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Little League World Series Observations
by Dave
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Semi-Finals
I hope you had a chance to watch the Little League Softball World Series (LLWS) semi-final games on ESPN2 last night. If not, you can still catch the final game, also on ESPN2, at 9:30 pm EDT on Thursday. I found the games interesting if not the best softball I have seen recently. Here are some of my observations:
Traditional Softball Powerhouses Left Out
California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and the other areas which generally turnout the best softball players in the world were not represented in the final 4 teams. Is this indicative of other places turning out better and better players or that Little League is not the supreme body in softball the way it arguably is in baseball? Pony and ASA generally have a higher quality of play than Little League does. I haven't seen any national ASA or Pony play but the local tournaments I have seen were a touch better than the LLWS play. I know many quality programs eschew Little League at least in my area.
I don't think softball is generally splintered into different "leagues" but I do think many of the best players and teams in the country are not represented in Little League. The question is whether or not this will continue. ESPN does a good job of covering the NCAAs, the national team, and now Little League. But I have seen no television coverage for ASA play. I wonder if the funding which most likely can be derived from television sources will have an impact on Little Leagues ability to grow. At first glance, unless they are able to draw better teams into the competition, I doubt they will be able to compete with the likes of ASA.
Pitching Good And Bad
The pitchers I saw generally had very good control. Walks were few and far between but more importantly, the pitchers had command of the corners. Pitch location is at least as important as speed and movement. The Little Leaguers had good command and were moving the ball around. But there was very little speed. One pitcher from the
Philippines threw as fast as 63 mph. The girls on the team from Connecticut who played against her had lots of trouble catching up. As a result, they had few hits but got a run across when it mattered and won their game. The American pitchers threw in the upper 40s to middle 50s. One coach noted that his girls were going to have trouble dealing with the slowness of the pitching. Generally the girls did have trouble hitting the ball against slow pitching. Now there's a strategy you might want to try - find your slowest pitchers for a big game!
Small Ball
The bunting skills I saw were not good. I believe there was one successful bunt in each of the games but that was on more than a half dozen attempts. The batters who squared to bunt most frequently went after high pitches outside the strike zone. You cannot bunt a pitch that is above your eyes. It is almost guaranteed to end up being caught in the air by the pitcher, catcher or third baseman. Also, or perhaps more importantly, the girls did not hold the bats square to the pitcher but rather held them at angles. As a result, most bunt attempts were fouled off.
Batters were also not able to make productive outs with runners on first or second. They seemed pretty well incapable of hitting the ball where they wanted even if they got a good pitch to move the runners along with. This is generally due to inexperience as these girls are 11 and 12 but even at that age a girl should be able to hit the ball to the right side one third of the time if that's what her goal is. That did not happen even once.
Finally, there were some base running mistakes where runners ran through their coaches hold up sign. That should not ever be tolerated at this age.
Fielding
Fielding skills were generally pretty good. Good throwing skills, especially in the infield, at this level seem to define the better teams. But outfield skills were somewhat poor. A number of key plays were misjudgements on simple fly balls or badly played line drives which bounced and then got by the outfielder. But far worse than misplayed balls was the lack of execution on cutoff plays. This was not only the outfielders fault but also the infielders. Infielders set themselves up poorly on some cutoffs. Even when they were set properly, outfielders did not routinely hit the cutoff. That is an area Little Leaguers should work on.
Miscellany
The uniforms the players wore were obviously provided by Little League since they were not these teams' uniforms. So my big question is, why were the players given hats instead of visors? Here's a tip to Little League officials, real girls softball is played while wearing visors. Boys wear hats.
Players should be familiarized with wearing sunglasses in the field before they compete at national and international levels, especially outfielders but also the infielders. The sun was pretty bad in the field and a number of girls did not have glasses or hats on. Outfielders need to become familiar with wearing them as they can be a real lifesaver. These girls begin play months before the tournament starts. They should be encouraged to use sunglasses early on so they are familiar with them when they really need them.
I actually did see some batters wearing sunglasses! Why? I don't know - the sun was not in their eyes. Home was mostly in the shadows. Sunglasses could not have helped and most likely hurt. I don't understand why a coach would allow his hitters to wear sunglasses in a game where they hit in the shadows.
Umpiring was fair and consistent - much better than in the boys games I watched where it was pretty poor and inconsistent, especially with respect to the strike zone. The high outside strike was frequently called. Low inside was often a ball even if it was on the corner, just above the knee. But such is life on the diamond. Both teams play with the same umps making the calls and as long as they are consistent, things are fair.
Olympics Discussed
Michele Smith did take a moment to briefly discuss the fact that softball has been dropped from the Olympics beginning with the games in London. She noted that there is a drive to get parents and others to write the IOC at InternationalSoftball.com. Please take a moment to visit the site and learn how you can participate in the effort to have softball restored to the games.
Conclusion
I doubt Little League will ever become the powerhouse in the girls game it is in the boys. But I like having any softball on TV. I think this game is growing rapidly and will continue to do so. Any TV exposure has to be a good thing.
Finals
Perhaps I convinced you to tune in the LLWS final game. If so, I'm partly happy because, as I said, any and all TV exposure to our sport is a good thing. But I'm also partly embarrassed as the level of play was not good.
I was particularly perplexed by the Connecticut team's use of a non-windmill pitcher in the final game. She threw just as hard as the windmillers but, because the motion she used was what used to be called "modified fastpitch," the hitters hammered her. My wife and I were upset to see a non-windmill pitcher used as that is not the method used by good quality softball teams. It is just too easy to pick up the ball thrown by a straight underhand pitcher.
One can imagine this girl as she rose up through the ranks of her rec league. She is a very big and very strong girl. But she was probably discouraged from throwing windmill because she had trouble throwing strikes. Baseball coaches would never teach a baseball pitcher to throw underhand in order to get the ball over. Yet at the recreational level, softball coaches repeatedly encourage non-windmillers because they can control where the ball goes. But at 12 years old and at a high level, girls pummel such "pitching." Actually I cannot in good conscience refer to this as "pitching." It is throwing batting practice.
The decision to use a non-windmill pitcher was a bad one since the team from Virginia bashed the ball around off of her. This put the Connecticut team in a hole from which they would never emerge. It is always possible for a team to come back but starting out in a 3-0 hole ends badly for the team behind most of the time. It did last night.
Another observation I have is some advice I heard screamed by parents and coaches during the game. One coach was yelling at his hitters to keep their weight back. That is solid advice. But one parent was yelling to his kid to keep her back arm up. That is the way I was taught to hit when I was a little kid but it is very wrong advice. You have very little time to swing the bat in softball and having your back arm flexed backwards and up causes the hitter to commit too early. You simply must shorten your stroke, especially the beginning of it, if you are going to have any success as a softball hitter. Also, keeping the back arm up causes batters to frequently develop hitches in their swings. Finally, it is inappropriate for parents to shout specific instructions to their kids during big games. That should be saved for rec league back at home. I realize this is a very hard thing to control but parents should refrain from yelling reminders at this point in the season. That's the coaches job.
My final observation before I put this thing to rest involves an advice segment in which Michele Smith talked about pitching form. Her advice was that at the release point of pitching, the pitcher should have her hips open at a 45 degree angle to the batter. Michele Smith is a great pitcher who was perhaps the best pitcher the United States ever produced before Jennie Finch. I value her opinion to a great degree. But this advice seems very wrong to me. I believe a pitcher should have her hips square to the batter at release. In fact, I've never seen a top level pitcher besides Michele Smith who leaves her hips open like that. Cat Osterman does not. Jennie Finch does not. There are very few times I have ever seen a pitcher leave her hips at 45 degrees upon release and most of these have been beginner pitchers who were still trying to master the motion. I think this advice is wrong.
Final Conclusion
Little League has a long ways to go before it rises to the level in softball it has held for decades in baseball. The quality of competition is not nearly as good as that in other organizations. But the level of play has risen in the past several years. Little League organizations typically pull from a small pool of players to populate the "all-star" teams which compete in the LLWS. For example, the Connecticut team was drawn from a league in which there were 4 rec teams. That does not provide a hugs pool of players. But even with such a small pool, I believe these teams can play at higher levels than they do now. Some fundamentals need to be taught to all players in these leagues. One such fundamental is windmill pitching. But in the field, better outfielding skills should be taught. The trouble is, Little League play is a very short season spanning from mid-June until last night. That leaves coaches little time to really train the kids they pull from rec teams. A longer LL season would help the organization immeasurably.
Permanent Link: Little League World Series Observations
 
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