Girls Fastpitch Softball: July 23, 2006

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Pony Nationals

by Dave
Friday, July 28, 2006

I'm just back from the Pony (Protect Our Nation's Youth) East Zone "National" Championship Softball Tournament in Ohio. I caught lots of great softball and made tons of observations. My first one is that while this is called "Nationals," it is limited to Eastern teams. There are just about 15 states represented and Florida sends very few teams. In some of the age groups, there are teams from Canada. "Nationals" might be a misnomer but that is not at all important. It is a very big tournament with a very good level of play. Most of what I watched was 12U ball. I saw some 10s and 16s but cannot comment on the tournament as a whole from the 10 or 16 point of view. Here are some of my observations:

Fields

It is hard to imagine that we were able to play at all given the amount of rain. The first day we were there, it literally poured water from the sky. The first day of 12U ball was rained out as a result but the fields were ready to go the next day at 8:00 am. As I understand things, sometime in the middle of the night when the fields were all just about ready to go, yet another downpour occurred causing the crews to again go to work. I don't think anyone working the fields slept that night. At our location only one field was even delayed and that one for less than half an hour. Truly amazing job by the field crews. Hats off to them for Herculean efforts.

Almost all fields appeared to be true softball fields, or at least there was no vestige of a "mound" remaining in the pitchers circle. Some of the backstops were too far back and some of them were too low. We saw balls bounce off the front of the plate and over the backstop on more than one occasion. At one location we saw ordinary foul balls repeatedly enter the adjoining field, one even hitting a player during another game. These things should never happen. The backtstops should either be higher or have overhangs for safety reasons.

There were numerous locations for play as you might expect given that in the 3 age groups who played, there were probably more than 200 teams. At any given time, there were probably as many as 50 games ongoing. Even with so many locations involved, we never had to drive more than 20 minutes for our games. I don't know who pulled this together but it must have been a difficult scheduling job. And while the Pony organization had to pick a location for this event, it is probably impossible to find one with so many fields all in one area. If a few have insufficient backstops, I suppose there is nothing anyone can do about it.

The play

Play begins with "pools" of four teams in which each plays each other for a seeding position "bracket" play. After pool play, teams enter "bracket" play based on seeding achieved in pool play, progressing to a "bracket championship" from which the final 16 teams are seeded. This "sweet 16" then moves to a single elimination normal tournament format which concludes with a championship game.

Some pools are stronger than others and there is little one can do in terms of a strategy for choosing one's "bracket play" opponent. You try to win your games and get as high a seeding as possible so your first round bracket play opponent will be a, hopefully weaker, low seed from an average pool. Our pool was fairly tough with one team advancing to the top 8 and another nearly making the 16. One pool opponent was weak, the roster apparently filled with younger girls.

I have previously seen a good number of these teams in action during other tournaments. Some of them were very good and some not so good but at this tournament most of the less impressive teams played well above their previous level. Most of the games were very competitive.

The tournament is set up so as to not give much advantage to one team over another due to scheduling. In bracket play, the schedule is set up so as to give teams which maintain a winning streak some advantage while making survival of those in the losers part of the bracket more difficult, as should be the case. But some of the matches on the losers side became so intense that winning teams became overly tired and were losers in subsequent games as a result. Two teams played an extra inning game which ended after the International Tie Breaker was used. The winner of that game played an inferior team immediately afterwards but lost as they ran out of gas. The inferior team moved on to play the loser out of the winners side of the bracket but lost. The moral of the story is, if you want to survive in one of these large tournaments, you simply must keep your team in the winners side as long as possible in order to cut down the effort needed to move forwards.

Once you are in this tournament, you must play your games. Forfeits are rewarded, I believe, with a one year Pony play prohibition. You forfeit and you can't come back to the tournament next year. I'm not certain if you can play any Pony tournament for one year. I don't know how many teams packed it in early but I did learn that at least one did. I think the team had lost all their games and had decided that it just wasn't worth it. But I'm just guessing. Perhaps they suffered injuries and no longer had 9 girls to put on the field. But the result of the forfeit was to allow a team which had not played particularly well to advance without playing and then beat a better but tired team. The inferior team was well rested and had their ace ready to pitch while the superior team had burned up their ace and the team was hot and tired when game time came. One team's forfeit hurt another team's chances.

Tactics

I overheard a number of strategy sessions with various coaches throughout my stay in Ohio. Perhaps the most used strategy had to do with disrupting pitchers' rhythm. I saw a number of teams employ the old favorite "step out of the box to get the sign but stay there about 5 times as long as you need to." The umpires were overly liberal in tolerating this tactic. But they shouldn't have had to warn teams about excessive delays. You won't see ASA umpires permit this sort of thing but, then again, they don't have to complain to the team which is batting because the girls who play ASA are too well schooled to employ it. Why Pony tolerates this, I don't know.

While I can understand coaches wanting their girls to win, teaching this deliberate strategy does not do anyone any favors. Maybe you'll win games at Nationals this year and perhaps even make the sweet 16. But if your hitters become accustomed to this and it becomes part of their makeup, it is going to hurt them in the long run. When they try this in ASA showcase tournaments, the umps are going to crawl all over them about it. It's bush league.

I liked the employment of small ball strategies I saw. In general the degree to which softball girls are competent bunters is very impressive. Baseball should be ashamed by comparison! And while I cannot say with any certainty that the girls I watched really knew how to hit the ball to the right side when runners were on second or second and third, the sheer number of times I saw it happen tends to support the notion. Girls bunted well and moved runners along by hitting to the right side extremely well.

I also witnessed girls deliberately foul off pitches when they were down in the count. Again, I cannot be certain the girls deliberately did this but the volume of times I saw it tells me it was on purpose. This is a great skill to learn as it not only allows you to wait for your pitch but also makes the pitcher get frustrated and possibly leave you one over the middle of the plate. It also keeps the defensive team in the field longer making them hot and tired.

There were some strategies I saw employed in order to win games which while they worked probably as well as the solid ones I just described, they also transcend what I would call "bush league" and venture into the "don't belong anywhere in sports" category. I watched one team which I'll refer to only as the "Slimy" team who employed a particularly offensive tactic. They know who they are so "Slimy" is all I need to say about their identity.

The Slimy batters stepped completely out of the box on just about every pitch and then took a hard practice swing before play had ceased. They didn't do this when there were no runners on base. They did it on just about every pitch when they had a runner on second or third. I have to assume based on this observation that it was deliberate. The purpose of this step out and swing was to create an obstruction for the catcher.

Let me restate this so it is clear to the opponents of Slimy in future tournaments. With runners on second or third or both, the batter steps completely out of the box with both feet, thereby blocking the catcher from seeing the runner at third, and then takes a hard practice swing so if the catcher is anywhere near, she is again distracted. This should never be allowed by the umps but you cannot count on the umps to put a stop to it. Put a stop to it, you must. I understand that in one circumstance, the catcher moved up behind the batter to make a play and the batter took her swing, hitting the catcher, who by the way had her helmet removed, in the arm. This "accident" sent the catcher to the medics and, luckily, removed her from play for the remainder of that day and the next.

There is no room for this sort of tactic in youth or any other sports. The batter can step out of the box only with one foot and only to take the sign from the coach. No batter has any business being completely out of the batter's box ever during a live ball. If a runner is stealing home, the batter can step slightly back or go deeper in the box to get out of the way of the play but under no circumstance should such a batter ever take a practice swing while the play is live. The fact that this was apparently a deliberate strategy says it all. Somebody taught these girls to do this. That person, IMHO, should be removed from coaching competitive sports. If you see this tactic employed, get the umps to stop it cold unless you want to be present for some girl dying from a head injury incurred in front of you when you could have prevented it. If you see this tactic employed, report the team and coaches to the governing body. This is not merely bush league. This is perhaps the worst example of offensive behavior I have ever seen in sports at any level. Thankfully this team did not advance to the field of 16.

Pitching

I would say the pitching was a bit weaker than I expected coming into this tournament. There were some girls chucking around the 55 mark, perhaps one or two above it. Many girls were just over 50. Many were between 45 and 50, which is far slower than I expected. I know the 12 year old girls in SoCal make their living in the mid 50s and up. I was surprised to see so few of the eastern girls doing similarly.

But with the speeds somewhat lower than I expected, I thought I might see more pitches thrown. I did not. I would say I saw the fastball as the primary pitch. There were some pretty good changeups and some pitchers mixed this in on every batter, something I definitely advocate. But there were not all that many screwballs, drops or curves thrown. The pitchers did locate their fastballs well and given the generally low scores for the tournament as a whole, I suppose you'd have to conclude pitching was at least as good as hitting.

Hitting

As I said, for the most part these games were low scoring affairs. One coach I met there said at this level, 12U, games are determined by pitching and errors. I think that oversimplifies the reality. There were definitely some very good hitters in this tournament. But teams as a whole did not hit all that well. I would say that the teams which did the best in this tournament were the team which did things best in this order:

A) fielding,
B) pitching,
C) hit the ball into play and quality bunting, and
D) had one or two really good hitters.

I list fielding first because even against the best pitching, most teams put the ball into play a lot. There were a lot of strike outs but most teams which won put the ball into play at least once or twice per inning. The teams which fielded the best won. When I say good fielding was important, I do mean generally good fielding - sound fundamentals. But I also witnessed some great fielding. There were any number of great plays which unfolded in front of me. I saw outfielders dive for very difficult balls and come up with them. I saw infielders make astounding plays. The best teams had an entire crew of very good fielders and a few real Division 1 prospects.

Pitching is always important. At the 10U level it is largely about throwing hard strikes. At 12U, I think it is about hitting targets, particularly the outside corner. At 14U, it is about movement, location, and setting hitters up since the hitters all improve and can hit fast pitching well. At 16U and above, I suppose it is about all these things, throwing hard, getting good movement, hitting spots, and setting up hitters. At 12U pitching was important but not nearly as important as fielding.

There wasn't quite as much hard hitting as I expected but there was, to be sure, some. I didn't see any homeruns but I didn't expect many. A few girls really hit the ball well but the teams which I saw win had the fielding I mentioned before and their girls put the ball into play more than other teams. If, on top of solid fielding, good pitching and putting the ball into play, they had one or two really good hitters, then they were going to get themselves 4 or more runs per game. This combination, I think, made the difference between the real competitors (the sweet 16) and the very good but not great teams. My "take away" is even if you don't have a few great hitters and fielders, or really tremendous pitchers, you can compete with this crowd if you have good coaching. Teach your kids to field well and to put the ball into play when they are at bat.

Umpiring

I saw some of the best umpires I have ever seen at any level, including NCAA and professional, at this tournament. I saw some of the worst umpiring I have ever seen at any level, including t-ball, at this tournament. It was about 50-50. I saw umps who maintained complete control of games, moved quickly into proper position to make every call, and had 100% consistent strike zones. I also saw umps who never had control, who were disinterested in any movement which might make them hot, and who called pitches in one location balls and strikes in accordance with some unseen, unknowable-to-the-pitcher criteria.

Generally the strike zone was lower. Pitches about midway up the lower leg were routinely called strikes. Pitches across the letters were routinely called balls. While the NCAA championship umpires have a pretty broad zone, wider than say MLB umps, the umps at this tournament were not wide. Most softball I have watched uses a very broad strike zone. That's been my experience in youth games, high school, college and the professionals. I always chalked that up to the large size of the ball. I assumed that umps would call anything which even touched the zone a strike. That wasn't the case in this tournament. But, hey, what are you going to do? As long as the zone is consistent within a given game, that's all you can ask for. Unfortunately, some of the lesser quality umpires were not consistent within a game.

But balls and strikes were not the worst part of the umpiring I saw. I watched one ump for an entire inning stare at the ground. It was a long complicated inning with many runners on base but he never watched to see if they left base early. When the first runner reached base, he remained close to his position at the beginning of the inning and then was completely out of position to make the call on the steal of second. Thereafter, he remained behind the shortstop but on several pitches he was staring at the ground. On a passed ball where a runner from second took off for third, he called her out as her sliding feet hit the shortstop's glove at the same time as the ball. The only problem with this was the shortstop didn't catch the ball. It was never in her glove. It rolled about ten feet away and was picked up by the thirdbaseman backing up on the play. But even then he didn't reverse his call. It took a two minute conference between the plate ump and the field ump to finally get it right. That only happened because one team pointed out to the plate ump who had taken off his mask and was busy wiping his brow that the third baseman had the ball. he actually didn't see the play but reasoned to his decision based on who had the ball!

While I was shocked at about half the umps I saw being out of position or not actually watching the game, the almost complete lack of knowledge of a few umps is what most scared me. One umpire did not know that with one or no outs and a runner on first, the batter cannot advance on a dropped third strike. He permitted the batter to take first, thereby loading the bases. When the next batter struck out and the catcher held the ball, that should have been the end of the inning. But now there were two outs and when the next batter singled, two runs scored and this changed the complexion of the game.

Bad calls and wrong calls notwithstanding, one umpire had the audacity to address one team's fans with the admonition, "hey, relax, it is only a game." I do not believe an umpire should ever address fans at all, let alone informally, unless it is something along the lines of "hey that was a nice play" or something humorous to lighten the tone. And while I am certain that the young competitors and their parents will have ample opportunity to play hundreds of games in years to come, this is a championship tournament. It is taken seriously by the girls and their coaches who put in countless hours of practice and other preparation to even just be here. It is not just a game to them.

More importantly, while most coaches and all the players are volunteers, if you will, the umpires most certainly are paid and paid pretty well. As I understand the lay of the land, umpires for Pony qualifiers make $50 per game in cash. Being paid in cash means no taxes. That makes the earnings worth about double, or $100 per game. I heard that umpires for the Nationals make $100 per game, presumably that is also in cash. These games are time limited so each ump can do at least 5 games per day. I don't know for sure that they're paid in cash but if they are and they call 5 games a day for seven days, that's equivalent to $7,000 for the week! It can't be viewed as just a game by the umps.

I suppose the thing which most irked me during this tournament was deliberate strike zone pinching. When one team's fans got on blue, the strike zone shrunk rapidly. That is, to put it more clearly, when non-participants got on the umps, the umps penalized the players. That's just plain wrong. There was other pinching too. As one game, called by one of the best crews I had the pleasure to watch, entered extra innings and then the international tie breaker, the plate umpire pinched the zone. The home team felt the heat first causing the pitcher who was in her 8th inning to crack a little. She walked the bases loaded and then grooved one which was driven into the gap for a triple. The home team managed to get out of that half of the inning with just one more run but the damage was done. When they got up, the visiting team pitcher also loaded bases with no outs as a result of the "new strike zone." But the home team only managed to put one run across as they were exhausted from standing out in the field during the long top of the eighth. The umpires never intended to determine the outcome of that game but they did nonetheless. That's always wrong.

I don't claim to know how Pony vetted the umpires. When you have this many games going on, you need a lot of blue. I imagine they had some difficulty finding enough blue shirts to fill the fields. But if this tournament is to maintain its integrity, somebody is going to have to do a better job of it.

Conclusion

The Pony "Nationals" may not really be a national championship but it is great softball. If you have a chance to compete in such a tournament, I highly recommend it. If you have a chance to watch it, take that opportunity. You won't be disappointed. Thanks to the crews who worked impossibly hard in impossible circumstances to pull this thing off. Pony could do a better job of vetting umps and the umps themselves should feel ashamed if they don't work at least as hard as the unpaid players and coaches. The level of play is a good one but if you approach the game properly, your girls can compete. work on fundamentals of fielding, situational defense, and batting the ball into play. Don't let the umps get to you, if you can help it. Report seriously dangerous tactics to Pony officials and don't employ them yourself.

Congratulations to all the girls who qualified to play and brought their "A" game to Ohio, their parents who provided them this opportunity, and the Pony organization for providing something so good to so many young girls. I plan on being back there next year.

Permanent Link: Pony Nationals

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