Girls Fastpitch Softball: April 16, 2006

A Guide to Girls Fastpitch Softball For Parents and Kids

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Framing The Pitch

by Dave
Wednesday, April 19, 2006

If you watch a baseball or softball game on TV, you are sure to hear something along the lines of "he (or she) did a great job of framing that pitch." That's how commentators frequently explain a strike called on a pitch which was apparently outside the strike zone. You watch the replay and see the ball was clearly about three to six inches outside the zone, the catcher pulled the ball back inside and the ump called the pitch a strike. The only possible explanation is the catcher somehow fooled the ump into thinking the pitch was a strike. Right! I think the most over-rated event in diamond sports is the "framed pitch."

Umpires encompass a complete range of experience from those junior high schoolers calling their first game of tee-ball to those who have called thousands of high level games. They all take slightly different approaches and they are, after all, human. But somehow I doubt they are susceptible to being fooled by the movement of a catchers mitt from one point to another a foot or more away. A catcher can sometimes fool the ump slightly but I believe that is only in very rare circumstances. Let's take a look at the game from the point of view of the plate umpire and see if we can make some sense of "framing the pitch."

The strike zone

The strike zone is a three-dimensional space which covers the irregular area of home plate and spans the height from the batter's knees to armpits when he or she is in her natural hitting stance. Human beings are incapable of created dotted lines with their vision without the help of "bionics" so essentially the plate umpire creates a field of vision which he or she thinks encompasses the strike zone and if the ball passes through it, the ump calls it a strike.

The catcher is generally positioned a few feet behind homeplate. Batters usually stand someplace within the batter's box which extends in back of the plate. As she swings the bat towards the pitched ball, it swings in back of the batter's box and then through the zone. A catcher never places her mitt into the strike zone or even that close to it unless she wants to have her catching hand broken by a swung bat. This fact is not lost on umpires who are also charged with calling catchers interference if the bat hits the catcher unless the batter was clearly out of the box. Any umpire recognizes that the catcher is not part of the strike zone and, in fact, is not positioned all that close to it.

As a final point to the argument, with all the pitch angles and sideways movement of pitches today, a valid strike is frequently caught by the catcher not in a direct line from the pitcher through the strike zone. Often even a fastball ends up being caught outside what would be the strike zone if it were extended back to the catcher in a straight line. A curve or screwball with any sort of good movement will likely end up outside the zone. If the strike zone were actually a box, you would hope a rise ball would hit or roll along the upper lid of the box. Similarly, a drop ball should fall below the strike zone once it crosses the plate. A strike should be called if half the ball hits the invisible mass of air which makes up the strike zone regardless of where it ends up.

Catcher's movement

Catchers have it rough. That's not to say catching isn't the greatest position on the field. It is. But the catcher has to sit back there hunched on her knees in a position used for centuries to torture military and political prisoners while catching a ball thrown 40 to 65 mph from 35, 40 or 43 feet which breaks 6 inches to two feet or bounces in the dirt. Each game she must do this probably more than 100 times. And then there are those nasty foul tips which change the trajectory of the ball, sometimes costing you the use of your throwing hand thumb for a few weeks. It's a tough job and, make no mistake about it, you get beat up. Your knees hurt, your back hurts, your feet hurt, your hands scream at you every time you catch the pitch in the "wrong" part of the glove. As the game wears on, you move a little more slowly. Catch back-to-back or back-to-back-to-back games on a 95 degree day, and you are intimately familiar with your personal pain threshold. And while we would like to think that the catcher can move at the speed of light, she cannot. It is perfectly clear to the umpire when you catch a ball a foot outside and then move your glove perceptibly back inside the zone. the umpire watches the same games on TV you do and he or she knows catchers try to "frame the pitch." She sees you do it. She is not fooled.

Human factor

As we noted before, the ump is a human being with normal flaws including imperfect vision. She knows she is not going to call a perfect game. We've all seen umpires with a broad or tall strike zone. If you watch any college game, you are going to see pitches called strikes which are clearly outside the area of the plate. You are also going to see strikes which are clearly below the knees or above the armpits. We've all seen umpires with a very small strike zone. Depending on the umpire or the day or the number of games she called yesterday, the umpire is going to be imperfect to a greater or lesser degree. What we want is not perfect calls but rather consistent ones throughout the course of a single game. The ump knows that too. That is likely her objective as she dons the mask and yells "play ball."

What the umpire does is try to create an invisible box with her eyes by training her vision on a particular spot located in front of the catcher. She looks to see if the pitch hits that invisible area and then in a split second she makes up her mind whether that happened and makes the call consistent with her observation. Most of the time she'll make up her mind, ball or strike, before she even hears the whop of the ball in the catchers mitt. Sometimes she blinks at the wrong moment or loses her focus and on those couple of occasions during the game, she may make a bad or delayed call. Even then she cannot be fooled dramatically by a catcher because even if she missed seeing whether the pitch hit her zone, she still sees the catcher swinging her arms to move the glove two feet. Sometimes, when she blinks, she looks at where the ball hit the catcher's mitt and judges the trajectory based upon that. But I'm jumping the gun.

Sometimes it backfires

A more frequent event than an ump calling a ball, a strike because the catcher "framed it" is that one in which the ump has built up some dislike of one team or another because they have been riding her over plate calls or something else. Now if the catcher moves her glove around too much, an ump may take that opportunity to call a ball on a pitch which might otherwise have hit the zone. So what I'm saying is "framing," especially bad framing, can actually backfire. I believe that is a very rare occurrence, perhaps just as rare as a ball being called a strike because of good "framing." But it is something about which you should be aware. Dramatic movements of the catchers glove after catching a pitch can cause the ump to make a call against you however subconsciously she does this.

Sometimes it works

I won't deny that sometimes, although rarely, framing a pitch can get you a called strike. But where I'm taking this discussion is, the few times in which a "framed" ball is called a strike is when the ump loses focus or blinks untimely and the catcher frames the right way. So what I want to convey at this point is the right way to frame a pitch. The wrong way is to move the positioning of your mitt several inches, even feet, after you've caught the pitch. Picture a pitch outside the zone, you catch it with your glove completely outside the extended area of the zone, and then pull it a foot or two inches until your mitt is completely inside the extended zone. That's the wrong way to frame a pitch. That's as obvious to the ump as it is to your 6 year old sister sitting in the stands eating ice cream.

Now, think of your mitt positioned right on the line of the outside of the strike zone. Obviously, a catchers mitt being about 12 inches or so by 12 inches or so, a good piece of the mitt is situated outside the zone, let's say 6 inches in and 6 inches out. If you hold your catching hand still and a completely straight pitched ball is allowed to hit the unmoving mitt, chances are good that a strike or a ball will hit the mitt in different places. The strike will hit the half of the mitt in the zone and a ball will hit the outer half. It is difficult for an ump to discern which half of the mitt has been hit, if she even tries to do that. You can fool an ump into believing the ball hit the inside half of the mitt if you try hard enough and have practiced performing this task enough.

The way to properly frame is to visualize how you catch a ball in different parts of the mitt. As a general matter, the unpracticed hand will move in the direction the ball is relative to the center of the mitt. In other words, if the ball hits the outer half, you tend to move your hand outside. If the ball hits the inner half, you tend to move your glove towards the batter and strike zone. The same is true of balls which hit the upper or lower half of the circular catcher's mitt. With practice, you can defeat your body's natural reaction to balls caught in different parts of the mitt. With practice you can move your catching hands slightly as if a ball which hits the outside half has hit the inside half - you can move directly opposite the direction your body wants to move your hand. All this accomplishes is to fool the ump by a few inches on those somewhat rare occasions she has blinked or lost focus. I doubt you'll be able to successfully "frame" numerous pitches each game unless the ump is calling 4 or 5 per day for several days in a row. But you might just frame an important strike three for the final out of a close game or otherwise change things at a crucial moment.

Practicing good framing

The way to practice framing is to take a lot of pitches while working specifically on this skill. A pitching machine can be used or, if you are lucky enough to be able to catch your team's pitchers a lot, live pitching can be used. The trick is to train your body into doing what it naturally does not want to do. Aim the jugs machine or ask your pitcher to try to throw a bunch of slightly outside pitches. Take up position with your glove aligned on the outside line of the strike zone and make every effort to fight to move your glove in the same manner it moves when you catch a pitch on the inside half of the glove when it hits the outside half. If you are a right handed catcher, that means a subtle, slight cocking of the wrist down and to the left. Again, you are trying to move your hand as if the ball hit the opposite side of the glove it actually hit.

Now do the same with inside pitches followed by high and then low pitches. On inside pitches, you want to turn your wrist inwards and move your throwing hand as if the ball hit the inside of the mitt and you are afraid you are going to drop it. On high pitches, you want your hand to flop downwards as if the ball has hit the heal of your mitt and you want to avoid dropping it. I want to be clear about something. Your arm should not be moving on inside, outside and high pitches. It is your hand which is doing the framing. That is not true on low pitches, however. On low pitches which have hit the lower half of the glove, your natural propensity is going to be to be move the glove down to the ground in order to smother the ball. If you've got a borderline low strike, you move your glove down to smother the ball and the ump blinks, she is going to think the ball was lower than it actually was. This is hard but you've really got to fight your normal reactions and try to lift the glove as if you are afraid the ball is going to come out the top. In order to do that, you are going to have to move your arm upwards.

When you have accomplished these skills of dealing with a pitch that is inside, outside, high or low, now it is time to work on those that are outside and high or low, and inside and high or low. Once you start working on proper pitch framing, spend some time just sitting there with your mitt thinking about this and seeing how you move your hand when the ball hits the glove in different places. In spare moments, think about how you go about framing. Then make it a discipline to practice this every time you catch a game, scrimmage, or even live batting practice. Because this is a "muscle-tendon memory" exercise, once you start, you don't want to ever allow yourself to get into bad habits and undo the work you have already done. This has to be a rigid discipline.

Conclusion

I am not a huge advocate of teaching catchers framing. There are so many difficult skills a catcher has to master that framing is almost a waste of time before a catcher has developed other important skills. And framing has perhaps the least beneficial payoff. Sometimes it can backfire. But I'm sure there are players and coaches out there who insist on the value of the framed pitch. For that reason I chose to address it.

I hope I have given you a clue as to how to go about framing pitches properly. Please keep in mind that bad framing can backfire and good framing rarely pays off. Your objective in framing a pitch is not the wholesale fooling of umpires. Your objective is to convince an ump on those rare occasions when she didn't get a good look at the pitch that the trajectory was close enough. You do this with subtle movements of the hand, not big arm movements. You're not really fooling anyone. You're merely providing minor evidence to someone who hasn't made up her mind yet.

Follow-up:

Randy writes "I just read the article on framing and though there are some good points you seemed to have missed the actual purpose of framing pitches. The purpose isn't to make pitches that aren't anywhere near the zone look like strikes. In reality attempting to get an obvious ball called a strike will make it difficult to get the borderline pitches called strikes. The purpose is to present all strikes and borderline strikes in a favorable manor with as little glove movement as possible. In fact the glove shouldn't be moving perceptively at all and any movement of the glove should be towards the zone regardless of whether the pitch is up, down, in, or out. The reality of framing is that you're trying to show the umpire where it came through the zone. There's no problem with framing a pitch close to the zone, it's framing a pitch that isn't where the problem lies. I tell my catchers that they are trying to ensure that all strikes are called strikes as well as some of the borderline pitches anything else is disingenuous toward the umpire."

Truth be told, what Randy has to say is exactly what I was trying to say. "Framing" should be accomplished by as little glove movement as possible and it is only a valid approach for pitches which are borderline. Framing pitches which are well outside the strike zone is disingenuous towards the umpire and may have negative repercussions on close pitches.

Permanent Link: Framing The Pitch

Q&A: Baserunning "Ready Position"

by Dave
Tuesday, April 18, 2006

A reader writes: I am coaching girls majors softball(9-12 year olds). The question I have is, what is the right way for girls to be running from first to second or second to third? What should their READY position be? I have coached boys before so this is all new to me. I watch Girls softball on TV alot and I noticed that all the girls get ready by having their left foot touching the front on the base while their right foot is behind it. Is this the correct position?

A:
This is actually a great question and very common from guys who once played or coached baseball and are now coaching softball. Your observation is an astute one. Girls do take up the position you describe, the front foot on the inside of the base occupied and the other foot behind it. I believe the reasons are multi-faceted.

The first reason is, obviously, there is no leading in girls softball. So there is no reason for the balaced body position we learned and taught in baseball. The sprinter's position is far more advantageous for getting a quick running start but if, as in baseball, there is a reason to move quickly backwards, this position is very bad indeed.

The second reason, I believe, is a runner can clearly get a better start if she has something to push off of with her first step. The anchored base fits very nicely into this category. So I try to teach girls to use the base for leverage on their first step. The best way to get that leverage is by beginning the running motion with one foot behind the base and as that leg comes forward, using the base to push off from.

The final reason to begin with one foot on the inside and one foot behind the base is as a timing mechanism. In higher levels of competition, girls are allowed to leave the base as soon as the ball comes completely out of the pitcher's hand. Generally a runner does not merely stand there staring at the place the pitcher releases the ball waiting until that moment when she can see it free of the pitcher's hand. Instead, your typical quality runner times the ball release. Ideally, she will be in full motion or momentum at the moment of ball release and lunging off the base just after that instant.

So in conclusion, what you have observed on television is quite right. The vast majority of high level base runners start with one foot on the inside of the base and the other behind it. They do it because it is a better position than a baseball lead to get moving, it provides something to push off from, and it provides a decent timing mechanism.

While I cannot be certain that the league rules in your 9-12 year-old league allow for leaving the base before the ball crosses homeplate, I still think you ought to teach the skill in this fashion because girls should be made familiar with the differences in our sport and baseball at the youngest possible ages.

Permanent Link: Q&A: Baserunning "Ready Position"

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