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My Darling Daughter, The Ex-Pitcher
by Dave
Thursday, June 29, 2006
While reading a softball forum, I came across a posting made by a parent who wondered if something his daughter recently experienced was normal in the travel softball world. The posting discussed a situation in which his 12U daughter had "been a pitcher since second grade" and now was "stuck in leftfield" because the team had gone out and found two new pitchers from another town. The girl is deeply hurt and the parent believes the coaches are doing this to please parents of other girls on the team. The parent suggests that the team will not accept these "new players" and won't get behind them. He wondered if this was fair or typical. He wondered if he should approach the coach about this unfair development.
What I don't want to say is "welcome to the real world," "life is tough, get used to it," or "welcome to travel softball where winning is the only thing." Those are easy comments which do nothing to address the issue. They don't inform anyone or comment on an experience which is very typical in softball at several levels. I'm going to try and do better than these easy comments but I'll probably come back to them in one way or another.
The first thing which comes to my mind in this scenario is, how sure are you, as a parent, that your darling daughter is really a pitcher? How fast does your 12U daughter throw? Does she hit her spots? What does she throw besides the fastball? At a reasonably competitive level of play, a 12U pitcher must throw at least 45 mph. That's the bare minimum. That is actually quite slow but she can survive at this ability if she frequently changes speeds, mixes in movement, and hits her spots. Even with those skills, some teams are going to rock the 12U 45mph pitcher. A good 12U pitcher is going to live around 55+, mix pitches and hit her spots. An adequate 12U pitcher is probably closer to 50 than 45, has at least a changeup, and hits her spots. Some coaches would not put a 45 mph pitcher out on the mound for fear of injury.
I suppose there are a large number of girls in 10U travel and on recreational all-star teams who have "pitched since second grade" but who can't make the cut once they arrive at 12U ball. I suppose the experience of this girl is pretty common and probably well deserved. I don't mean the girl deserves disappointment. I do mean that she probably shouldn't consider herself a pitcher.
In order to be a pitcher at the 12U level, you have to have the basic windmill motion down. You can't be throwing plain vanilla underhand the way some 10U pitchers do. I've seen some pitchers try to do this but it ain't pretty. Come to think of it, last year when I had nothing else to do, I watched the Little League World Series of Softball (12U age group) and saw a pitcher who did not windmill. She threw around 45 and didn't give up very many runs. I don't know what your experience is but I have never been to even a "B / all-star" tournament which the winner of the LL World Series could have even made the semifinals of. This pitcher could not have thrown batting practice for our fairly good but by no means strong 12U area travel team.
In my humble opinion, in order to get the windmill motion, you have to have some sort of instruction from somebody who really understands the motion. Maybe you, as parent, can get enough of an education from books and video to teach it but that's not been my experience. It has taken me years to understand it but even now, I know I am not qualified to teach it. I sit on a bucket an hour and a half each week, every week, catching, watching, listening to one of the better coaches around give pitching lessons. The I sit for another 6 - 8 hours per week catching a couple pretty good windmillers. So far, I have not been able to learn enough to do more than sort of outline what is involved. I couldn't really teach anyone to windmill from scratch. So, if you really want to pitch, find some sort of quality instruction.
Now, assuming a girl has received some instruction and I don't mean 6 sessions at a multi-girl clinic one time, the next requirement is practice. Just like in other aspects of life, the way to get to Broadway or Oklahoma City is practice, practice, practice. A pitcher should have a ball in her hand at least four times a week. I often am entertained by parents who just don't understand why their daughters are not improving their pitching even though they went to that clinic and "they practice every week."
The amount of practice required to be a pitcher is not measured merely by the number of days with a ball in the hand though I do consider 3 or 4 to be the minimum. Each session must also be sufficient. My best guess is 50 - 100 actual pitches AFTER an adequate warmup is the minimum required for each session. Younger pitchers can get away with 30 - 50, again after warmup. For 12s, 50 is maybe cutting it a little short. 100 isn't too bad. And if you want to make good progress, my opinion is you do an adequate warmup including loads of different isolation drills, you throw at least fifty hard fastballs to break a sweat, then work on your pitches for at least ten apiece, and then you throw the equivalent of 7 innings worth of strikes while mixing in your pitches. If you're learning a new pitch, you should throw at least 25 of them during the warmup. I often am entertained by parents who tell me their daughter practices pitching almost every day and when I ask how many pitches for each session, they tell me she throws 20 and sometimes even 30! My next question is, if she throws 20 or 30, is that in the warmup or after and they look at me with funny facial expressions.
Here is the workout routine I think works for your average 12U aspiring pitcher:
1) 20 - 50 or more "snaps" in which only the wrist is working to propel the ball. I've seen older girls throw lots more than 50 snaps in warmup especially when they work snaps for pitches other than the fastball. We generally do 10 fastball snaps, 10 snaps where the closing of the hip is involved, 10 changeup snaps, 10 screwball snaps, and 10 dropball snaps. Sometimes, when my pitcher is tired from other things and we aren't going to throw a lot, we do 30 of each kind of snap. If a girl is not working on other pitches, you can do 30 - 50 fastball snaps to loosen up and strengthen the wrist and forearm.
2) At least 10 pitches with full windmilling from a position stationed on one knee. The shoulders rotate open and then closed but the isolation is still on the arm. This serves as a warmup and the muscle and tendon memory is also served.
3) 5 - 10 pitches from a position in which the feet don't move but the hip and shoulders rotate open and closed.
4) 5 - 10 pitches in which s simple step forward is taken.
5) 5 - 10 pitches in which one foot is next to and in front of the pitching plate and a full stride toward the plate is taken.
6) 5 - 10 pitches in which both feet start on the plate and a full stride including the final 90% of the pitching motion are done. Numbers 3 - 6 also serve as warmup and muscle memory development.
7) 10 "walk-ins" in which the pitcher takes at least two full steps, the final one onto the pitching plate with the pivot foot and then the full delivery. The pitcher should be fairly hot by now and this drill serves to get the arm speed up. Each of these drills increases the intensity. Each of these drills can be performed from an appropriate close distance until you get to number 4 in which the normal pitching distance or further should be used.
8) 50 fastballs at full intensity. Speed not location or anything else is the objective. Throw it as hard as you can. Break a sweat and build strength.
9) Now you are ready to begin pitching and the only thing I care about here is that you throw at least 50 pitches. For a great workout, throw at least 100. You can throw your complete repertoire of pitches each to your most effective location. As the devoted bucket-dad-catcher, I like to call the pitches but if my kid wants to work mostly on the changeup or drop today, that's OK too. To make it interesting, I like to call balls and strikes sometimes. But if I call for a high outside fastball and she hits the target, I call strike on the swing since she has accomplished her goal on that pitch. If she "lolly-pops" a pitch down the middle, I'll call basehit or a base clearing homerun. Sometimes I'll tell my kid that this hitter is really big and swings hard so let's work the drop outside, the screwball up and in, and close her out with a changeup. I want this part of the experience to be fun and real. Sometimes I even chant "watch the pitcher, watch watch the pitcher ..." to see if I can get under my kid's skin. We enjoy our pitching practice - maybe I enjoy it more than my kids do. But hey, I have to have my fun too!
10) As we come to the conclusion of a pitching practice, this is the critical point of the game. It's the 6th or 7th inning. The game is on the line. if you allow the speed to drop off or the location to drift, you're gonna pay. So I'll say something like "OK, we've got ten pitches to go and five have to be hard strikes" or "last batter, throw three strikes to location and you can stop." The key is to give motivation to break through a pain barrier or at least summon enough psychological strength to throw good pitches when you are very tired.
This is a one to one and a half hour workout. I say four times a week but you cannot do the same thing every day. sometimes it is shorter. Sometimes all we do is drills. Sometimes we do mostly snaps. Sometimes we do 5 of each drill and then go into pitching and just throw 50 hard fastballs. Sometimes I modify the workout to shorten it up to half an hour only to have one of my kids say "dad, do we have to just throw this much or can I throw more?"
Before you send off that e-mail telling me I'm a maniac, please consider that my kids do not have unlimited amounts of free time and when I sense they need a break from pitching to go out and play, I give it to them. Sometimes I sense they need to not pitch for two weeks and so they don't. If that happens, I tell them that they have to tell me when they want to practice again. That's never made it to week three but perhaps one day it will. Most of the time, they ask after less than a week. And sometimes I say no or make it just a thirty pitch practice. I want them to want to practice pitching. And my wanting that is not enough. I have to create the environment in which they want to practice.
Also, I don't do this routine four times each week if they have a lesson or pitch in a game. A lesson or a pitched game counts as one of their practice sessions. Sometimes in the middle of the season we play so many games and barely fit in lessons that they don't throw these practices for weeks.
Since school is far more important than softball, if they have a ton of homework, pitching will have to sit on the sidelines for now. Also if they are pitching tournaments in which they will have to pitch multiple games, I like to make sure they have at least a full day or two of not throwing or of throwing only lightly. If I can find the time, I try to get them to throw one really long and intense practice 3 days before the first day of a multi-day tournament followed by light throwing - mostly drills and 30 pitches - the next day and off the next.
Finally, I know of girls who pitch more than what I just described. I also know plenty who pitch a lot less and are effective but those who practice are quickly closing the gap and surpassing them.
To sum up, tons of "athletic girls" who pitch rec ball or even travel at 10U are in for a rude awakening when they try to pitch 12U travel ball. They have received no formal training and are completely unaware of what their "competition" is doing in January. They are surprised that "being a pitcher since second grade" has absolutely no bearing on whether they will ever pitch again once they move up to 12U and try to play travel ball. 14U is going to be an even ruder awakening. They don't really understand what the word practice means in the pitching scenario.
This having been said, what about the poor girl who is "stuck in leftfield" after her pitching heart has been broken? Is there really such a thing as "being stuck in leftfield?" The only reasonable answer is no! If you are playing leftfield, that means you are playing. There are two worse scenarios.
First there is always the possibility in travel ball that you are riding the bench. In order to play leftfield in travel ball, you have to be able to play leftfield! There is no easy or unimportant position on the field which requires no practice or dedication. Leftfield may have less to do with the outcome of a game but it is not roughly akin to sitting the bench. Every kid on the field matters. Even if you have a 55+ mph, riseball-throwing, strikeout-queen-stud standing inside the pitchers circle, somebody is going to hit her. Somebody is going to get a basehit, hit a popup, or drive a liner into leftfield. Maybe a walk or two is going to precede that ball into left. And if the leftfielder is standing there biting her nails wondering when she is ever going to get to pitch again, well, we've got a little problem.
The next worse scenario to being "stuck in leftfield" or "riding the bench" is not playing softball at all. Much about the "diamond sports" has to do with dealing with adversity. That's the hidden diamond on the diamond. Softball is a difficult game in which even stud pitchers get rocked, future hall of famers make errors, and star hitters go down swinging. The sport is not about a player's athleticism as much as it is about a players temperament. Learning to deal constructively with girls who are better than you at your favorite position is as much a part of the game as dealing with a strikeout, an error, or some sort of baserunning mistake is. If a girl can't learn to deal with this sort of adversity, she probably won't be playing softball for much longer and that's a travesty.
In the real world, we often move from being a big fish in a small pond to being a tadpole in a bigger pond as we graduate from middle school, high school, or college. I remember forming a really bad opinion about the intellectual capabilities of a girl sitting next to me in philosophy class in college. I wondered why she was in college at all. I didn't think she had the raw material to be there. Then I learned she had been her high school class valedictorian! She was very sure she was smart until she got to college and found so many other kids who were far smarter and far more willing than she to work hard at learning. Ultimately she did graduate college but she was no better than a C student and had trouble getting a job because of her grades. I suspect she did quite well in the work world, however, since the most important lesson she learned in college was that she was not the brightest person on the planet and if she wanted to progress, she had better learn to work hard. She worked hard to get those Cs and graduate. She probably came out like an explosion when she hit the working world and put this lesson to work for her.
The same lessons can be learned in a far safer environment. You can learn that you aren't the greatest intellect to walk the Earth in a controlled environment where it won't cost you quite as much. The athletic field is a great place to learn humility, work ethic, and numerous other important lessons. The softball diamond is as good an athletic field as any for learning the difficult life lessons we parents often hide from our darling daughters. It may not seem nice or fair to the parent whose daughter "has been a pitcher since second grade" and now is "stuck in leftfield." But it is reality. She can still put herself into a position of being a pitcher but that is going to take some help from "experts," loads of practice, and the realization that it just might not happen.
In closing I guess I have come full circle in addressing the question about a girl who once pitched and now probably will never pitch again. I tried to stay away from those cliches, "welcome to the real world," "life is tough, get used to it," or "welcome to travel softball where winning is the only thing." Each is true and unavoidable to some degree or another. But there's more to it than that. Softball and life are about dealing with adversity. Being a parent is about teaching and preparing your kids to deal with the real world. Softball is a safe environment to learn the difficult lessons of life. Teach your kids to work hard to get what they want and appreciate what they have. Pitcher is probably the most sought after position. If you want it, you have to work for it. Playing leftfield is playing. There are worse alternatives.
Permanent Link: My Darling Daughter, The Ex-Pitcher
 
You Paid How Much For That RocketTech?
by Dave
Monday, June 26, 2006
You can find just about anything for which there is a reasonably good sized market on ebay. That's true if your desire is to purchase advertising on somebody's forehead, a 200 year old family bible, previously owned sneakers, hand painted postcards, or almost anything else you can imagine. But ebay is not just the world's largest garage sale where folks empty their closets and basements of unwanted garbage. It is also an incredible marketplace of low-overhead merchants selling all sorts of new goods including softball equipment. If you are careful, smart and patient, you can get some incredible deals.
Find Softball ItemsThe way to unlock the softball equipment riches located deep within ebay is to go to the home page: www.ebay.com, click on "buy," then find the category "sporting goods" and click on it. Next find "Baseball & Softball" about half way down the page on the left side and click on that. Then find an appropriate category for your shopping like "bats." When you're in the right general category, look for something a little more precise. In our "bat" example, once you arrive at that page, look on the left hand side and you'll find a sub-sub category for "Softball - Fastpitch" which had more than 700 items when I last looked. An alternative to perusing the categories is to go to the "buy" page and try a "keyword search" like "RocketTech" which should get you to a list of all bats for sale containing that word. You can conduct such a search from almost anyplace within ebay so there's no need for you to follow my instructions verbatim to locate softball equipment.
At any given moment you may not find precisely what you are looking for on ebay or you may find a couple dozen of the item you seek. ebay is an open marketplace. It is not like your corner sporting goods store which carries 30 or 40 makes and models of softball bats. Before something is available on ebay, some person just like you has to set up shop there. So if nobody is interested in selling a specific kind of bat, you won't find it there right now. But there's no way to be sure it won't appear on the site moments, a week, or a month after you visit. So, if you don't see what you want, don't despair and never return to the site. New merchants are born every moment. New products are offered constantly. Check the site frequently to see if somebody has listed what you want.
Various SellersIf you find several dozen of the specific item you seek, you will probably see about 6 or 7 sellers of it. All sellers on ebay are not created equal. It is possible that somebody who normally sells dogs-playing-poker pictures has a kid who plays softball and wants to get rid of their used bat. It is also possible that you will find somebody selling what you want who supplements their living or even earns their primary income from selling Louisville Slugger bats on ebay. Check out all sellers who have what you want. If you're spending $200 for a bat, you don't really want to deal with a one-time seller who will be disinterested in that product as soon as they get rid of the one they have for sale.
Ebay sellers are rated by those who have made previous purchases via a "Feedback" mechanism. On each item page you should see the seller's "nickname" which might be something like "sellbatsforless" or something along those lines. Next to the "nickname" is a rating number or "feedback score" which indicates the number of sales to unique persons the individual has made for which they received a positive feedback less the number for which they received a negative. Just below the "feedback score" you will also see a percentage which represents the percentage of sales made to unique purchasers which resulted in positive feedback over the total number of sales resulting in feedback. For example, if a merchant had 3531 sales, 3528 left positive feedback and 3 negative ones, the "feedback score" would be 3528 and the positive feedback percentage would be 99.9%.
In general I like to stick to sellers who sell lots of my kind of item and have 100% positive feedback. But when a seller has lots of transactions, an occasional negative feedback may not indicate any sort of problem. If the negative feedback is fairly recent, you may be able to find what the buyer had a problem with. There are all sorts of people on God's green Earth and sometimes mentally unstable people can put blemishes on an otherwise great merchant's account. You might read something like "the item should have gotten here in 5 days but it took 6 and seller didn't return my many e-mails" or something like that. If you find someone who has sold 15,000 RocketTech bats and has one such negative comment, you should be able to do business with this person without any negative experience of your own.
Shopping PricesI told you that you may be able to find some incredible deals on ebay. That does not mean you always get a great deal. It is a competitive bidding site so it is entirely possible to buy something available at your local store for more than the retail price of the item. It is also possible to get the wrong item or a used one when you wanted new.
Before you go to ebay, you should know exactly what the item you are looking for is. There are often a variety of models within a particular make and sometimes there are different products made from year to year. Know exactly what it is you seek including model and year of manufacture, and know what the regular retail price of the item is. Also make sure the item you are getting is new, if that's what you're after. "NIW" is short for new in wrapper. Read the entire item description, look at all the pictures and just generally be wary of anything on the page which might clue you in to a bad purchase.
For example, according to the Anderson Bat Company's web site, there are currently four bats called "RocketTech" and 3 are slow pitch bats. But there are models from other years and some of these might be banned from ASA and other play, or maybe they retail for far less than the current model. You want to make sure you only bid on items you want. Often a seller will say "like new" and follow that up with something like "only used once in practice." BS! I want new or I want a STEEP discount.
Once you know you have the right item, you want to make sure you get a good deal on it. The Anderson Bats site shows the retail price of a brand new 2005 RocketTech FP as $229.00. Softball Junk sells it for about that, but Dicks Sporting Goods sells it for just under $200 and so does Sports Authority. Before you make a bid on ebay, you want to know how much you can get the item for via other outlets including local stores. You're on ebay to get a deal not just make a purchase.
Aside from the price, there are other considerations too. You bought the item for X price but now the seller has to ship it to you and unless the page says so, that is not free. Sports Authority will ship you your bat for $7.84 making your all-in price there $207.81. Each seller on ebay has their own quirks when it comes to shipping prices. One bat seller on ebay will ship the Anderson RocketTech for $13, another $14, and yet another $16.99. One seller offers "optional" shipping insurance for $2, another requires it for $5.99, and yet another does not offer it.
So you've gone and found an Anderson 2005 RocketTech FP and won it for $190.00 (not bad for a $229 bat, right?). Shipping was $16.99 and the seller required insurance of $5.99 even though you used a credit card through the PayPal system and were already insured twice for the purchase. Your final all-in price was $212.98 when you could have bought the item from a major retailer for a little less. That isn't why you came to ebay. I suggest you made a bad deal. It wasn't horrible but you could have done better and had the peace of mind of having dealt with Sports Authority.
So, how do you make sure you do better than this? Patience, my dear, patience. The way to shop ebay is to watch and wait. If you haven't done so already, you should establish an account - it's free - and set up your "my ebay" section. My ebay allows you to track items and sellers and see what happens with the items you're interested. If you track Anderson RocketTech bats for a few days, you'll probably see some go for as little as $160 ($174 with shipping) and as much as $220 including shipping. You may even see one go for as little as $100 although that is probably a used bat or purchased from somebody who has some blemishes on their sales record. The point is, if you are careful, smart and patient, you can save yourself some money.
It's not just batsWhile any parent of an aspiring softball player can tell you that they had a rude awakening once they learned that their darling daughter is incessant in her frequently spoken desire to obtain X bat at a cost of $250, there are other expensive equipment concerns as well. Ebay has almost everything a kid could need to outfit themselves for softball. There is catching equipment (both new and used), batting helmets, equipment bags, batting gloves, mitts, training aids, the "Game Face" safety mask, and much, much more. Again, before you bid on any of this equipment, you want to make sure the seller is not merely selling one used item of this sort, he or she has good and voluminous feedback, you know the retail price of the item and factor in all shipping and other costs.
ConclusionWe poor parents are caught in between when it comes to girls fastpitch softball. When we were kids, we were considered spoiled rich kids if our fathers bought us one or two bats in our lifetimes. That bat was a piece of wood we bought based on what it looked like for probably less than $20. "It's gonna be a little heavy at first son but you'll grow into it in a year or two." We didn't have ten models of $250 metal bats which were rated for hitting speeds. Our fathers did not consult us when they bought a glove which was supposed to last for the next ten years. Our feet ached in the cheapest cleats mom could locate at the flee market. Team uniforms were a tee-shirt with "Butch's Car Wash" in big letters on the back. Travel ball meant you were asked to play on the all-star or American Legion team. Things were simpler then and buying equipment of any sort online was not even a remote possibility.
Well, times have changed. Now nine year old girls beg to keep their time slot for $50 per week catching lessons because they have to miss one lesson in order to try out for a travel club. Aside from that travel club being based a half hour's drive away - not cheap in your 15 mpg SUV, the cost of joining it will be $350 plus two uniforms plus every girl trying out for the team has a $200+ bat. The team isn't very good but they are the best available in the area. They'll play 8 tournaments next summer - fall ball will cost you another $100. Despite the fact that the team collectively owns $3,000 worth of bats, $1,000 worth of batting gloves, and other assorted bells and whistles, they'll probably be shut out in a quarter of their games. They'll probably finish in the bottom half of most tournaments. But, heck, this is fun. And if you can save a couple hundred on equipment purchases by becoming ebay savvy, all the better. You'll need that money in order to help pay for motels or dinners out at those far away tournaments. Nobody ever told you parenting was easy ... or ... cheap.
Permanent Link: You Paid How Much For That RocketTech?
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