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What Are They Hiding?
by Dave
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Yesterday I posted something which pertained to, at least partially, a rule issue. I had some first hand experience with the matter in question so I felt I could discuss it freely and with confidence that I was right. A visitor wrote in regarding the rule as it pertains to Little League. Unfortunately I am no longer participating in LL so I do not have a current rulebook. I'm not sure whether, if somewhere in this mess, I still possess prior years' rulebooks and I'm not about to go hunting for them. So I figured I would locate the current rulebook online and see if I could find the particular wording I was referring to so I could point the visitor to the right place. That was wrong figuring! Little League does not publish their rulebook online. Not only that, they sick their league officials and attorneys upon anyone who dares to publish it via the web. That's asinine. Little League loses a lot from failing to publish their rules openly and gains nothing by preventing others from doing so. And they're not the only organization who does not bother to publish their rules via the web.
We certainly live in the information age. There is so much stuff online, it boggles the mind. My kids come home from school with all sorts of research projects on things about which I have no knowledge. They might ask about "quick sand," African Dwarf Frogs, the atomic weight of hydrogen, or maybe the principal product of Nigeria (which by the way is uranium). I whip out my trusty laptop and head for Google, Wikipedia, or some such and often can answer their questions within moments.
I have to admnit that my second favorite is looking up stuff, any stuff, on the internet. In a previous lifetime I honed my skills at keyword searches by looking through legal documents in order to find loopholes in tax law! Now I spend hours and hours viewing expert analysis on anthropogenic causes for greenhouse warming, tracking the latest tropical depression, or dispelling myths I learned as fact in youth.
I used to just watch ballgames at night. Now I never watch a game without my laptop. I'm almost always checking to see what this hitter does against lefties or righties, with 0-1 counts, with runners in scoring position. I knew I was in trouble one night when, with a score of 10-0, I was busy trying to locate some rookie's minor league batting average.
I use the internet for almost everything. And when I am about to write something for this blog, I usually spend the first hour trying to see if anybody has written anything on the subject, checking rules, or just surfing the latest college and/or high school scores while I get my thoughts together. There's very little limit to what you can find on the web.
There are any number of sports rulebooks available via the internet. The NCAA doesn't seem to have any problem sharing their rules with you. Not only do they have the current year's rules online but they maintain several prior years' as well. See: 2007 NCAA Softball Rules, 2006 NCAA Softball Rules, 2006 NCAA Softball Rules. There are certainly rules which are common regardless of which level of play you are interested in but the NCAA definitely has some different play rules than say Little League. When I see something in college play which I thought wasn't allowed, I like to check the NCAA rules so I can gain an understanding. For example, when I was completely new to the sport, I saw what I thought were foulk balls on drag bunts with two strikes and the ump didn't call the batter out. I didn't understand and thought maybe fouled third strikes were not outs in softball. After going through the NCAA rulebook, I saw that I had to be wrong so I continued to search. Before long I cam einto spiritual contact with something called a slap hit. After I understood that a bit more, I finally understood that was what I witnessed.
In terms of youth and high school softball, I found the ASA has a rulebook onloine but it doesn;t contain playing rules per se. Most of what I saw related to the running of the organization itself and tournaments under its sanction. NSA publishes their rules in a very useful format, broken down by changes, updates, casebook, and current rules for each of fast and slow pitch, etc. See the NSA Rule Book page for more information and to download the books. Pony (Protect Our Nations Youth) also has their rulebook online.
I own copies of several rulebooks including PONY, ISA, and others but if I want to take a look through them, I have to locate my copy. The ISA rulebook is someplace in my car. Pony is in the kitchen but my wife moves it frequently so I can't say definitively where it is at this precise moment. The older NCAA books are in the closet and I can see one of them right now. Somewhere there are old copies of the Little League book but I may have thrown them out. I can;t be sure unless I spend a lot of time looking for a book whether I have it or not. So, even though I own a current Pony rulebook, I most often look through the online version.
I get angry when I can't locate something on the web which I think should be there. Such is the case with rules for Little League, Babe Ruth, and high school. I looked to find the Babe Ruth rulebook even though we do not ever play BR. I think it is useful sometimes to just take a peak. But Babe Ruth does not publish their book online. High school ball is governed by rules propagated by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). NFHS does publish their book online but you have to be a member of the organization to view it. That isn't very helpful to me. I'm not a member.
It seems to me a small matter to have these things online. On another site I run, I've made a living out of digitizing several hundred books covering hundreds of thousands of pages. A softball rulebook is maybe 100 pages. it would take me less than an hour to get something like that online and it would only take up maybe a few megabytes worth of server space. The effort to get pages online wouldn't be worth writing about. The server space would be inconsequential. Yet these organizations choose to not place their books online for unknown reasons.
That would be bad enough but the actions of Little League take the cake. Some few enterprizing folks have taken the time to digitize LL's rulebooks over the years. Every time, LL takes action to threaten these folks and insist the books be taken offline. Their executives contact the web site owner and when that doesn't work quickly, their attorneys get involved. It is rather ugly and unsporting of them. To see an example of what I'm talking about, check out this site and what the webmaster has written about how LL reacted when he dared to publish their rulebook in 2005: http://www.angelfire.com/ia3/littleleaguerules/officialrules.htm
I do not have any interest in starting a grassroots campaign to try to get these organizations to put their rules online. My thoughts are:
1) Many organizations already put their books online.
2) It is silly not to put yours on the web.
3) But you look really foolish, dare I say childish, when you bully people who take the time and effort to make it available.
One day Little League will grow up. For now, they remain a relatively small minded organization which can;t see for looking. They made some positive changes to their rules such as using the 12 inch ball in 12U competition this year. But they continue to hide their rulebook so those who are not officially involved with them cannot see it. And they bullied the poor soul who bothered to make the book available. That's pretty darn silly.Labels: rules
Permanent Link: What Are They Hiding?
 
Illegal, Unethical, Unsportsmanlike, Wrong Behavior
by Dave
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
There is a high school varsity pitcher, a sophomore, who is quite effective. The opposing teams are all looking to hit her so they can compete for divisional, conference, county and state championships. The team behind her is good but very young and not with all that much offensive pop. The way to beat this team is to beat the pitcher. That isn't always the case in fastpitch but it definitely is with respect to this particular team.
The pitcher is young and somewhat inexperienced at this level. She does not yet have a full pitch selection. Her out pitch is quite devastating but if you know it's coming, you can hit it. She does not yet have good movement or location on several of her pitches. Her change is weak for one so advanced. Her overall control so far this year is not particularly good because, I believe, she's having trouble adjusting down to 40 feet. The release point is a little tough to get when you go from 43 down to 40. But my bet is she'll be able to accomplish the control task before much more time passes and then lookout. It's going to be lights out for a lot of teams. Most good teams seem to understand that so they want any advantage they can find against her.
My wife and I were watching this girl pitch a week or so ago. We parked ourselves out in centerfield, just a little towards first base, so we could observe her pitch movement. I was silently trying to see if she was tipping her pitches so I could tell an opposing coach or two I know. After an inning or two, I was pretty sure I saw her flaw and I made a note of what she did when she was going to throw her setup pitch. Generally this girls likes to get a batter down 0-2 or 1-2. She then sets her up by coming inside and high with a good fastball or mediocre screwball. Then she'll either do that again but eventually she tries to get you out with a breaking ball outside and low. If you sit on the breaking ball, you can drive it to right. When she throws the setup pitch, she raises her hands higher in the air and holds them there about a full second longer than when she throws her out pitch. If you are sitting on the breaking ball and know the setup pitch is coming, you can lay off it and not get brushed back. This gives you a abtter opportunity to hit the breaking ball when it comes. If all your batters know this and the pattern continues to hold true, you can most likely generate one or more key hits against her over the course of a game. So I finished my mental notes and turned back to watch the game.
Along came some guy and his wife. My wife overheard the husband tell his wife, "I've got their signs. We can go now." My wife got upset about this and told me, "that's a coach and he just picked off their signs." I was surprised by her angry reaction and said, "It's a part of the game."
Sometime later I was reading on a softball message board about how some first base coach, also in high school, was alerting his batters to pitch location based on where the catcher set up. A poster to the board was upset that this coach was engaging in unethical behavior and wondered what could be done to stop it. Someone posted a response that this is just part of the game. Others disagreed and said the conduct fell under some rule but the umpires were probably too busy to enforce that particular rule. The rule in question covered "unsportsmanlike behavior." Everyone agreed that this rule ought to be enforced. Finally, another poster disagreed with those who claimed this fell under the rule. He or she reiterated that this was just a part of the game. I agree with that analysis. But let me get into a little more detail to explain my thinking.
There are things you cannot do under the rules of this game. Players and coaches are not allowed to harrass the pitcher the way we did when we were kids. There is a cheer which some girls playing this game use when the pitcher loses her control. The girls in the dugout yell:
ball, ball, ball
ball, ball, ball, ball, ball
etc.
I believe this type of action is illegal under the rules of most, if not all, governing bodies, as presently written. Little League has a rule which prevents players from cheering against anyone. They are allowed to cheer positively for their teammates but they are not allowed to cheer against an opponent. This rule is generally obeyed and enforced. PONY makes it illegal for players, coaches, managers or anybody else to make disparaging or insulting remarks or commit any other act that could be considered unsportsmanlike. I have seen this rule enforced by umpires in Pony play. I don't have an ASA rulebook handy but I have seen this kind of behavior stopped by ASA umpires. The NCAA sees sportsmanship as a key objective. They penalize "intimidating actions such as taunting and baiting" and believe a function of all involved in the sport is to "encourage fans to cheer for their team, not cheer against the opponent." The "ball, ball" cheer is most definitely intended to be a cheer against an opponent. You don't hear it in NCAA play. Actually it would be ridiculous to hear it there.
I believe certain types of behavior such as taunting or cheering against an opponent fall into the category of unsportsmanlike behavior. I think the line between what is acceptable (not "unsportsmanlike") behavior falls in the place where your actions are intended to cause an opponent to make a mistake rather than have your team do something good. Unsportsmanlike behavior is illegal as are certain other specific actions.
Rulebooks mostly list out specific things which are illegal. A baserunner is not allowed to seek out contact in order to cause a player to drop the ball while making a play to put them out. Those kinds of actions are pretty much reserved for Major League Baseball. Why MLB tolerates that, I don't know but that's a discussion for another day - the day after they prohibit fighting in professional hockey. In fastpitch and in youth baseball, you can't jar the ball loose from a catcher or other player by running into her or him. You will be called out. Players and coaches cannot do or say anything intended to confuse or disrupt defensive players. When an offensive player commits any act intended to disrupt a fielder, interference can be called. If say a third base coach were to stand in the coach's box during a pop fly nearby and scream his or her head off in the hopes that the third baseman would miss the ball, umpires should call interference and rule the batter out. Unsportsmanlike behavior and these other sorts of acts are illegal - they result in an adverse ruling against the team committing the act.
Some of the posters inquiring or opining about the issue of a first base coach calling out location to his or her batter suggested that the behavior is unethical and should be stopped. I'm not quite sure I understand the concept of ethics in fastpitch softball. Yesterday I suggested that there is such a thing as "bush league" play or actions, and perhaps these would constitute "unethical" behavior but there certainly are no rules against acting "bush." And the object was not so much to prevent a delitirious ruling by the umpire as it was protecting yourself against future payback.
Ethics is almost a humorous concept in this sport and its brother baseball. It is difficult to discuss ethics in a game in which stealing is admirable, the object is to hit, put out, and take advantage of others' mistakes. Maybe it is proper to discuss ethics in a game where sacrificing yourself is considered a good strategy. I'm just not all that comfortable talking about ethics where we encourage children to run away when they are caught stealing.
When I was a kid playing baseball, we were taught to run into the catcher to jar the ball loose and spike basemen when we slid. It was common for us to conduct an ongoing conversation with the opponent. I can't count the times I have said something to a pitcher like "when are you going to throw me your curveball" right after he just threw it; "please stop throwing me change-ups" after he threw his best fastball; or "are you afraid to throw me a strike because you know I'll hit it?" I can also remember telling a batter to "watch out because my control on the fastball isn't very good today." When I caught it was "swing batter, batter, swing batter, batter, MISS;" or "just throw it down the middle, Alex, this kid can't hit a lick." But these things are mostly not done today. They are considered unsportsmanlike.
We did pick off pitches when I was a kid. A runner on second who saw where the catcher was setting up would hold out one arm for an outside pitch or the other for an inside pitch. If the pitcher actually had a decent change and somebody picked off the sign, some sort of cue would be spoken so the batter would know to sit back a bit. I never remember anyone ever questioning one team picking off the signs of another in baseball. And other than this message board post, I cannot recall anyone ever questioning a fastpitch team picking off the signs of another. I could be wrong but I've never heard of any umpire ever actually telling a coach "you cannot pick off the opposition's signs." It just doesn't seem to fit any definition in the rulebook or outside of it which defines unsportsmanlike behavior and there is nothing else in any rulebook I have seen which suggests you can't or shouldn't do it.
All this having been said, there is another consideration to add to the analysis. Some behavior is wrong not because it is unsportsmanlike, otherwise illegal, or unethical. It is wrong because it does not produce desired results. I think this may be a better way to think of picking off an opponent's signs.
I have heard numerous discussions between announcers and former professional baseball players about picking off the pitcher's signs or telling the hitter location based on where the catcher sets up. The most common thing I have heard former players say is "I never wanted to know what the sign or location was - it didn't help me - I found it to be a distraction." I agree. I never benefitted from the kid on second telling me location. I never hit a changeup because I knew it was coming. My only conclusion from the picking off of signs was either the kid doing the picking was stupid or at least wrong this time, or the cacther and pitcher got crossed up or where decoying, or the pitcher just couldn't hit his spots. Just about every time somebody told me the next pitch would be outside, it nearly hit me. Just about every time somebody told me a chantge was on the way, the pitch was a fastball. if you can't give me 100% accuracy, don't try. I'd rather figure it out for myself!
There are times when knowing pitch, location or both can help a hitter. The high school example I used is a good example of when you can use information to hit a pitcher. But before you are able to do that, the pitcher has to actually hit her spots. I confess that often I call pitches expecting the pitcher to miss. I might call fastballs down the middle for an entire inning and the result is one third of the pitches on the outside corner, another third on the inside and the other third are outside the strike zone. Then again, once my pitchers have found the zone, sometimes they hit their spots more than half of the time. A relative few on just a few occassions go an entire game hitting most of their spots, most of the time. I doubt this is unusual since I have often seen even college level pitchers miss there spots by as much as three feet numerous times over the course of a game. Nobody is so good they hit their spot even 90% of the time.
But aside from being certain that a pitch is going to be inside, out, up or down, fastball, change-up or drop, you need to know whether the pitcher can actually throw what is called. the high school pitcher I spoke about above can hit her spots with two of her three or four pitches. But her screwball does not screw, it looks smells and tastes like a fastball. So knowing that the pitch is a screwball is not helpful. Knowing that she is going to throw a dropcurve is helpful since that pitch is thrown 80% of the time on the outside corner low and for a strike. She has great control of this one pitch in the sense that she can put it there with such regularity. Most cannot.
The other day I was working with a 12 year old inexperienced catcher. I was trying to teach her to think about taking the sign from me and then give it to the pitcher. Our pitchers throw a mix of fastball, change, drop, curve and screw. Each pitcher has different pitches, some as few as 3, some as many as 6. Each is proficient with two and getting there with a third. This was a scrimmage and our first attempt at working signs so we kept it simple. We used a spoken 3 number code in which the first number meant nothing, the second was the pitch and the third location. Later we'll add hand signals and the catcher will know which one to use - the spoken or hand. Later we'll add other meaningless digits, perhaps a key and/or an eraser. And after that, I'll begin signaling whether the sign is the pitch, a suggestion or meaningless, in which case she'll call anything but the signed pitch.
The other team picked up the simple pattern which was easy enough. That was a bush league maneuver in a scrimmage game! So on one occassion, I called a drop curve outside and the opposing coach yelled to his batter, "this is a breaking ball of some kind." The 11 year old inexperienced batter looked at him as if he had just lost his mind and then promptly struck out. The pitch was supposed ot be a drop curve but the pitcher isn't very good at that pitch and she certainly can't locate it. The ball came in like a fastball with an odd spin and hit the inside corner.
Now I can see the advantage of letting a batter at this age know a changeup is coming. But this kid had no idea what the meaning of the phrase "breaking ball of some kind" meant. The coach picking off my simple signs was bush since this was just a scrimmage and wrong because his hitter didn't know what to do with the knowledge. He confused her by telling her that a breaking pitch was coming so she struck out. If he hadn't told her, she very well might have been able to hit the pitch.
Our pitcher can't throw this particular pitch properly even 25% of the time. Given 20 of these pitches in a row, she would probably throw 5 of them reasonably well and hit the intended target 3 times. There was no advantage to knowing her pitch or location. i called it to give her game experience throwing it since the count was 0-2 and we needed a waste pitch anyways.
The bottom line here is there are actions which when taken on the field are illegal. These aren't always called but you shouldn't do the crime unless you are willing to take the medicine, or something like that. There are certain things which are unsportsmanlike and when you do them, you leave yourself open to the ump making a call against you. Even if the ump ignores your actions or just warns you, you still have likely convinced him that you are a classless, bush team. That'll help when he has to make a close call!
Ethics is a difficult subject which is best left outside the lines. But some things are just plain wrong. Picking off an opponent's signs is generally considered by most to be a part of the game. In higher levels of play like high school, ASA Gold, and NCAA, knowing what your opponent is going to do can make or break you. But even considering that, sometimes knowing the pitch or location can be bad for you. Sometimes, when you have really studied a pitcher, it can help you and the trick is knowing the difference. But you don't want to try to pick off the pitch or location when you have no idea if the pitcher can make the pitch or whether she can hit the side of a barn. Save the clever tactics for times when they are useful.
As a final note, the actions in question involved a coach who picked off location based upon the movements of a catcher. I wasn't talking today about catching skills but I can't leave this unsaid. Catchers should be taught to move to the location after the pitcher has begun her motion, not before. The pitcher and catcher should have ample opportunity to work this together so they become acclimated to each other. But the catcher should not get into a habit of moving right after the signal has been given.
Another little item I would like my catchers to do is learn to move gradually into the final target position. For example, let's say the pitch is going to be outside, I like my catchers to 1) give the signal, 2) wait for pitcher to begin wind up, 3) step quickly inside and then 4) set up outside. There are as many variations of this as you can imagine. For example, when I was a catcher, I would go to set a target low and inside, I would come out of my crouch with my right foot moving slightly to the right and then step in with my left foot and get low. There was no time for a coach to catch my location and signal it to the batter. I tried never to set up the same way consecutively. I always tried to do something different so as to confuse the base coaches as well as the batter. I like fastpitch catchers to do basically the same thing. It also should be mentioned that a catcher calling, for example, a waste pitch outside shouldn't just set her self up outside the zone. She ought to be able to set up initially on the outer third of the plate (almost down the middle) and then gradually drift slowly outside the zone before the ball is released.
Last, I like to teach my pitchers to not just throw to the target as set up by the catcher. A catcher ought to be able to set up right down the middle and have the pitcher throw an inside pitch at the catcher's shin guard. There are times to set up inside and low, outside and high but there's no reason a catcher has to move every time to the exact location you're trying to hit.
In conclusion, the only thing I find unethical in all this discussion is I think it is unethical to call out somebody else's ethics unless you are sure what you're talking about. Picking off a team's signs or otherwise trying to get an advantage within the rules is certainly not illegal and probably not unethical in fastpitch softball. Stealing is unethical and illegal off the field but, on it, many things are perfectly alright including theft. I think it would be unethical to try to prohibit something like this in fastpitch while allowing it in the boy's game of baseball.Labels: coaching, Conduct
Permanent Link: Illegal, Unethical, Unsportsmanlike, Wrong Behavior
Bush League
by Dave
Monday, April 16, 2007
This one is really for the coaches.
The term "Bush League" is well defined on Wikipedia. I mention it because a very experienced coach I know who once played in the WCWS told me she didn't know what the term meant. I explained it and she got mad. Another coach had once called her a bush leaguer! The phrase is a derogatory baseball term used to express disdain for another's actions. It generally means "minor league" or amateurish but in whatever situation it is used, it specifically means "your actions do not belong at this particular level." "You don't belong at this level."
Let's say, your team is up by ten runs with two outs in the last inning of a baseball game. You've got the junior varsity out there and the starters on the bench when some kid lines a single to left. It's the opponent team's first decent hit of the game and your left fielder grabs the ball nonchalantly. The batter turns the corner hard at first and then tries to stretch it into a double but your leftfielder gets the throw there on time. The second baseman sweeps the tag in time but gets spiked by the runner who came in hard ... in an unwinnable game ... with two outs in the last inning ... with the JV on the field. The runner is a "bush leaguer." The play was "bush." The runner should be sent down to some lower level so he can learn baseball etiquette, learn to be good enough to play at this level.
As a player, coach, or parent, you should know "bush league" has some ramifications behind it. If somebody calls you "bush," that means you aren't worth the time to get angry at. Instead, "if I ever see you again, I'm going to make sure to bash your brains in. I'm going to remember you and get even."
All of us have witnessed "bush league" play at some time or another whether it be in baseball or softball. There are examples of it every season and at just about every tournament. There is a local high school baseball team which has the same two umps for every game. When teams go there to play a game, they expect to get bad calls. The home team is almost always the beneficiary of "home cookin" and wins the majority of the games at their own house. But there road record is not quite so stellar. Everybody in the conference knows their record reflects home cookin and so they look to beat them every chance they get. Coaches looking at their schedules see if they can use their ace against them. They do not pull back when the outcome of the game has been determined. They will often go to lengths to embarrass this particular team. Everybody has an oppotunity to use home friendly umps but this local team goes too far. They deserve the abject disdain of every other team in their conference.
I once signed up for a fall league under the explicit understanding that the league was for "teams moving up" an age category. It is traditional for fall league players to "play up" in a first foray into the next level. We usually conduct tryouts at the end of the summer, put next year's team together and then try to get them some games so we can see whether they play together well and to determine what we'll need to work on during the winter. So I put together my team and let a couple of good younger players play this league with us in the fall. It was a 12U team comprised of a couple kids who were turning or had recently turned 12, some similar 11s and a few kids on next year's 10U team. We went to play against one team and learned they had the same assumption - they were almost completely a 10U team which just turned 11 (next year's 12U team) playing up at 12U. We split that doubleheader. Then we went to our second contest and were confronted with a group of girls who had all turned 13 and were playing 14U next year. They weren't that good but had some decent players. We stayed in one game but when I used my younger kids more in the second one, we got mercied late in the game. It wasn't a bad experience but I would have preferred not to see 13 year olds in a "playing up league" of 12U in the fall.
Then we played the team hosting the league and they were split between kids who would play 14U the next year and some who would stay down at 12U. The rub was that several of their pitchers were 13 year olds and our kids just couldn't touch them. They mercied us twice easily and since this was sort of a friendly league, when the run rule was reached, their coach asked if we could play the full 7 just for the experience. Field conditions were iffy but we played because there was no promise that the weather was going to get better. Coaches on each side took charge of the extra game balls and were supposed to make sure the balls were dry and cleaned. Then my daughter told me that the other team, the one who hosted the league and was playing primarily 13 year olds in this game, was not in any way shape or form cleaning or drying the balls she was using! They were leaving the balls muddy and giving them back to her in an unpitchable condition! They mercied us twice and wanted to play more for the experience?!!? They wanted next year's 14U team to gain experience by playing an 11 year old team with 10 year olds on it? They wanted 13 year old pitchers to pitch against babies ... for the experience?
That's pure bush league and I will never forget them. Our 13 year olds would have crushed this team by the second inning. Then they would have pulled back - that's what they do. But they weren't playing this league. They were playing up in 14U because of the tradition of doing so in our area during fall. But they'll be seeing this team shortly and you can bet I have informed their coach about what happened. That coach doesn't like bush league players or teams. If they get out in front, they will not pull back, not against this team.
A few weeks ago, we entered a minor tournament in lieu of scheduling scrimmages. This tournament drew several small programs and a few good ones. We played one game against a better team - the one that ultimately won the tournament. We knew the team and were on friendly terms with them. Early in the game, a player for them was injured. She had to come out and they had no substitute unless we allowed the designated player to come onto the field. And they would have to take an out when the injured player's turn to bat came unless we allowed them to either skip the spot or have the defensive player not in the batting order take her place. The coach approached me and asked if I would mind if they did this. I said "no, of course not, play the player and our kids will have to get 3 outs each inning, period." Later in the game, one of my coaches, who I had forgotten to tell of this, came rushing out onto the field because they should take an out at this spot in the order. I told him of the conversation and he got mad at me because he said, "this team would never give you the same courtesy." I said, "so what."
The thing is we wouldn't even have been in this tourney had it not been a nice way to get our largely inexperienced kids into a real tournament so they could see what 3 a days (possibly 4 or 5, had we won) were like at this level. I just wanted them to play together and I had absolutely no interest in them getting out of an inning with just two legitimate outs. We can save the tough guy stuff for another opportunity, perhaps a tournament that matters. This one was an excuse to play. Denying them a replacement player or forcing them to take an out in a meaningless tournament would have been a bush league maneuver.
This is all well and good but now let me turn to the reason I began writing this in the first place. A high school softball coach in my state was recently fired. The newspaper account of his firing just a few games into his second year as coach discussed a couple possible reasons for the firing. The AD who fired the man said the two had a disagreement over the "overall philosophy" of the program. Apparently this coach had used "inappropriate motivational style" to coach the team. But the newspaper also pointed out that the coach had presided over a blowout on the order of 30+ runs to -0-. The victor had scored more than ten runs each of the first two innings but the coach did not call off the dogs. Instead he continued to have his kids run the bases aggressively and, though he removed some starters, he left enough in there to continue to run up the score. After 5 innings, the game ended via the run rule.
While the account of "inappropriate motivational style" is implied to be the reason the coach was fired, some have pointed out that his "style" was the same in the previous year and he was still asked back this year. Clearly something else must have caused the school to terminate their coach at a point in time when a replacement could not be found. Perhaps it was the bush league, excessively lop-sided, victory, perhaps not. Only a few people know for sure and they're not talking.
In this incident another little factor may have had something to do with the termination. Apparently this coach's reputation preceded him. Several people knew the guy from his years as a tournament team coach. Some claim his reputation is, well, bush league. This isn't the first time he has played bush league ball. He has made several enemies via his overall style. And that's really the crux of the matter.
We all need to keep as many friends and acquaintances as possible. We all also to make as few enemies as possible. Bush league tactics or play build a reputation faster than homeruns or shutouts do. Enemies have a nasty habit of always being there standing behind us, waiting, watching. They may not always be thinking about getting even but every once in a while, when opportunity presents, they are there taking advantage and making more trouble for us than we can handle. I can't know whether the high school coach who was terminated got this fate because he used inappropriate style, ran up the score, or because some enemy he had made in years past took advantage of an opportunity to get even with him. But I have my suspicions.
There is no reason to run up the score of any HS game thirty something to nothing. There are no seeding points in high school the way there are in tournaments which take into account runs for or runs against. At some point, reasonable people have to recognize the facts and take appropriate action. Obviously the team at issue had a reasonably good pitcher since she did not allow any runs in the game. Obviously the opposing team had little or no pitching since you cannot score 30+ runs without 30+ base runners.
High school ball runs in cycles - there's no development league in which pitchers are identified during infancy, sign letters of intent to play ball at the high school, and then are fed with the best nutrition sports scientists have available and trained in academies exclusively conducted to generate top quality pitchers. As a high school coach, you get whatever raw materials are sent your way and you work with it. Good HS coaches are the ones who can meld three, or a half dozen or so travel players with whatever else they are dealt into a reasonably competitive team in just a couple weeks. They try to work out their rosters so they have enough returing quality players from year to year to field a team which meets their standards. They give this freshman or sophomore pitcher, catcher, infielder or outfielder enough opportunities to pitch and play in real games so that the team will have experience to draw on from year to year. They try to develop the talented younger kids while taking advantage of the talented older kids in tough situations. They are often the beneficiaries of whatever local coaching talent there is in the youth programs. They just cannot control from year to year what quality of raw materials they are going to get.
This coach, the one who ran up the score, if he had held his job for the full year, might have had to go with a freshman pitcher when they go up against this same team next year. Or his ace may get hurt later this year and force him to use an inexperienced freshman or sophomore in some late season game or in the county, conference or state tournaments at the end of the year. The trouble is, now everyone is gunning for this team. The good teams are itching to play against them. They aren't sitting there in fear of a team who can score 30+ runs against an opponent. They recognize that their pitcher isn't going to let runners get on base like that. They are out to get them. They want to play against them and beat this team's heads into the ground. That's what bush league play will get you.
There are times to play for blood. If you're teaching your kid poker, backgammon, or monopoly, that isn't the time to prove you are a skilled competitor. That isn't the time to prove your superior intellect - superior to a child. The same is true when the scoreboard reads 20-0 in the third inning and the other team hasn't so much as touched your pitcher. You don't put on the squeeze play this inning to get an insurance run. You don't intentionally walk the opponent's best hitter with runners on second and third because you don't want to risk the score going to 25-3 with two outs in the fourth. You don't give the sophomore pitcher a rest to bring in your unhittable closer when you've got the game in the bag. You have to use common sense and keep your reputation and that of your team intact.
There aren't any hard and fast rules about when enough is enough. If you're teetering on the virge of enough, don't call off the dogs. Keep playing but recognize that at some point, things are ugly and the time is right to pull a few players, get some other kids an at-bat, and to drop the aggressive tactics. If your run rule is invoked in the fifth inning, maybe the fourth is the right time when you're ahead by 15-0 and the other team hasn't touched the ball. Don't pull your pitcher unless you're saving her for something but at least stop running the runners and stealing home. If your third string second baseman can't avoid hitting the ball over the fence, so be it. At least you tried to call off the dogs. And don't be afraid to let the opposing coach know you are pulling kids to shut it down for the day or game. You don't have to make a big deal about it but show him that you're pulling out your starters, replace several kids at once and he or she should get the idea. Or, if you've only got ten kids on the squad, go out and switch them up in the field but do so in a manner that the opposition can see what is going on.
Now I do want to say that often tournaments work differently than the high school game we discussed above. Often the number of runs you score or allow have some bearing on your seeding for the next day. This may make a difference between playing at 7:00 am on the worst field in the complex or strolling in for an 11:00 start on field 1. I'd never suggest you act in an overly gentile way in order to maintain the reputation of being the nicest guy or gal around. That's a formula for a different kind of disaster. But you have brains. Use them.
My thought for the day is there is such a thing as bush league play in softball as there is in baseball. Bush league play causes more problems than it is worth. There aren't any hard and fast rules to follow to avoid being called bush. Sometimes it depends on the level of play you are doing. Sometimes it is a situational thing. But if you give it any sort of thought, you can judge the difference for yourself. If you've got to have everything by the numbers, you probably shouldn't be playing fastpitch. And if you don't know bush league play when you see it, you definitely shouldn't be in this game.Labels: Conduct
Permanent Link: Bush League
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