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Safety First, Safety Early, Safety Please!
by Dave
Friday, July 22, 2005
Youth softball can be a very "soft" game. I'm speaking of 7 - 10 year old rec leagues where the pitchers mostly throw slow, non-windmill pitches. The batters mostly hit slow grounders where the biggest issue is whether the fielders can pick up the ball quickly enough to throw out the runner. Many players at this level cannot throw a ball the 60 feet between bases. Sometimes a soft, spongy ten inch ball is used which speeds up the play but has little or no risk for injury. But other times a regular ASA 11 inch ball is used which does hold the potential for injuring players but typically is too heavy for the girls to pitch or hit very hard. At some point players get better and the dangers of the game begin to grow. As a coach, parent, or even player you have a decision to make as to when to begin using serious safety equipment. The purpose of this piece is to tell you the earlier the better.
I sincerely hope you are familiar with all the standard equipment like the typical catcher wears. I sincerely hope you never have your catcher even warm up a decent pitcher without full gear. In most leagues you are not allowed to warm up a pitcher without at least head gear on but you should insist your catchers wear the full regalia at all times while catching pitches. If you are in a game and the umpire is getting impatient as your catcher runs in from the bases and removes her batting helmet to put on her gear and says, "coach, get someone out here with a face mask to warm up your pitcher," please go out and come to a mutual understanding with him or her. If needs be tell the ump that your organization's rules require full equipment so Mr. Umpire, sir or mam, please take a pill and chill. Even if there is no safety risk, you are teaching your kids to think safety first and you are getting them used to playing with the equipment on. There are no negative side affects of being overly cautious!
I suppose the first piece of extraordinary safety equipment you will encounter is the batter's face guard. It looks a bit like a football face mask. I remember the first time I saw one thinking that this was a little too much. I never wore a face mask for all the years I played baseball. I haven't seen any boys wearing them. Why do girls need these things if boys don't? At the earliest ages, my girls faced lolly-pop pitches and, even when they made good contact, could barely hit the ball past the pitcher. I figured I would worry about face guards when the level of play got better. Unfortunately I forgot about them until the day one was actually needed.
Here is the answer as to why batting face guards are important and why you should get one now. Take a look at a standard-issue softball bat. The typical bat is fatter than a baseball bat. The curve of the metal from the handle to the barrel is much more drastic than on a baseball bat. To see why this matters, put the bat out in front of you as if you were just about to make contact. Envision a slightly inside pitch on which your daughter gets full extension on the swing. The pitch hits the bat right where it's curved. The ball bounces off the bat and hits your daughter right in the face! I was unlucky enough to see this first hand. I was coaching first base and the batter was my daughter. She hit herself on the cheekbone, nearly breaking it. But imagine if she had hit herself in the eye or squarely on her nose. I couldn't sleep that night going over the possibilities. As to why you should get one now even if your daughter is playing in a league where the ball is actually soft and spongy, ask yourself why you should not get her acclimated to wearing a face guard now so she will be familiar with it in the future. Also, ask yourself if you are not going to bother now, precisely when do you plan to buy one. Are you going to wait like I did until she actually hits herself in the face on a foul tip?
As a final word on batting face guards, your league will likely only mandate their usage if state law requires it. I understand that some states do and some will in the future - I know that my home state does not but will next year. I would like to see the sport require this before every state does but that is unlikely. But you're capable of making these decisions for your own kid so go out and get one. I really do not know the full spectrum of what is available but you want one that allows good peripheral vision yet does not come close to allowing an 11 inch ball through. The actual mask should be covered with rubbery vinyl so it never chips throwing a small piece into your child's eyes. You must inspect it regularly and replace it if the vinyl becomes dry, cracked or in any way chipped.
The next item up for discussion is the fielders face guard. This is roughly akin to the kinds of face guards basketball players who have broken their noses use. It is possibly something you have never seen used in softball. I know I've never seen it used at any level of play. If you want to see one, go over to SoftballJunk.com's safety equipment page and look for "GameFace" or "Fielder's Mask." This is a great device for any player in the field but especially pitchers who often stand as close as thirty to thirty five feet from the point of bat impact after they end their motion. Considering that pitchers throw 50+ mph at around 12 years old or so and the hit ball is typically twice the speed of the pitch, that means the ball gets back to the pitcher in about one third of a second. I know you probably have not taken a written drivers license test in a couple years but most will ask how long it takes for a human being to step on the brake even in the most alarming situations. The answer the test is looking for is three quarters of a second. Just to do a little math exercise, if you put your kid on the mound without a face guard, you are asking her to react in less than half the time it takes an adult to step on the brake in life-threatening circumstances.
The face guard may be something you aren't too hip about but here's the one I really want to advocate. First let me explain an experience I had the other day. I was watching a 10U Little League game. The batter was a pretty good hitter but she wanted to get better so she spent five days, one hour per day at a hitting camp the week prior to the game. She did a bunch of drills teaching her to hit to all fields but most of the drills were designed to teach her to hit the ball back through the middle. Her instructor was one of the better ones available and her hitting improved quite a bit. On the second pitch, she drilled the ball back to the pitcher. I was standing about 60 feet from the batter and saw her swing but I never saw the ball until it hit the cage next to the first base dugout after it had bounced off the pitcher's clavicle. I don't know if she broke her clavicle but it is a real possibility based on what I saw. All I could think about was how lucky she was! What if the ball had struck her where her in the chest?
There is a type of injury in baseball and softball which make them among the most dangerous sports. The injury is called sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and it can result from being struck in the chest by a thrown or batted ball. The ball does not have to be moving fast. When it strikes a child at the wrong moment in her heart rhythm, the heart stops beating and in very short order, the child dies.
I had heard of this injury many years ago. I thought it was something extremely rare and perhaps the one instance I heard of a child's death was the only such example in recorded history. If you search sports injuries around the web, it is virtually impossible to find this unless you are specifically searching for "SCA" or "sudden cardiac arrest." A while ago I was having a conversation with a football coach. I told him how I glad I was that I had girls who would never play football like I did. I explained the myriad of injuries I experienced in the game and said I thought football and hockey just had to be the most dangerous sports. He told me I was quite wrong and that baseball and softball not only have more injuries, they have far more life-threatening ones, the most common of which is SCA. I cannot point to any specific stats on SCA but I think it is easy to say that one of these, in your league, while you are watching a game, is one too many. I know I hope to never see it in person. I'm willing to do just about anything to avoid it.
The way to combat SCA is to:
- teach your daughter to turn toward the umpire and catcher when batting if the ball is coming too close to her,
- teach your daughter to hold her upper hand in front of her, just below her eyes, when fielding,
- convince your youth baseball association to obtain (through whatever means possible) an AED (Automated external defibrillator),
- more to the point of this writing, have you daughter wear a device to protect her heart area by dispersing the force of any impact to her chest. Tell other parents about this.
There are numerous sorts of devices for this but I'm not going to review them for you here. I think anything which disperses the force of impact will do quite well. You can find a variety of them as well as any of the safety equipment I have mentioned here in numerous places on and off the internet. SoftballJunk.com sells these. Sports Authority sells many of them as do most reputable sporting goods stores. If you seek, I'm confident you will find.
If you think this discussion has been a waste of your time, if you think the same standard equipment you used as a child is gonna have to be "good enough" for your kid, I have a non-athletic game you can play at home for fun. Get your toaster out, plug it in and turn it on by pushing a very small piece of bread into the slot. Now get a metal fork out of the drawer and have your child try to retrieve the bread using the fork while the toaster is engaged. Now that's some fun! That is what you are doing by putting your kid out there without considering safety first and safety right now.
Permanent Link: Safety First, Safety Early, Safety Please!
 
Change Things Up A Little .. Or A Lot
by Dave
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
The single most under-rated pitch on planet Earth is the change-up. As far as I can tell this is because pitchers are afraid of throwing a meatball to a batter who quickly sends it over the fence. Another reason is that the spinning, moving pitches have more pinache and style. But a great change-up can make an ordinary pitcher into a very effective one.
At the most recent World Cup, we saw a Japanese pitcher (who sometimes hit 70 and had a tremendous change-up she was not afraid to use) stymie the best hitters the US had to offer. Yukiko Ueno was amazing not only because at 5-foot-8 she might be the smallest pitcher ever to hit 70, but also because she seems to have absolute command of the speed she is throwing. She throws the typical array of pitches but the speed of each is apparently different on every pitch. Also, and most importantly, she throws a change-up that is typically around 47-49 mph. 12U and 14U batters are supposed to be able to hit pitches at this speed. Yet the US hitters looked as if they were 10U when Ueno threw a change.
If you don't have a change-up at all, there are a couple ways to throw one. My favorite is the one where you basically use the "hand-shake" motion to replace your snap on a straight fastball. This is effective because it seems to the batter that you are throwing another pitch, perhaps a drop. You can use almost any sort of grip on the ball - I suggest experimenting to find the one or couple which suit you. Your motion is the same as for a straight fastball but when your arm is right by your side, your knuckles should be facing away from your body and your thumb should be right next to your leg. From this position, you raise your hand as if you are shaking someone's hand. Your fingers release the ball which should escape your hand through the thumb and index finger.
Practice doing just the release with the hand shake the way you might do other snap drills. Keep your arm glued to your side and move only the hand. Once you are able to release the ball well, try it without the full motion by starting with your throwing arm over your head, your mitt stretched out towards homeplate. Swing your arm down like you are throwing a fast pitch and release with a hand-shake. Your arm should come to a complete stop at release. But you can sort of roll your shoulder towards the batter to give that drop ball look. Now you can do your regular pitching drills while using your change-up release. That's really all there is to it. The trick is practicing it a lot while appearing to throw a fastball. And being able to control exactly where the ball goes is almost as important.
If you already have a decent change-up but are not using it, ask yourself why. Hopefully, after you watched the World Cup, it isn't out of fear that the batters will kill it. If you are a pretty good pitcher - not the fastest or best, consider that using a change-up will actually make your faster pitches seems even faster to the batters. If they are aware that you have a good change-up, they will know that they have to keep their hands back in order to deal with it. Once they commit to keeping their hands back, your pitches will appear much faster to them. An ordinary fastball, drop or riser becomes almost impossible to hit if you wait too long to commit.
Additionally, a change-up can be the most effective pitch you have to deal with slap hitters. This is because they are already in motion before you release your pitch. A slapper begins her steps as your arm is in the downward motion in order to get moving so they can beat out a throw to first. A change-up can make even a seasoned slapper leave the batter's box too early resulting in her being called out. Even if she somehow manages to stay in the box or if she leaves it and the umpire doesn't call her out, you have completely messed up her timing. Without a good off speed pitch, slappers are likely to make you feel as if you've been slapped all day. A good change-up provides you the tool with which to slap back!
Many pitchers have a change-up in their repertoire but because they are afraid to actually use it in a game, they never master the pitch. By mastery I really mean three things. First off, the most important aspect to throwing an effective change-up is to have the identical motion you would have with your faster pitches. Nothing about your body should telegraph the hitter that you are throwing anything unusual. The batter should expect a "normal" pitch. In order to accomplish this you need to have a fair amount of practice time and you need someone to watch you and tell you when you have accomplished this goal. Too many pitchers try to make the pitch go really slow by changing their motion to throw a change. Just like most other pitches, the trick is in how much pressure you throw the ball with. A good change relies on the grip and release to provide the pitcher with no opportunity to put pressure against the ball. That is why you do not want any fingers behind the ball to push it. Your arm motion must seem like you are whipping the ball as fast as you can.
The second element to change-up mastery is speed. This really comes from releasing the ball properly as I've just said. But you want to make sure that your change-up is drastically slower than your other pitches. The example of Japanese pitcher Ueno is a good one but, after all, she is a world class pitcher. I doubt you throw 70 and are able to drop your change-up in at 20 mph slower than that. But you want to have a noticeable difference. Your practice catcher ought to be able to tell you that you have thrown a slow enough change to use it in a game. But just to make sure, try it out on your own batters during practice. Make sure your catcher knows you may use it but don't let any of your team's hitters know until after practice!
The third element of a good change-up is control. I have seen pitchers throw their change right down the middle of the plate and because the batter was so off balance, it was an easy swinging strike three. But this is not the best approach to actually using a change. You want to be able to strike the batter out if you goof up and put i t down the middle but the best place for a change-up is either right outside the strike zone or just barely inside it. And even if you throw a strike, you want the level to be right on the upper or lower lines. High and outside is a good spot but if it falls into the strike zone, I would rather it be something the batter has to reach for. So in order to throw an effective change up, you need to be able to locate the pitch well, just outside of the zone. This, as usual means lots of practice. But even if you cannot locate the pitch precisely where you want, at least try it out in game situations where you are assured of victory or have no chance of winning. Nothing replaces using a pitch in a game situation.
I hope I have convinced you to run outside and start working on that pitch you have been ignoring. If you throw 50 in a league of 55 mph pitchers, you can still compete in their league with a good change. Nobody without a radar gun is going to be able to say for sure that you don't throw 55 if you mix in changes. After you throw your first really good change and struck out an over-anxious home run queen, take a look around the sidelines and notice if any fans have fallen out of their lawn chairs. If anyone appears to be picking themselves off the ground, you should know that you now have a great change-up.
Permanent Link: Change Things Up A Little .. Or A Lot
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!
Permanent Link: Inaugural Softball World Cup
Bunting Fundamentals
by Dave
Monday, July 18, 2005
The higher you move up in softball, the more bunting you see. That is because softball is even more of a "small ball" sport than its big brother, baseball. Many high level games end up being 1 - 0 after lots of extra innings. The deciding play is often a well-placed bunt moving a runner to second or third. It behooves a player to learn how to bunt well.
I have seen a few different techniques for bunting but seldom do I see it taught the same way it is taught in baseball. I think the baseball technique is the best for control so that is the one I'm going to write about here. Also, drag bunting, bunting for a hit and slap hitting are subjects a little too advanced for this session. This session is limited to sacrifice bunting in order to move the runner over to the next base.
Hands And Feet
Basically the batter stands as she would to hit. As the pitcher begins her wind up, the batter takes her top hand and making a "thumbs up" movement, she slides the hand up to around the sweet spot of the bat as she turns to face the pitcher. To mimic the thumbs up movement, make a fist and lift the thumb straight up as if you are giving someone the "thumbs up." The part of the batter's fist above the index finger is where the bat will rest. The thumb acts as a shock absorber as the bat will kick back against it when the ball is struck.
The lower hand maintains its place on the bat and the cock of the arm stays the same as she steps and turns her body so as to be square with the pitcher. Both the hips and shoulders must be square to the pitcher at this point. Her feet should now both be pointing at the pitcher with the back foot slightly behind the front, knees bent, similar to the position one would take fielding a groundball.
Now the lower hand comes up and extends a bit so the bat is held exactly level just below the eyes and in front of the hitter. Both arms are slightly cocked to also cushion and control the impact of the ball. The arm attached to the lower hand has the elbow extended towards the dugout while that attached to the upper hand has the elbow extended downwards towards homeplate.
Many bunters make the mistake of not keeping the bat level because they have observed other players, particularly drag bunters, doing this. But not having a level bat, squared with the pitcher results in foul balls and the bunter's worst nightmare, pop-ups. Keeping the bat level just below the eyes makes it easier to make good, even contact with the ball and causes the bunt to be fair more often than not.
"Catching" the Ball
When the body is square and the bat is level, the batter has a much better view of the pitched ball and can adjust more easily. The batter should adjust to the pitch, to the greatest extent possible, by bending her knees to squat or stand straight up depending on where the pitch is. There is no reason to lunge at the ball or bend over to make contact. The head remains still. The arms keep their semi-flexed position once achieved.
Once the batter is ready to strike the ball, the technique is really more like catching the ball with the bat than it is striking it. She catches the ball with the bat by adjusting her position exclusively with the knees. The bat never moves until it is struck and then only a little. It may feel a little awkward at first but this is the best technique to teach as it results in the greatest likelihood of making contact while having the greatest amount of control.
Some Pitch Considerations
If a pitcher is trying to prevent a batter from putting down a sacrifice bunt, she will most often throw the pitch high. This is because the batter is forced to lift the bat above her eye level where she cannot judge good contact. She is far more likely to bunt the ball into the air resulting in a double play, if she can be coaxed into lifting the bat above her eyes.
Another technique pitchers will try is to force the batter to bunt the ball where the defensive team wants it. For example, with a right handed bunter and a runner on second, the defensive team may want the batter to bunt the ball directly at their left-handed first baseman in order to get a clean throw to third and nail the runner. She may try to pitch inside around the waste in order to force a defensive bunt. You have to train your team to understand when a pitcher is trying to force a bad bunt that may end up costing you an opportunity. Once your bunter realizes she cannot make the sacrifice, she needs to do something to indicate to the base runner that she is not going to be dropping one down. She can, for example, pull her upper hand back towards her chest and stand straight up in which case your runners, alerted to this, will know to go back to the base. It is important to teach beginning bunters that they must remove the bat from the strike zone, if they do not like the pitch. So teaching bunters to pull back the top hand serves two purposes.
Placement of Bunts
I alluded to it before but the key to a good sacrifice bunt is placement. Unfortunately a good bunt in one circumstance is not a good bunt in another. Whether the pitcher, first baseman, or third baseman are righty or lefty is an important consideration. Also, whether you are trying to move a runner from first or second is important.
The bunter must try to get the bunt to the fielder least able to get your lead runner out. A lefty first baseman has an excellent view of the bases when fielding a bunt. A righty third baseman has almost no hope of throwing a runner out at third. Pitcher often make good targets as they often have difficulty adjusting to throwing overhand. But many pitchers are excellent fielders. You are going to have to judge for yourself who the best player to bunt at is, depending on perceived ability, left or right handedness, and the situation.
Drilling
As far as drilling the bunt goes, control is the key element you are looking for. After you have taught the basic body position and had your girls each have a few turns bunting, they will see that making contact is pretty easy. The next thing you are after is control. This really boils down to experience and while there is nothing like game experience, drilling in practice can go a long ways towards teaching bunt control.
Get your pitchers to throw live pitches to your bunters. This makes it real and can also provide the added benefit of training your pitchers to field bunts. I don't like pitching machines for practicing bunts. Batters quickly adjust to where the pitch is thrown and this defeats the purpose. I think pitching machines have a purpose in teaching hitting in general but bunting is best done live.
Make some marks in the dirt in front of home plate. If you have spray-paint, use it. Make several circles and even circles within circles. Put a point value on bunts in different areas and have a little contest. It doesn't much matter where the greatest value is. You are not trying to get your bunters to place the perfect bunt in the middle circle to the right of the pitcher on each attempt. Rather you want them to learn control. And since the "perfect bunt" depends on several variables, it is actually better if you teach your girls to bunt into each of the circles, like a game of darts. Perhaps the greatest point value should be awarded for bunting the ball into all the circles.
In any event, rather than having your bunters try to be the team's best bunter, I suggest you set different levels such as "beginner, yeoman, and expert." Let your girls know that if they place a bunt in each of the circles, they achieve "expert" status. But from time to time, tell them that every "expert" must maintain their status by proving their expertise again. This way you can have your girls keep up their bunting skills.
Whatever you try to get your girls to practice bunting and perfect the art, you won't be sorry. Chances are that you will win a couple close games just because your kids know how to bunt.Labels: hitting
Permanent Link: Bunting Fundamentals
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