| SOFTBALL TIPS |
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| SITE STUFF |
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ARCHIVES
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June 26, 2005 |
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July 03, 2005 |
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July 10, 2005 |
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July 17, 2005 |
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July 24, 2005 |
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July 31, 2005 |
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August 07, 2005 |
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August 14, 2005 |
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August 21, 2005 |
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August 28, 2005 |
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September 11, 2005 |
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October 02, 2005 |
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October 09, 2005 |
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October 23, 2005 |
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October 30, 2005 |
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November 06, 2005 |
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November 13, 2005 |
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December 04, 2005 |
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December 18, 2005 |
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December 25, 2005 |
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January 08, 2006 |
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January 15, 2006 |
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January 29, 2006 |
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February 05, 2006 |
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February 12, 2006 |
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February 19, 2006 |
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February 26, 2006 |
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March 05, 2006 |
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March 12, 2006 |
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March 19, 2006 |
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March 26, 2006 |
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April 02, 2006 |
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April 09, 2006 |
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April 16, 2006 |
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April 30, 2006 |
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September 24, 2006 |
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October 01, 2006 |
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October 22, 2006 |
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November 12, 2006 |
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November 26, 2006 |
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January 14, 2007 |
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January 28, 2007 |
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February 04, 2007 |
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February 11, 2007 |
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February 18, 2007 |
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February 25, 2007 |
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April 01, 2007 |
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May 27, 2007 |
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July 01, 2007 |
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July 22, 2007 |
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November 18, 2007 |
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August 31, 2008 |
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September 14, 2008 |
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September 21, 2008 |
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September 28, 2008 |
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October 12, 2008 |
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October 19, 2008 |
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October 26, 2008 |
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November 09, 2008 |
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April 26, 2009 |
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May 24, 2009 |
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July 12, 2009 |
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July 19, 2009 |
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August 02, 2009 |
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August 30, 2009 |
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September 06, 2009 |
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September 20, 2009 |
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October 04, 2009 |
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October 11, 2009 |
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October 18, 2009 |
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November 08, 2009 |
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November 15, 2009 |
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November 22, 2009 |
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November 29, 2009 |
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December 27, 2009 |
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January 03, 2010 |
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January 10, 2010 |
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January 17, 2010 |
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January 24, 2010 |
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January 31, 2010 |
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March 14, 2010 |
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March 21, 2010 |
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March 28, 2010 |
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April 04, 2010 |
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April 18, 2010 |
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April 25, 2010 |
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| SOFTBALL LINKS |
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Inaugural Softball World Cup
by Dave
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
I hope you all had a chance to see Softball's first World Cup held this past week at the Softball Hall of Fame complex in Oklahoma City. I made good use of my cable TV company's digital video recorder and saw most games. I have a couple observations I would like to share with you.
ESPN did a pretty good job covering the games. Softball does pretty well on TV and it is nice to be able to see top notch international play from the comfort of your own home. The broacasters did a good job but somehow I wish Michele Smith would talk less about her own experiences and spend a little more time increasing our knowledge of the players on the team. Michele is a great player and she knows the sport as well as anyone but I grew just a little tired of her talking about her personal experiences. I would have enjoyed more stories of the USA players' lives and experiences overcoming difficulties. By comparison, baseball players who broadcast games are usually the "third man" in the booth and their personal stories come after the play-by-play and color commentator who gives a little more about the players. Michele is great for the game but in order to take the thing to the next level, we need to know more about the players.
Media coverage of this event was sparse at best. There is a story today by the associated press but my local paper had nothing and I was not able to find anything on Reuters' sports page. It does not take a genius to know that half the population is female, many men love the sport of softball, and there are tons of little girls who participate in it. If newspapers want to reverse their current circulation trends by drawing in new, young readers, the crowning event in one of the most popular sports would be a decent and obvious start.
The Japanese team was on the whole very fast and well-schooled defensively. They won this thing through perseverance, grit, timely pitching, speed and defense. The U.S. team was called young by the broadcasters but a number of the players are neither young nor inexperienced. I think they needed to have played together more and in that sense perhaps they were inexperienced. The Japanese team seemed to be more "together."
It interests me to no end that Team USA had five quality pitchers and that they were not afraid to use most of them. I believe in pitching staffs as opposed to having a single ace who pitches 65% of all games. Obviously even top flite college programs do not have the depth to develop full pitching staffs but it confuses me that most would rely so heavily on a single pitcher. ASA teams which often play 10 games per weekend must develop a stable of pitchers in order to get through most tournaments. But high schools often have a single ace with their second pitcher getting the ball only in emergency situations. I think this is a mistake.
But back to the World Cup, I would like to see more diversity on Team USA's pitching staff. There was an over-emphasis on drop ball pitchers. The Japanese were able to take advantage of this because they had great team speed. I wonder if it would not be better to have a stable of pitchers, each with a different out pitch. I would like to see one pitcher who throws a drop, one with riser, another with other big pitches with different movement, and perhaps one who changes speeds more frequently.
It wouldn't hurt to cultivate situational pitchers the way that baseball has. If you are throwing a girl with a 67 mph rise ball, wouldn't it be nice to bring in someone with 64 mph junk pitches, or vice versa? I suppose the best mix would involve starting someone slower with a better mix and then bringing in someone who throws serious heat on the rise. Perhaps that is what the US did when it relieved Osterman with Finch in the championship game. I just think more of this in the tournament might have helped.
Japanese pitcher Yukiko Ueno pitched a great game. Hats off to her. She changes speeds very nicely, mixing in a ton of change-ups with her 66 - 70+ mph other pitches. She really kept the US hitters off balance. The change-up is probably the most under-rated pitch in a pitcher's arsenal. A good one makes the high speed pitches harder to get around on as the hitters have to keep back in order to deal with the change. Ueno was not afraid to throw her very good one. I would like to see US pitchers develop better, more reliable changes. And even without reliance on a straight change per se, I think US pitchers could benefit from learning to throw their pitch selection at different speeds. Baseball pitchers learn at a young age how to vary pitch speed in order to confuse batters. Softballers do this less often.
As I said, the Japanese dealt very well with the USA's over-reliance on the drop ball. Good team speed took advantage of putting the ball into play via grounders. The drop ball is a great pitch but if you are expectng to see 50% drops, then you know your contact hitters are going to force the infield to make the plays if they want to get you out. And some of these grounders are going to find holes.
It seemed to me that the USA team was relying a little too much on strike outs from their pitchers and home runs from their batters. Team USA had some girls with great speed but on the whole, I think they could have been faster. The 5-6-3 double play on a sacrifice bunt attempt broke the team down in what could have been a big inning for the US. There is no way you should get doubled up on a sacrifice in a championship game. The Japanese team pulled off a great play but it shouldn't have happened.
I'm not a fan of left-handed catchers but I have to say that Jenny Topping is an outstanding defensive catcher. She has a real cannon attached to her left shoulder. With all the left-handed batters I saw, I suppose a left-handed catcher does not have quite the disadvantage a lefty would have behind the plate in baseball. Topping is perhaps the best softball catcher I have ever seen. The Japanese catcher by comparison had maybe two-thirds the throwing ability of Topping although runners were able to steal some against her. Where the Japanese catcher truly excelled was in the area of blocking the plate. Her footwork there was phenomenal. Topping wasn't bad in this regard but I think the Japanese did a better job getting around her with slides than the US team did when they were on offense.
The US team has some solid hitters but for some reason they did not come through in the clutch. I've seen Kelly Wilkerson play in person and she is a solid clutch hitter. She started out slowly in this tournament but had a good game in the final. One more hit for her would have been nice but even the best batters don't get a hit more than 30% of the time. The rest of the team should have been able to get something going.
I very much enjoyed the World Cup and look forward to it again next year. This sort of thing would take the sting out of any removal of softball from the Olympics. My only real complaint is that I would like to see more of it. I realize that softball makes almost standard use of the round robbin format. I just think that when the world championship is on the line, it would interest me more to see series rather than single games. Why not have three game series or play a bunch of series leading up to a championship best of 5? Even if the single game round robbin format were to be used again, I hope that, similar to the NCAAs, the championship series could be at least 3 games. There is no way you can say one team is better than the other as a result of a single game.
One final comment, I noticed that several teams from other countries were doing the rounds in the US. We missed an opportunity to see China play against an NFP team due to some little league games. But it never occurred to me that there was a World Cup going on. We're so busy with kids' softball that little else matters. Had this been a little later in the summer and had we known about it, I think we might have attended it. I don't know if future World Cups will be held in Oklahoma City. I suppose it would be better for the game and the world's interest in it to hold it in various countries. But if it were to be held in the US again, I hope they do a better job of letting us know. I really would like to see it in person!
 
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