopefully we have a runner on first, I can see what the real bunt defense looks like and see whether this is a baseball team or a softball one. If the 1B does not charge the bunt, well, there's my first opportunity to exploit the defense.

After the first pitch, what I want to see is where the 1B and 3B position themselves on the next pitch. If 1B is even with the bag or back a bit, I know I am playing against a team on which the coaches or the 1B's father have coached baseball. They haven't watched bona fide fastpitch softball. If the 3B is still even with the bag, well, ballgame over. Sorry girls, we aren't going to be swinging at pitches this game. We are going to bunt, bunt, bunt.

I remember watching a 13 year old team play against a young inexperienced 12U team in fall ball. The girls on the older team were big. Everyone of them looked like a hitter. I saw them in warmups and they all could swing the stick. Then, the game began and every single batter bunted their first time up. Their opposition had played their corners back and not a single girl was thrown out at first until several runs were across. They bunted because they didn't need to do more. Later, when the run rule loomed, the coach let these girls swing away and that they did. They could all hit the ball. They just didn't need to in order to easily win that game. So, why bother!

On our first sacrifice opportunity, the second thing I want to see is who covers third. If on a bunt, the SS takes third, then I know we are going to be able to advance runners to second all day without stealing. The bunts don't even have to be good. Every sacrifice will be successful, if we get the bunt down.

If the defense is proper, I hope my girls have observed this and know to advance a base hard, slide and hold the bag. It would be nice to advance them to third, if the ball gets away but there are risks unless the bunt defense contains another xcommon mistake.

My bunt defense, after observing everything from 10U to D1 college is to go for the out at first with the 2B covering that bag. Yes, if there is an opportunity to nail the runner at second, I wouldn't mind. But you can only do this if: 1) the girl fielding the ball has a great arm; 2) your CF is backing up perfectly which is difficult because I have another positioning for her; 3) the ball gets to the fielder in a real hurry, and 4) this is a called play.

Getting the out at second (or at third but we're getting ahead of ourselves) takes a significant amount of experience. The defensive players all have to move immediately. The girl playing the ball has to have a great inner clock. I don't want a throw to second on the bunt if getting that out is less than 90%. And such a play has to be situationally dictated - I want to call it.

I believe getting an out at first on a bunt has to be routine. Sure, there will be times when the girl fielding the bunt won't get a grip on the ball and make a bad throw. But hopefully, our RF will be backing up and it won't cost us too badly. What I don't want is for our team to fail to get an out because they didn't field the bunt timely or because they tried and failed to get the lead runner who gets to second in 2.7.

I can live with runner on second and one out. I believe our pitchers are, uh, paid, to deal with that. Not getting an out here can open up a big inning. A big inning in softball is 2 or more runs. Not getting an out here opens up first and second with still no outs and another bunt attempt coming. If they succeeed in moving both runners up while there is just one out, they're pretty much guaranteed of getting a run across unless we get a K or infield pop-up for the second out.

So, the idea has to be to get the runner at first unless the situation dictates going for the lead runner. Our 2B is covering first. Our SS is covering 2. And the charging infielder who didn't make the play is covering 3. The 2B takes the throw at first, gets the out, and immediately throws behind the runner at second.

Throwing the ball to second is not some sort of an option. It involves no judgement. Our 2B does not throw to the SS because she thinks she can get the out. She just does it. That's the successful end of the play. That's an automatic. Even if, for some reason, you don't get the out at first, the throw still goes immediately to second.

I believe I need to explain why this is an automatic so I will.

It shouldn't have surprised me but it did. When I went to watch the D3 WCWS, there came a bunt situation in a tight game. Runner on first, no outs. The batter successfully executed a sacrifice bunt. The runner from first got a good jump and made second easily. The infielders charged, fielded the bunt and correctly went to first, nailing the batter-baserunner. The 2B covering first, immediately went to second with the ball. The runner from first had rounded and they nailed her. That was clearly a back breaker.

Offensively, I would prefer if our runner slid hard into the bag in the pop-up slide manner, got herself up and then looked at first. If the ball got away for some reason, I expect she can still easily make third. But if they successfully defended the bunt, I want her to hold the bag.

Defensively, I know that a girl who is moving to second from first on a sacrifice bunt has something completely different on her mind. She comes into the bag at second watching the girl covering. As soon as that girl sees the covering fielder relax and move out of position to take a throw, she begins to think of the possibility of going to third. She wants to get a head start. She can taste third. She is going to round the bag because inside her memory is that game from her 10U or 12U days when she did this, got to third and caused an overthrow there, allowing her to score the game winning run.

It shouldn't have surprised me that this kind of thing can happen in a D3 WCWS game but it still did. So, I know this works there. It really doesn't surprise me when I see this kind of thing work at 12U, 14U, whatever. What surprises me is more teams leave the play to the discretion of their fielders or practice something entirely different.

I have seen teams even at 14U make the bunt defense play I described but completely give up any hope of getting an out at second. They have their SS cover third and then they "encourage" their CF to come and cover second. The CF never gets to that bag soon enough for any kind of play. And when teams see this, they tell their players to round second on sacrifices because they know nobody is going to be there. So when the ball is in the dirt or there is any sort of collision at first, they automatically get third on a simple sacrifice. That's kind of tragic.

What some teams do is condition their players to get the out at first and then throw immediately to third to head off the runner presuambly rounding second. When they do this successfully, they believe they have handled the play very well. But think the whole field through for a minute. If the baserunner from first rounds the bag, which she will do if your CF is covering second, and if the girl who takes the throw at third feels particularly aggressive, she is going to throw to the CF at second to get the runner. Your RF is in foul ground behind first to back up the primary throw, and there is nobody close enough to even touch the ball on an errant throw to second before that baserunner touches the plate. It is a badly designed play.

In my variant where we go to first and then the 2B, covering first, throws to the SS covering second, my CF is backing up that throw. So, if our over-aggression results in a bad throw that gets past the SS, well, the CF is going to have that ball with about 2 seconds to spare to make the throw to third and nail the runner there. I've seen this happen on almost every bunt defense like this where the 2B made a bad throw to the SS. The only time the runner was not thrown out was when she looked up soon enough to realize the CF had the ball and she dove back just in time to be safe at second. Then she stood up, put her hand to her heart and took a deep breath! In short, a proper bunt defense with a throw behind the runner is a high percentage play.

OK, so I think I have said enough but I just want to summarize the whole defense one more time and then talk a bit about sacrifices with runners on first and second, then briefly go over second and third.

C catches and gets balls out to 5 feet from the plate, assuming Bustos didn't beat her there and call her off. P pitches and backs up her corners in case the bunter hits one harder than they expect. 1B charges the bunt. 2B covers first. SS covers second. 3B charges and probably fields the bunt. P, 1B or 3B covers third. RF backs the throw to first. CF backs the throw from first to second. LF backs a potential tyhrow from second to third.

If you want to go for the lead runner at second because obviously the girl at first is very slow, because you know your corners and they are outstanding, because you have a ten run lead, because you just want your girls to have fun, well your defense looks basically the same but your CF is in a different position to back the throw down to second.

When runners are on first and second, obviously the situation is slightly different. Notably, your 2B, covering first, is not going to throw to the SS covering second. Your SS won't be there if she does. She should be covering third. But, no, you still don't want your CF covering second. You simply forget about the trailing baserunner. Your focus must be on getting the out at first and then paying close attention to the runner at third. The 2B must come immediately off the bag at first and charge for the pitcher's circle, ball in hand. The pitcher must be clear of the p[athway between your 2B and third. Your LF must be in a good backup position and, I believe, one of you other players should be in foul ground behind third, tending towards the infield. That can be your 3B unless she fielded the bunt and then it should probably be your 1B.

If your 2B can see a certain amount of distance, she should throw to the SS. The distance is equal to more than one step plus a dive. If the runner has to take two or even one and a half steps before diving, your 2B has to make the throw. It is an automatic. You need to show her this in practice with a real baserunner.

Understand that if your 2B comes off the bag, she should most likely have shortened the distance to third from eighty some-odd feet down to around 60. The throw has become a relatively easy one. And if the runner at third is daring her to throw, she ought to throw.

The SS has a primary desire to catch the throw and make the tag but this is not like a steal because the runner is not necessarily sliding. She may break for home. So the SS has to recognize this, catch the ball at all costs, and if the runner is breaking, she must wheel and throw home. At this point, if you end up with a pickle or develop what is a close play at third, I think your players should be conditioned to eat the ball. You've already made a clean throw to first, then third, and presumably home. Why tempt the fates unless you are that confident in your players. You've already scared the heck out of the baserunner and the play is really over unless you make an overthrow into left where there is now nobody backing up.

One more time, the goal on a sacrifice with runners on first and third is to get the out at first unless the situation dictates something else, unless a coach calls a different defense, unless the bunt is fielded extremely quickly. Remember, the runner at second is going to get an even better lead from her bag towards third. She should get a five step running lead and the time it will take her to get to third is shorter than the time a runner takes getting to second from first. The throw is shorter but I don't think you can get the out at third unless the runner from second is very slow. I would save that kind of play for high levels, very high levels, or a very well practiced team.

To explain this further, I watched a great high school game go into ITB, 0-0. Both teams were very good defensively. Both pitchers were solid. Neither team had more than a handful of runners on base at all, let alone beyond first. In ITB, the visiting team came up and, of course, bunted. A quick play was made on the ball and the fielder tried to nail the runner at third. That would have been a great out, had they made it. They didn't. They were left with runners on first and third and I forget what exactly happened thereafter but the visiting team opened up a big inning and won easily. The home team was defeated on that play when their girls tried to get the lead runner. They went with the low percentage play, lost and got clobbered despite playing neck and neck with their opponent for 9 plus innings.

I like high percentage plays even when sometimes it seems like the wrong play, even when one's baseballl experience migh lead to another type of play. I say get the runner at first and then do something else. I say have your 1B conditioned to cover bunts. I say save getting the lead runner for situations in which it can't backfire on you. Whatever you choose for your bunt defense, make sure it is appropriate for the geometry, time and distances involved in softball, not baseball.

So that's it. I apologize for the length of this piece. It probably could have been a lot shorter. But I have too much energy on the subject. I've seen too many baseball defenses played in softball. It doesn't work, at least not against decent teams. Softball has its own bunt defense. It does not use baseball's.