| SOFTBALL TIPS |
|
|
|
| SITE STUFF |
|
|
|
|
ARCHIVES
|
| • |
June 26, 2005 |
| • |
July 03, 2005 |
| • |
July 10, 2005 |
| • |
July 17, 2005 |
| • |
July 24, 2005 |
| • |
July 31, 2005 |
| • |
August 07, 2005 |
| • |
August 14, 2005 |
| • |
August 21, 2005 |
| • |
August 28, 2005 |
| • |
September 11, 2005 |
| • |
October 02, 2005 |
| • |
October 09, 2005 |
| • |
October 23, 2005 |
| • |
October 30, 2005 |
| • |
November 06, 2005 |
| • |
November 13, 2005 |
| • |
December 04, 2005 |
| • |
December 18, 2005 |
| • |
December 25, 2005 |
| • |
January 08, 2006 |
| • |
January 15, 2006 |
| • |
January 29, 2006 |
| • |
February 05, 2006 |
| • |
February 12, 2006 |
| • |
February 19, 2006 |
| • |
February 26, 2006 |
| • |
March 05, 2006 |
| • |
March 12, 2006 |
| • |
March 19, 2006 |
| • |
March 26, 2006 |
| • |
April 02, 2006 |
| • |
April 09, 2006 |
| • |
April 16, 2006 |
| • |
April 23, 2006 |
| • |
April 30, 2006 |
| • |
May 07, 2006 |
| • |
May 14, 2006 |
| • |
May 21, 2006 |
| • |
May 28, 2006 |
| • |
June 04, 2006 |
| • |
June 11, 2006 |
| • |
June 18, 2006 |
| • |
June 25, 2006 |
| • |
July 09, 2006 |
| • |
July 16, 2006 |
| • |
July 23, 2006 |
| • |
July 30, 2006 |
| • |
August 13, 2006 |
| • |
August 20, 2006 |
| • |
September 03, 2006 |
| • |
September 10, 2006 |
| • |
September 17, 2006 |
| • |
September 24, 2006 |
| • |
October 01, 2006 |
| • |
October 08, 2006 |
| • |
October 15, 2006 |
| • |
October 22, 2006 |
| • |
November 12, 2006 |
| • |
November 26, 2006 |
| • |
December 31, 2006 |
| • |
January 14, 2007 |
| • |
January 21, 2007 |
| • |
January 28, 2007 |
| • |
February 04, 2007 |
| • |
February 11, 2007 |
| • |
February 18, 2007 |
| • |
February 25, 2007 |
| • |
March 04, 2007 |
| • |
March 11, 2007 |
| • |
March 18, 2007 |
| • |
April 01, 2007 |
| • |
April 08, 2007 |
| • |
April 15, 2007 |
| • |
April 22, 2007 |
| • |
April 29, 2007 |
| • |
May 06, 2007 |
| • |
May 13, 2007 |
| • |
May 20, 2007 |
| • |
May 27, 2007 |
| • |
June 03, 2007 |
| • |
June 10, 2007 |
| • |
June 17, 2007 |
| • |
June 24, 2007 |
| • |
July 01, 2007 |
| • |
July 22, 2007 |
| • |
July 29, 2007 |
| • |
August 12, 2007 |
| • |
August 19, 2007 |
| • |
September 02, 2007 |
| • |
September 16, 2007 |
| • |
September 30, 2007 |
| • |
October 07, 2007 |
| • |
October 14, 2007 |
| • |
October 21, 2007 |
| • |
November 04, 2007 |
| • |
November 18, 2007 |
| • |
November 25, 2007 |
| • |
December 02, 2007 |
| • |
December 09, 2007 |
| • |
December 16, 2007 |
| • |
January 13, 2008 |
| • |
February 17, 2008 |
| • |
February 24, 2008 |
| • |
March 02, 2008 |
| • |
March 09, 2008 |
| • |
March 30, 2008 |
| • |
April 06, 2008 |
| • |
April 13, 2008 |
| • |
April 20, 2008 |
| • |
April 27, 2008 |
| • |
May 04, 2008 |
| • |
May 11, 2008 |
| • |
May 18, 2008 |
| • |
May 25, 2008 |
| • |
June 01, 2008 |
| • |
June 15, 2008 |
| • |
June 22, 2008 |
| • |
June 29, 2008 |
| • |
July 06, 2008 |
| • |
July 13, 2008 |
| • |
July 20, 2008 |
| • |
August 03, 2008 |
| • |
August 10, 2008 |
| • |
August 17, 2008 |
| • |
August 24, 2008 |
| • |
August 31, 2008 |
| • |
September 07, 2008 |
| • |
September 14, 2008 |
| • |
September 21, 2008 |
| • |
September 28, 2008 |
| • |
October 05, 2008 |
| • |
October 12, 2008 |
| • |
October 19, 2008 |
| • |
October 26, 2008 |
| • |
November 02, 2008 |
| • |
November 09, 2008 |
| • |
November 16, 2008 |
| • |
November 30, 2008 |
| • |
December 07, 2008 |
| • |
December 21, 2008 |
| • |
December 28, 2008 |
| • |
February 15, 2009 |
| • |
February 22, 2009 |
| • |
April 12, 2009 |
| • |
April 19, 2009 |
| • |
April 26, 2009 |
| • |
May 03, 2009 |
| • |
May 10, 2009 |
| • |
May 17, 2009 |
| • |
May 24, 2009 |
| • |
May 31, 2009 |
| • |
June 07, 2009 |
| • |
June 14, 2009 |
| • |
June 21, 2009 |
| • |
July 05, 2009 |
| • |
July 12, 2009 |
| • |
July 19, 2009 |
| • |
August 02, 2009 |
| • |
August 30, 2009 |
| • |
September 06, 2009 |
| • |
September 20, 2009 |
| • |
October 04, 2009 |
| • |
October 11, 2009 |
| • |
October 18, 2009 |
| • |
November 08, 2009 |
| • |
November 15, 2009 |
| • |
November 22, 2009 |
| • |
November 29, 2009 |
| • |
December 27, 2009 |
| • |
January 03, 2010 |
| • |
January 10, 2010 |
| • |
January 17, 2010 |
| • |
January 24, 2010 |
| • |
January 31, 2010 |
| • |
March 14, 2010 |
| • |
March 21, 2010 |
| • |
March 28, 2010 |
| • |
April 04, 2010 |
| • |
April 18, 2010 |
| • |
April 25, 2010 |
|
|
| SOFTBALL LINKS |
|
|
|
2007 NPF Season Announced
by Dave
Friday, February 09, 2007
Press Release:
National Pro Fastpitch President Pat Linden announced today that six teams and 96 players will join forces for the 2007 season to bring another exciting year of professional fastpitch to fans across the country.
The 2007 schedule will include a 44-game regular season schedule for each of the six NPF teams with additional exhibition games scheduled in various markets. The season will kick-off on May 29th and run through August 19th, 2007.
The six NPF teams include the 2006 Defending Champions, the New England Riptide, the Akron Racers, Chicago Bandits, Rockford Thunder, the Washington Glory, the league's newest team and the Philadelphia Force who will be operating under new ownership. The Michigan Ice will fill-in on a limited basis as the seventh team in 2007 with hopes of getting qualified investors to support the team which would allow them to join the league on a full-time basis in 2008. League games against Team China, Denso Japan, the Venezuelan National Team and the Stratford Brakettes have also been scheduled.
Four of the six teams will earn the right to play in the NPF Championship Series which will be hosted by Cardinal Youth Softball, Inc. in Kimberly, Wisconsin. The NPF Championship Series will be a double elimination format tournament with a six game guarantee. All games will be played at Kimberly's Sunset Point Park lower diamond. Two games will be played on Friday, August 24, Saturday, August 25 and Sunday, August 26. Should the team advancing to the championship game from the loser bracket defeat the team advancing from the winners bracket, another game will be played to decide the champion.
As was previously reported, the Connecticut Brakettes are returning to amateur status in 2007. It was also confirmed at the end of January that the league would suspend play in Tucson for the 2007 season. NPF is working with the Arizona State Professional Baseball and Softball Commission and a subcommittee formed by Commissioner Jay S. Zucker to bring the team back in 2008 with new and committed investors and more talent recruited from the community's own University of Arizona Wildcats softball program. Zucker is also President/CEO of the Tucson Sidewinders, 2006 Triple A Championship team.
"NPF remains committed to our players, owners, sponsors and fans to build a quality professional fastpitch product with a long-term, sustainable future," said NPF President Pat Linden. "The 2007 schedule represents teams and owners who share our vision and will continue to be a strong force in our growth."
Negotiations continue with national and local television networks, radio broadcast and web-cast partners with the primary objective of having regularly scheduled games available to fans across the country. The broadcast schedule will be released at a later date along with several updated features on the league website.
Major League Baseball is the Official Development Partner of National Professional Fastpitch in the category of women's professional fastpitch softball. The partnership, which began the fall of 2002, is part of The Commissioner's Initiative on Women and Baseball, a league-wide effort to help Major League Baseball and the 30 Major League Clubs build stronger relationships with female audiences.
National Pro Fastpitch is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The league, created to give elite female fastpitch players the opportunity to pursue a professional career in their chosen sport, has operated since 1997 under the names Women's Pro Fastpitch (WPF) and Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL).
# # #
Press Contact:
Joey Arrietta - 330-376-8188
THE NPF SCHEDULE CAN FOUND ON THE LEAGUE WEBSITE AT WWW.PROFASTPITCH.COM.Labels: national pro fastpitch, news, NPF, professional softball
Permanent Link: 2007 NPF Season Announced
 
Crossing The Tees
by Dave
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Forget about dotting the eyes. We'll have to get to that in another piece. Just don't get mixed up and cross the eyes while hitting.
The floors, corners, and closets at the local hitting academy are filled with busted batting tees. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it does tell you one thing - hitting off a tee is not quite as easy as it's supposed to be. The busted tees mostly result from the tee itself being hit by swung bats. Sometimes you want to do that but not when there's a ball atop the thing.
It is almost comical that we put 5 year olds out on the field in tee ball with the idea that hitting off a tee is easy enough for these beginners. That may be true - I've never evaluated it. And if you want real comedy, take your group of hard hitting 14 year olds and put a batting tee in front of them. Let each girl take a single shot at hitting the ball off the tee cleanly (without making contact between the bat and tee) and see how many can do it. Some will completely miss both ball and tee. Some will indeed hit it cleanly. And most will probably hit the tee or both the tee and ball simultaneously. My guess about the number who will hit ball off tee cleanly is about 20 - 25%!
Still, in practice, most coaches set up any number of hitting stations including a couple batting tees and then we go watch over another station. The during the course of drills, we throw a casual glance over at the tee and then avert our eyes because what is going on over there is too ugly to watch for any length of time. We would be better served by providing a lesson for the team in how to hit off a tee but we think this is somehow beneath us. We want to teach the real aspects of hitting real pitching.
All of sport involves development of motor memory. I used to say "muscle memory" but somebody pointed out to me that it was not just the muscles which were involved. Ligaments and tendons play just as crucial a role as muscles in "motor memory." In fact, drilling is probably more interested in training the rubber bands of the machine than it is concerned with the engine and widgets.
The motor memory involved in hitting is as complicated as any other athletic motion. Hitters need to have as many successful repetitions as pitchers and other players before they can settle in and perform a correct motion most of the time. Live batting practice is a wondrous thing but at most it provides the opportunity for about 100 swings in an hour. A pitching machine can do better but after 50 - 100 pitches, you've got to get into the cage and collect the balls. And pitching machine cause some hitting weaknesses which we'll discuss at a later time. The best device known to mankind for developing batting motor memory remains the batting tee.
As I said at the beginning, hitting off a tee ain't quite as simple as it's supposed to be. Doubt me? Try it yourself. I usually avoid doing very much demonstration of using the tee because I generally embarrass myself! But you have to do some sort of instruction so your girls can use the darned thing properly without learning bad habits.
I am fond of saying "let's start at the start." That's the biggest cliche for me. But this time I want you to start at the end. Start instruction of hitting off a tee by beginning with the end of the swing.
It doesn't much matter if your girls are front foot hitters or back foot. It doesn't matter whether they are linear, rotational or some other school of thought. It doesn't matter if they are top or bottom hand dominant. I don't much care if they are top hand release hitters or keep both hands on the bat until they have to slide into second (not suggested). I want you to start with the very end of their swing - right before they run to first - and then work backwards.
To accomplish the task, have a hitter get into her natural stance in front of you with the tee off to the side or in back of you. Now have her take her natural swing and pay attention to the movement of her feet. if you can, mark the floor or ground where she places her feet in her stance and after the swing. If you want to now examine swing mechanics, you are getting way ahead of yourself. Don't bother correcting anything now. All we're discussing is setting up the tee in the right place or, if you prefer, setting up the hitter in the right place relative to the tee.
Once you have the feet placement marked so the movement can be repeated, have the hitter stand in the position she would be in at the end of the swing with the bat resting on her left shoulder and held with the left hand only so she doesn't contort too much. My instruction on this is just for righties because I am naturally right handed. I'm sure you're quite capable of adapting this to lefties on your own.
Next, have the hitter take the bat off her shoulder and point it out towards left where she would be most of the way through her follow through. Now put the right hand on the bat too. Have the hitter bring the bat from this extended position back very slowly into her natural trigger position. Repeat the process until you determine the sweet point of her swing - the point at which she generates the most power. That's where you want to place the tee - right at the sweet point of the swing in terms of all planes.
As an aside, if you've got a true slap hitter, this process can be more complicated. You'll probably have a devil of a time marking the ground properly but with slap hitters this part of the process is even more important. You don't want a slap hitter to develop bad or unusable habits because the tee is in the wrong place. Take your time and exercise as much patience as you possibly can muster. And make sure you put the tee at the right contact point.
So, you might say something along the lines of we don't want our girls to get used to hitting only perfect pitches or this is unrealistic or we want the girls to adjust to the ball not vice versa. Relax. We're just talking about the fundamentals of tee hitting right now. There will be time later, though not today, to discuss how to creatively use the tee to teach hitting balls pitched in different locations.
So you've got your hitter in front of you. You've marked the ground for her stance and the place her feet move to as she swings. You've examined the actual swing to determine the best point of contact. And now you've set the tee in the position where she makes the best contact. Presumably she is hitting into a net or against some kind of fence or object so as to stop the ball without risking it coming back into her face or body. You're pretty much done and you can let her rip now. And that's about all I wanted to cover in this piece. But I will add just a few more words on the subject of tee hitting.
If you don't take this approach of teaching girls how to hit off a tee, what happens is they set themselves up without any reference to the right contact point and their natural stance, stride and swing. The results of this are they get frustrated, or worse, they adjust their swing to make the best contact they can while unlearning everything they learned under the tutelage of a qualified batting coach during those three years of private lessons.
Hitters may change the position of their heads so they can see the ball on the tee after missing it a few times. They may draw the bat back too far as an adjustment of their swing to make contact at a better point. They don't swing naturally or develop a hitch in order to do the drill better. There are any number of adjustments a girl might make to be successful at the tee and these are almost always bad adjustments which will ruin their swings. That's why you adjust the tee to a proper location. And like anything else, once your girls learn how to adjust the location of the tee rather than making adjustments to their swings, everyone will be better off.
Muscle memory is a touchy thing. mess around with it and you're asking for trouble. I once worked with a pretty good hitter on my team and we did a lot of soft toss. After a few iterations, I would instruct team members to take over the toss duty and I would move to another station in the practice. Well, the girls didn't always get the idea of how to do the toss. They threw the balls all over the place and left it up to the hitters to adapt. It got so that hitting soft toss was like hitting live pitching - you never knew what the next pitch was going to look like. So my pretty good hitter knew that if she wanted to make contact, she was going to have to get a good look at the pitch. That meant she would have to get her eyes facing right in front of her instead of where a real pitcher would be. She would line up in her natural stance, facing the pitcher, and then when she pulled her hands back into trigger position, she would pull back further than she normally would because that gave her a better view of the soft tosser! She did this unbeknownst to me for quite some time. Then, during a game, she struck out and somebody said, "why does she cock her hands so far back - that can't be helpful." And they were right. This girl was pulling her hands back a full six inches further than she used to because she had learned to do that in soft toss batting practice! That was a travesty which took months to unlearn. The moral of the story is you need to always be aware of what is going on in your drills and when you do drills involving motor memory, you just cannot be lax about it.
Along the same lines as my example of what can happen when you don't properly supervise motor memory drills, the eye position is also a concern when hitting off the tee. When hitting off the tee, girls want to have a look at what they are swinging at. The tee, unlike a real pitcher, is placed in front of them rather than over the left shoulder. So you need to accommodate this natural tendency. The way to approach the tee is to imagine a pitcher out there in the circle. Assume the stance. Now imagine a slow motion pitch (not a slow pitch but one which has bent time and is coming in at slow-motion) and watch it as it approaches the launch point. You follow it all the way until it reaches the position where the tee is. And you swing. So a girl hitting off the tee starts facing the pitcher and then slowly watches as the ball comes in until her eyes meet up with the ball placed on the top of the tee and then swings away. What you cannot tolerate is a hitter changing their stance during tee drills.
Finally, as I said, I understand your concerns about girls getting used to hitting pitches only right down the center of the plate right at their best hitting location. You;re going to want to move the tee position around and get your hitters used to hitting low pitches and high ones, inside and out. Fine. But please remember that the purpose of the tee is NOT to mimic live pitching. It doesn't replace live batting practice any more than a pitching machine does. The object of hitting off a tee is perfecting swing mechanics and enhancing muscle memory for the purpose of developing a better, consistent swing. You can move the tee around but you need to realize that it's principal benefit is the number of repetitions it provides in a very short period of time. Don't constantly adjust the thing. If you want to work on inside pitches, do it. If you want your team to hit low pitches, go ahead. Just do one thing at a time and get the benefits of a lot of repetition for ONE thing. I'll even go so far as to suggest that you stick with a single position for each day in which you use it. There isn't much point to working 10 swings on the outside, 10 on the inside, 10 high, 10 low. Instead, work 50 or 100 at each position on different days.
I do suggest you use the hitting tee. It's maybe the best motor memory device in this sport. But use it wisely and make sure it isn't the cause of bad habits. Take the time to try this method for adjusting the hitter to the tee yourself and then teach your team to use it. Then make sure they are doing it properly every time.Labels: batting practice
Permanent Link: Crossing The Tees
Team Management By Exception
by Dave
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Without getting very nuanced, there is a school of thought in business management which is most often referred to as "management by exception." This approach leads an organization to deal with its most pressing problems - the exceptions - first. It is not a school of thought which is purely reactive in nature. That is to say, one can either act based on a plan or react based on experiences, but not both. Management by exception supplements plans and is not purely reactive. Rather, it involves building room into the overall plan to make observations and measurements and deal with important problems as part of the management approach. I believe management by exception is an excellent way to approach fastpitch softball.
Before one can approach a fastpitch practice or game, or for that matter anything at all, one needs to craft some sort of plan. If you want to make toast, you have to get out the toaster, grab some bread, put it into the toaster and push down the lever. You can't make toast if you don't have bread so if you want it, you've got to do grocery shopping at some regular interval. You really don't do anything without some sort of plan. If all you ever do is react, you're in for a bit of trouble. If you wait until you realize each morning that you are hungry, you aren't going to find anything in the cupboard to eat. Then each morning you'll have to run out to the store and buy a loaf of bread. That is no way to live. And if you so much as buy something for lunch, dinner or tomorrow's breakfast while you are out at the store, you are engaging in some sort of planning!
Some folks like to fly by the seat of their pants and never "tie themselves" to a fixed plan of any sort. Others like to craft a plan and live by it no matter what happens. Neither approach is advisable. Just like the hungry person at home who realizes there's nothing to eat, the strict plan adherer will drive his or her car off a cliff eventually because they don't ever want to break the plan as it was originally made. Do you think I am exaggerating? Consider the folks who drove their cars off roads because their navigations systems said "turn right now, turn right now!" My personal preference is to generate an overall plan and then deal with serious problems as they arise.
In all sports, there are certain skill issues which must be dealt with. In basketball, you've just got to dribble the ball sometime. You've also got to pass and shoot. If you don't do these things, you're going to have a bad experience on the court. Similarly, in fastpitch, there are certain things a team must do. They have to field grounders, line drives and pop-ups. They have to throw the ball. They have to put out a reasonable pitcher and catcher combination. They've got to bat and hopefully get some runners on base.
So we enter the realm of practice with some idea as to what skills need to be taught. Some coaches approach practice with an eye towards focusing on certain defensive skills while others approach it with different, more offensively minded priorities. We've all seen teams which play great defense but can't hit. We've seen teams with great pitching and catching, yet an infield which can't get an out. For that matter, we've seen teams with "A" pitchers but no catcher so the result is 6 strike-outs an inning and still the inning isn't over yet! We've seen teams which have tremendous speed and generate most of their runs by running the bases aggressively yet they have nobody who can hit the ball out of the infield. Different coaches have different philosophies and they emphasize different skills. Still, most coaches do cover, at least in a cursory manner, the most fundamental skills like throwing and catching, bunting, etc. Some, relative few, do not and are likely to lose a lot of games as a result.
My personal bias tends to be on fundamental defensive skills. But the trouble with that is, if you spend a great deal of time on the fundamentals, there isn't much time left over for teaching situational play. And even if your kids are the greatest throwers and catchers in the universe, your team is going to get smoked by another one which, while not being quite as "fundamentally sound" on defense as your team, plays the overall game better.
Drilling can only take a team so far. During cold months, most often we are forced to limit practices to a variety of drills designed to mimic playing situations. We work on fundamentals and then we progress to doing drills like the star or other complex throwing exercises. We do a lot of hitting because that is the easiest thing to cover during the winter. We hit ground balls with softees on gymnasium floors when we can arrange to use these sorts of spaces. We do agility and quickness drills which make us seem more like a basketball team at times. We try to concoct anything we can which will teach the skills and eventually simulate game-like situations.
In order to implement such a practice regimen, a coach has to develop a long list of drills. If he or she is a really aggressive planner, a plan for utilizing the full drill list might be developed. This plan might list out all the practice dates and precisely what will be covered at each one. Strict adherence to the plan will yield only the accomplishment of having completed every drill in the book and will fail to take note of any serious deficiencies which might otherwise be uncovered via use of the management by exception approach.
What I'm trying to tell you is 1) having no practice plan is stupid, 2) having a comprehensive one you will follow to the "T" is foolish, 3) building a plan which allows for adaptation based on the relative weaknesses of your team and provides room to work on situational skill building is a better approach. I've come to this conclusion based on experience - difficult experience.
My first coaching experience involved extremely young girls. I volunteered to help out the assigned coach who basically set each girl up in the field and then proceeded to throw pitches to each kid in succession and have them try to hit the ball. Some of the girls in the field made very well developed artwork on the infield dirt. I'm absolutely sure this girl will grow up to be an artist - you should have seen how well designed and elaborate the work was! My kid got nothing out of these "practices" so I worked on fundamental skills with her myself.
My next experience involved volunteering to assist a coach who knew something about the game but not very much. She was one of those "extremely creative types" who never adheres to a plan on penalty of death. We got out to the practice field and she asked the parent volunteers what they thought we should do. I replied, "I don't know coach but whatever you want us to do, I'm willing to help." Then after 15 minutes and my realization that absolutely nothing was going to be done unless someone forwarded an idea, I said, "how about we have the girls throw to each other." She said, "that's a great idea." So practice thereafter consisted of lots of throwing back and forth and not much else until I suggested rolling some grounders to the girls. Again, my kids didn't get a whole lot out of these practices so I proceeded to drill my kids on our own time. And I resolved to venture into a part of the universe I hoped never to go - I resolved to be a coach.
Those first "coaching" experiences were a lot of years ago. When I first entered the head coaching arena, I worked almost exclusively on the fundamental skills which I saw as most lacking in the kids in our recreation league. I worked throwing first and my kids became good at it. I worked the fundamentals of ground ball fielding, then catching, then some basic hitting. I made a plan of skill progression and never deviated from it. My teams always got smoked early in the year as our poor-throwing, not very fundamentally sound opponents, still understood what was going on during games better than my kids. Usually, at the end of the season, my teams would start accomplishing great things like beating the undefeated team and winning our last couple of games. And that's probably just about right for rec but at the end of each year I would lament that I couldn't keep this team together for another year. I also came to the conclusion that these fundamentally sound kids got better not because we practiced more but because they began to learn what was going on in the field by playing games. Inevitably, at the next year's draft, my well-schooled kids would be taken first and I'd start with a new crew of underachievers. And our competition would be filled with kids who did the fundamental skills fairly well - the skills I had taught them!
Finally, after going through this for a few years, I realized I had better work more into my practices than just the fundamentals. I began trying to put together slightly longer practice sessions which, after a few weeks, would include inter-squad scrimmaging. That did the trick. And I realized that in addition to any practice plan I developed, there had to be room to adapt to the weaknesses and strengths of the girls I chose for my team.
So, that's where I am today. I'm still coaching though hopefully not for all that much longer. I don't like the parental politics involved in coaching. I'd like to focus more of my time on my kids exclusively, especially as they show signs of being exceptionally good players. But be that as it may, I'm still coaching and I need to build a plan for my team. That plan will of course involve management by exception and not ignore the need to do situational work.
I've still got my bias towards fundamental skills. That will never go away. It has, despite my suggestions to the contrary, always served me well. We work agility and speed, a lot of complex throwing drills, some more basic defensive skills, and some other stuff. I work in some situational drills like defensing the bunt or dealing with runners trying to advance. We work some baserunning drills. And we, of course, do conduct batting practices.
I have trouble discussing approaches to teaching hitting because as girls get older, things get a lot more complicated. Some of our girls go for private slap-hitting instruction, some go for rotational hitting, some have classic linear hitting instruction, etc. One day I'll write something on these topics but from a coaching perspective, it becomes very difficult to try to teach hitting with one philosophy when your girls are being told something different by their private, very expensive coaches. I've seen some coaches try to do just that - even at the high school level - but I advise against it if your kids mostly get private instruction someplace else. I try personally to refrain from teaching any batting fundamentals and instead make smaller suggestions like try to hit this one to the opposite field or let's hit the top half of the ball this time. Then I try to make use of the skills these girls get from their other lessons.
One thing I do try to provide in our practices is the opportunity to hit live pitching. Most batting instruction involves hitting off the tee, soft toss, pitching machines, or some combination of these. These are proper for learning fundamental and advanced mechanics. It is necessary for even the most accomplished hitter to make use of the tee and other devices. But every hitter must also acclimate herself to the variety of motions, release points, and speeds which real pitchers throw. If you don't at least work in a little live pitching, your girls will not be ready for games and will only start really hitting the ball after the midpoint of the season. And live pitching is not just good for your batters. Your pitchers need to work against batters too. So do your catchers.
Yet even with all these fundamental skill drills, the more complex situational drills and simulations, and all the live batting practice in the world, our team will not be ready for the season and that brings me to my next point. If you take a look at the best softball players and teams, as well as big time baseball organizations, amateur and professional, one thing is going to stand out to you. These folks all practice plenty but they do more of one thing than anything else. They scrimmage. It is now February and pitchers and catcher will report to spring training soon. Then the rest of the team will show up. They'll do stretching, flexibility, speed and agility. They'll throw a lot. They'll go through a regimen intended to get the hitters into sync. Then it will be week two and they'll begin playing practice games!
The same approach is used in college baseball and softball. It is no accident that the best players at all levels are the ones who get the most chance to play real games. In softball, the best players come from the warm weather states where games are sanctioned year-round. So Cal, Arizona, Texas, and Florida boast the largest numbers to college softball scholarships. that's not to say other places don't do quite well in this regard. They do. Michigan and surrounding states are real up and comers in the softball world as witnessed by Michigan's national title in 2005 and Northwestern's stellar performance last year. These teams did have a few So Cal ladies on their rosters but they built solid teams of relative locals as well. Yet I suspect these outstanding athletes have found creative alternatives to playing out in the hot mid-winter desert sun. The number of places which provide venues for indoor baseball and softball has been increasing. And if you visit these places, you'll find a lot of the best local players playing in games during January and February.
But I'm not calling out to those well healed enough to build indoor facilities. I'm merely bringing up the cold hard reality that what you need to prepare your team, in addition to rigorous practice sessions, is games. No matter how much drilling you do each week, if you constantly play teams which have been doing games, you're going to have some troubles. This is more so if you are only together for one year and your opponents have played together as a team for several years.
Why games are so important really speaks to the title and theme of this writing, "management by exception." Games provide a better idea of where your team's weaknesses lie. You can have a shortstop who is really great when you do ground ball drills in the gym, yet when she gets out on the field she may show no aptitude for the position. She may demonstrate that she and the team is better off with her playing second or center. You won't be able to discern this by conducting drills of any sort. You'll need games. Even the apparently best pitcher in the world looks different in practice, including live pitched batting practice, than she does in the pressure cooker of a game. the same is true of every position on the field and hitting and baserunning as well. Even if you don't find your all-star shortstop to be ill-suited to the position, you may discover that she has significant difficulty fielding balls hit to her right or making the throw from second base to home when runners advance. The kid who bunts so well in practice might freak a little when called upon to do so in games. She may need more practice working the stick. And that kid who always bunts half-heartedly during practice sessions, may get the fire lit in her belly when you need her to put one down in a game. You were focusing so much time and effort trying to get her to bunt better in practice when all along she could do it just fine in games!
the point here is, if I've convinced you that you must manage by exception, you need something realistic with which to judge exceptions - you need games. It is only through games that you can discover your team's real deficiencies. So I suggest that you build a network of local teams who can play at, near or above your level so you can schedule as many scrimmages as possible. Don't completely fill your schedule of available practice time with such scrimmages - you'll need opportunity to address the deficiencies you'll discover in games. You can try to address these problem areas during the course of games but I suggest that it is only in some practices that you'll get the opportunity to do enough repetitions to build the sort of motor memory necessary to correct the errors. But schedule enough practice games to enhance the overall preparation.
I strongly urge tournament teams to schedule double headers wherever possible. In addition to getting a general feel for how your girls will play in games, you also want to see how they'll play when they go all out for an hour or two, sit for an hour and then have to go all out again. These sorts of "tournament simulations" give better insight to potential problem areas. And playing a single game isn't the best way to test your team when the real competition will involve three a days.
I said play against teams which are at, near or above your level. I do not think you want to bother much with teams who don't push you. Similarly, while there is something to be gained by playing against teams who can beat you with their second string or while they are still asleep, it certainly doesn't benefit them and eventually it will break down your team's emotional stability. Try to find teams who give you a good game but who beat you no more than 2 times out of 3. Stay away from teams who can't beat you once in 6 games, and only when you've got number 5 pitcher in there. But even if you can't find a team which is a perfect fit, scrimmage somebody even if they stink or are likely to displace Team USA.
If you are stuck into a situation where the only available scrimmage mates is a team far inferior to your team, talk it over with the opposing coach and suggest strongly that he allow your pitchers to face your batters and vice versa. the same may apply if the only team you can find is too far superior. This way your hitters will face realistic pitching, your defense will not stand in the field counting the Ks or running away from screaming linedrives, and the other team will experience the same benefits from scrimmaging you.
As usual, I've gone on for far too long. I hope you understand that some sort of plan is necessary for coaching a team. I hope I have convinced you that this plan needs to be at least flexible enough to adapt to weaknesses your team has whether you refer to this as management by exception or not. I hope I have also convinced you that mere fundamentals are not enough to build a competitive team. I hope you will scrimmage against other teams as frequently as you can while still making time for practices which will work on the shortcomings you discover in games. In any event, best of luck to you and your team in the coming season which is closer than you think!
Permanent Link: Team Management By Exception
D.C. TEAM TO JOIN NATIONAL PRO FASTPITCH
by Dave
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
By Marty Gitlin
National Pro Fastpitch is pleased to announce that Paul Wilson has purchased rights to a team in the Washington D.C. area. Paul is also the owner of Paul's Sports and he will serve as President and General Manager of the team which begins play in 2007.
The Washington D.C. team called The Washington Glory will assume the player contracts of the Connecticut Brakettes, who are returning to their roots in supporting and developing amateur programs.
Wilson, the multi-faceted President and CEO of Diamante Consulting Group, became encouraged about the potential of professional fastpitch softball in the Washington area as well as the NPF through various means during the last two years.
"I spoke with a father of one player and he told me about this new pro league called the NPF," Wilson said. "I never heard of it. I asked why they didn't have a team here and he said he didn't know, so I did a little research."
His interest was piqued when he attended the opening ceremonies of a traveling team tournament in Washington that drew thousands of fans. He also gained optimism about the future of NPF through conversations with owners and players. The owners took over the league from the Cowles family, the league founders, in December of 2004. They are a very dedicated group of individuals committed to their players, coaches, sponsors and fans. At the forefront of the league's long-term strategic plan is building a sustainable league and fielding teams with owners that are able to not only move forward for the short-term but will continue to be a strong force in the league's growth after the 2008 Olympics.
Aside from the business decision, the popularity of softball in the nation's capital and a passion for the sport were also major factors that led Wilson to purchase a National Professional Fastpitch franchise for that city.
"I contacted (Chicago Bandits owner) Bill Conroy and within three or four days I was flying to Chicago to attend the (2005) NPF World Series. Then I spoke to the players who really saw the potential of the league. I also talked to people with the National Fastpitch Coaches Association and received a great deal of positive feedback."
NPF President Patrick Linden spoke positively about adding a committed owner and a franchise in Washington.
"This is an exciting addition for us," Linden said. "We see a lot of growth potential throughout that area and we are certainly happy to be bringing Paul on board because we know how enthusiastic he is about building something from the ground up. He shares our vision for the future."
Wilson, who resides in nearby Ashburn, Va., speaks eloquently and passionately about the future of NPF, particularly his desire to help its athletes extend their associations with the league into full-time careers. He believes once the league and its players are embraced by corporate America, the financial resources will be available to make that a reality.
He also envisions the marketability of the premier players in their sport as a stepping-stone to product promotion and corporate recognition.
"The goal of everyone I have spoken to is for these women to be able to make a full-time career out of this," he says. "We want to be able to provide that."
Seeking stability in ownership, league officials are negotiating with a number of potential team owners about their involvement in NPF in 2007 and 2008. Players throughout the league are in the process of being contacted as well about their opportunities this season.
National Pro Fastpitch is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The league, created to give elite female fastpitch players the opportunity to pursue a professional career in their chosen sport, has operated since 1997 under the names Women's Pro Fastpitch (WPF) and Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL).
Washington Glory Media Contact: Lana Torres
email: lana.torres@washingtonglory.com
tel: 301.299.4064Labels: national pro fastpitch, news, NPF, professional softball
Permanent Link: D.C. TEAM TO JOIN NATIONAL PRO FASTPITCH
Rule Issue - Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
by Dave
Monday, February 05, 2007
I want to discuss with you some rules which are in the process of being updated to reflect a slight change in philosophy. Those rules concern batters and the potential of being called for batter's interference. The rules are changing to give the umpire greater discretion in making the call of interference. The batter's box is "not a sanctuary." The batter does not have a right to this lined space in all cases. Sometimes she must move out of the way by leaving the box. Sometimes leaving it will cause her to be called for interference. It's a grey area but one which all batter's must try to understand.
Generally "interference" is an act by an offensive team which impedes or confuses the defensive team attempting to execute a play. Batter's are not permitted to intentionally hinder the catcher in any way either by stepping out of the batter's box or while remaining in it. A call of batter interference will result in the batter being called out and any advancing runners sent back to the last base they occupied before the interference took place. If the interference occurs on a third strike, the lead runner will also be called out. In some cases, when there are less than two outs, the lead runner will be called out regardless of whether the pitch results in strike three.
I'm not a huge fan of the use of "intentionally" in this context. It requires the umpire to "read the mind" of the batter through whatever means he or she has before calling interference. Too often umpires think first of the age or sophistication of the girls playing and call accordingly. That is far too subjective and requires use of faculties which cannot scientifically be proven to exist.
My first experience with batter's interference came many years ago when my oldest child played for the first time in a league which permitted advancing to homeplate on passed balls and throwbacks to the pitcher. Most often these games consisted entirely of lots of walks, passed balls and wild pitches, and high run scores resulting only from these kinds of plays. Needless to say, those were some pretty painful games to watch. At that level, one of the most important skills for players to learn was to get out of the way when the pitch got away from the catcher. Girls were taught to back quickly out of the box and keep going until they hit the dugout fence to allow their team's runner to score. Some, few, hyper-competitive girls could be seen actually trying to hinder the catcher making a play in order to get the runner from third to score. The inexperienced child-umpires at those games would frequently tell the batters that they had to get out of the way. But I never saw an interference call and I'm not convinced the umpires understood the reason the batter had to move.
More recently, I watched a big high school game which went to international tie-breaker. The runner who began an inning at second tried to get to third on a ball in the dirt which momentarily got away from the catcher. The catcher came up throwing but hit the batter in the helmet. The ball bounded away and out of bounds, into the dugout. No interference was called and the runner, who had reached third, was allowed to score on the ball out of bounds. Ball game over. In the newspaper on the next morning, the girl who had been at bat proudly told the sports reporter that she always remembered to stay in the box and everything will be OK. She found it ironic that her following this simple rule gave her team the "W." Most likely, the umpire ruled that while the batter certainly interfered with the play, she did not do so intentionally. I suppose, having read the newspaper interview, I'd have to disagree with that. She may not have intended to get hit in the helmet but she used some sort of ownership right over the batter's box to get in the way deliberately. As I said a while ago, the batter has no actual right to stay in the batter's box. She can be called for interference even if she remains there assuming the umpire finds that she intentionally interfered by doing so.
Last year I wrote about some observations I made at PONY Nationals. I told you of an instance in which one team from Ohio repeatedly employed what I believe was a deliberate strategy. With a runner on second base, the batter would step out of the box on every pitch and take a practice swing. I say "with a runner on second base" because they didn't always do this when there wasn't one there. But when there was, they did it 100% of the time. The effect of this strategy was to get in the way of the catcher and prevent any chance of throwing a runner out at third on steals. At one point, the catcher tried to make the play anyway and the batter, standing fully out of the box and taking a full "practice" swing, struck the catcher in the arm as she released the ball. The catcher was badly bruised but somehow managed to avoid a fracture of her arm. It could very easily not have worked out that nicely. The umpire made the runner go back to second base but he did not call the batter out. He didn't know the rule he was applying - not an unusual occurrence at Pony Nationals. If he didn't call the ball dead and he's not calling batter's interference, the runner should not be returned to second. There's no rule to return the runner to second without calling interference! Weeks later, this event was described to high level officials at PONY. They indicated disbelief when the issue of intention was raised affirmatively. No basis for the disbelief was explicitly stated but something along the lines of "I find it hard to believe 12 year old girls would do something like that" was the stated reason the umpire was not wrong per se.
I started this piece by telling you that this rule is in the "process of being updated to reflect a slight change in philosophy." The 2007 rule changes for ASA reflect what I believe is a recognition that some batters have been instructed to employ strategies which interfere with the catcher's ability to make plays. They are taught to do so in a manner which cannot be easily determined to be intentional in order to avoid interference calls. ASA has removed "intentionally" and described the change as giving the umpire greater discretion. ASA Rule 7, Section 6Q has been changed to read "when actively hindering the catcher while in the batter's box." Similarly, Rule 8, Section 2F now reads, "when a batter-runner interferes with a thrown ball while out of the batter's box." The comments accompanying these two changes note that both rules have been modified to remove "intentionally" and allow the umpire to use judgment about whether interference occurred. Umpires coming out to the ballpark to call a game no longer need to pack their ESP powers!
To my knowledge, no other organizations have adopted a similar rule change. That's part of the reason I bring it up on the blog - I'd like all governing bodies to at least review the rule, understand the reasoning behind the change, and decide whether they should make this change to their body's rulebook. The NCAA rulebook has more stringent rules than most for batters who interfere with catchers making plays. But it still uses the word "intentionally" which requires the umpire to judge what the batter was thinking.
I believe the proper standard for interference is whether the batter effects the play at all. If you're up to bat and don't hit the ball into play, you have no right getting in anyone's way while the ball is live. Batter's who step out of the batter's box while a play is live - until the ball is returned to the pitcher's circle and the lookback rule engaged - should be called out. To take it a bit further, I believe that batters who step out and take a practice swing while the ball is live should be removed from the game. There's no good reason to do this. And it's coaches' responsibility to teach this skill to their players.
You may think that this standard is too easily met and puts too complex of a burden upon the batter. But this is a complex sport. And too often one person's "intentionally" is another's subjective accident. In order to completely eliminate the possibility of an intentional strategy of interference - a dangerous one, batter's interference needs to be called more frequently. Tough love for this particular item will remove this too often invoked strategy and make it clear to all that the batter is on the field via privilege not right!
Follow-up:
here's a post on a related matter written by one of our softball friends, Ken Krause. It's called, Doing what's right. Ken, in his e-mail to me, notes, "Do coaches teach 12 year olds to interfere on purpose? ... I know of at least one program ... that does." How can Ken make such a bold comment? The coach of the team proudly told him how he teaches the girls to do it!Labels: batter interference, rules
Permanent Link: Rule Issue - Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
|
|
|
