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Somebody Always Gets Shortchanged
by Dave
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
A visitor to the site writes in with a question as follows:
"I am a new coach to our town's recreational "major league softball." I have coached at the coach-pitch level and the minor league level. I am looking for documentation on the advantages and disadvantages of "house rules." We are a Little League fast pitch softball league. We follow the basic rules of the Little League, but over the years there have been some adaptations to the rules. I have understood the philosophy so far, but at the major league level, I disagree with several of the changes. Is there any source that you know of that I could use to research this further. I want the girls to be more challenged and involved in the game. I really do not want to move my daughter to an out of town league, or travel team. I want to make the town league the league girls want to play in."
This is a very complex issue with no particular rights and wrongs. I have my opinion on the subject so that's what I'll give you.
Where and when I grew up playing baseball, all that was available was the town recreational league. Just about everyone played it because there was nothing else. Then the league formed all-star teams and played any other similar teams they could find. The all-star team was selected from kids playing in the rec league. If you wanted to play all-stars, you had to play rec.
After a while, leagues were formed to facillitate the organization of games with other all-star teams and this was enough for anyone. At some point, some of these all-star teams travelled outside their immediate area and played against teams from other localities and, eventually states. Organizations learned through the grapevine that tournaments were conducted here or there. They packed up their equipment and began to visit other places to see what this tournament ball was about.
The local all-star teams would often get pummeled by superior teams which often drew kids from greater geographical areas. The trouble with recreational all-star teams was that often a few of the best kids in town were not invited to play because rec team coaches' kids got first dibs. The rec coaches made a list of who was available to play all-stars and the all-star coaches were bound by those recommendations. That not only shortchanged the good kids on some teams, but also the all-star teams themselves.
The local all-star team coaches, after being pummeled by out of state teams, would muse that if they could only replace these two or three kids with those couple locals or kids they knew from outside town, they could compete with these out of area teams. They wondered why so and so wasn't recommended by the rec coach since the kid was obviously the best in the league or why they couldn't ask Johnny from the neighboring town to come pitch for the team since he was the best pitcher in the area. But the local rec league would not allow them to alter the recommendations or recruit from outside town. They were handcuffed.
Eventually these coaches got tired of the politics and losing. They learned they could enter this tournament or that with any sort of team they might put together. They weren't limited by the tournament to just local kids. So they put together the teams they had been musing about and travelled to the tournaments. Sometimes these teams grew and continued for more than the single tournament or season. Eventually they became travel organizations and worked on building sufficient local reputation to routinely draw the better kids to their tryouts. And so was travel baseball born.
I suppose the same sort of evolution occurred in fastpitch softball though I was not involved then and cannot really say. I do know one sequence of events in my now local area - not where I grew up. Several years ago, a small town's recreational league decided to start a travel organization for the purpose of giving girls who were competitive players a local outlet for their skills. The rec league was fine but the better girls gravitated away from it because there was not anyone on their teams with whom they could have a decent game of catch. At most each team within the league had one, two or three competitive players with the remainder of the roster consisting of those who just wanted to play softball without dedicating much time to it or being concerned about developing their skills. The better girls were shortchanged until they found another sort of play.
There were local travel organizations and the better girls often completely eschewed rec to play with these travel teams. The travel team practiced during the winter, giving players a leg up when school ball tryouts occurred in the spring. They also provided a much superior environment in which to hone one's skills since they played much better teams and played many times more games than their rec counterparts. Anybody who was serious about fastpitch eventually found themselves on a travel team. Each year a couple of the local players left the rec league for greener pastures. That is why the small town developed the travel organization - they wanted their girls back.
This travel organization was initially crafted as a different sort of beast than the traditional rec all-star program. As I said, the town was small and the founders of the travel organization knew they needed to draw kids from outside if they were to compete. They also knew the other local towns had no such organization.
Every couple of towns, say 4-8, there was another such travel team and they drew their kids from anywhere local newspapers could reach. This town with the travel program is a few towns away from my village so it became somewhat ordinary for a couple kids from my village to tryout and make this team. After playing a year with them, these kids would drop out of the local rec league. The travel organization played some of the best teams in the state and often travelled out of state to seek better and better competition. The girls got to know kids from outside their villages and local school systems. Their skills progressed and they eventually formed the core of the school teams.
Several years later, a fellow from my village's rec league realized what was happening. He lamented the loss of the local kids. He saw that the local rec league's talent pool had shriveled and felt as if the lesser kids had been shortchanged because the better kids had left. Over time, the kids who had only played this rec league began to fall short at tryouts for school teams. Parents became shocked when their little Sara or Sue who was "the best player in the rec league" tried out for the middle school team and didn't survive the first cut. Parents whose kids got cut were generally upset that the rec league had somehow shortchanged them. So this fellow with the rec league crafted a possible solution. He created his own travel organization and invited all the local villagers who played for the small town's travel org to join them. It also wasn't an all-star team. There were no rec coaches making recommendations. Participation in the rec league was not required per se though it was strongly encouraged. Out of town kids were not actively recruited but if a strong pitcher inquired, they would take her in a heart beat. There were open tryouts and the coaches chose girls without regard to the rec league's politics. The tryouts weren't actively advertised but they weren't a complete secret. And while the rec league's politics were disregarded, there were politics at play.
Some few of the kids who had left the village for the small town's travel team did come back but they were disappointed by what they found once they got back. They had been on teams where each was maybe one of the better kids but not by much. The new team had few good players and these transfer-backs were by far the best kids on their new travel teams. Also, since the organization in their village was so new, the teams didn't play in the best tournaments. Seeking better teammates and competition, these transfer-backs either went back to their previous travel organization or played up an age level where their skills might better fit in.
Playing up created its own set of problems. These girls were supposed to help make the village kids their own age better and make the village travel organization more competitive. Playing up almost completely wiped out any advantages gained by forming the travel org. There was a vacuum on the 14U team as the transfer-back girls decided to play for the 16U team. 12s were recruited to fill the void on the 14U team. The 12 team was extremely weak since they were unable to get any 10s to move up. Everybody, it seems, was shortchanged.
My village's recreational league had sought to improve the competition in the league or to at least offer some reasonable competition to as many village players as possible so they might be able to make the school teams. They were jealous of the small town's travel program which by now had grown much bigger than the town itself ever could have supported. The idea had been to draw kids back from the small town's travel program by offering an alternative. The idea was to get these better kids back playing with the rec league so those girls would not be shortchanged. None of the tranfer-backs signed up for rec. Many of the rec players who joined the village's rec program decided they didn't want to play rec again. So the rec program was shortchanged.
Let me summaraize for my own benefit. The village rec league felt shortchanged by the small town's travel program so they created their own travel teams. The small town's travel program was shortchanged by the village's travel program because they lost a few kids who transferred back. But since these kids didn't join the rec league, the rec league continued to be shortchanged. The transfer-backs were shortchanged because their new travel teams stunk so they moved up an age bracket thus shortchanging most of the other teams throughout the new village travel organization. Basically everybody got shortchanged.
I tell you this story for a couple of reasons. If you go back to the initial e-mail which prompted my story, the person sending in the question wants "the girls to be more challenged and involved in the game." She doesn't want local rules to make the game more simplistic. She says, "I really do not want to move my daughter to an out of town league, or travel team. I want to make the town league the league girls want to play in." While my reply may not be about local rules, it most definitely is about her reasons for making the inquiry.
She wants the rec league to be the league. In other words she wants the rec league to keep all the local girls by making it interesting and competitive. I suggest to you that this is not possible. You can't be all things to all people. There is probably a wider span of ability levels where girls are concerned. There is no way to bridge the span.
You cannot possibly form a league which will be beneficial, fun, competitive and interesting for 1) the 11 year old girl who in a few years will be the starting ace pitcher for the high school team which routinely competes for the county, conference or state championship and 2) another 14 year old who plays softball intermitently for 3 months of the year because her non-athletic interests are more important. One will be able to throw like a 14 year old boy while the other would get hurt playing catch with her 5 year old little brother. The two not only can't play in the same game and get something out of it, they can't even have a game of catch. The 11 year old would hurt the 14 year old if they ever played at the top of their ability.
You can modify Little League or any other softball organization's rules to suit your players' ability levels in a recreational league. In doing so, you shortchange the better players but they were being shortchanged anyways by the lower competition level. If you decide not to change the rules so the league can be more competitive, you shortchange other kids. It is a tightrope. There's no easy answer. There's no way to create a league which is perfectly suited to both the best and least softball player in your town.
In case you think I am dissing rec ball, I'm not. Rec ball is great for giving everyone who wants it a chance to play this great game. But don't try to get the star players to play it in order to make the lesser players better. And, if your or your child's aspirations are to play higher level ball, don;t try to make your league better so she can face good enough competition to hone her skills so she might make the high school team.
This game is difficult. This game is fun when played with others of similar ability level. But this game can be extremely dangerous. I learned this the hard way. Let me explain a bit more.
Consider the typical (not Southern California) 10U rec game where girls throw standard underhand 20 mph bloop pitches and are lucky to get one over. They don't stand on the rubber because they can't make the distance. There are few hits and no balls ever reach the outfield. Girls walk or strikeout most of the time. Now compare that game with the play of a decent 9 year old 10U tournament team. The pitcher throws 45-50, and rarely walks a batter. There are a couple perfect games thrown. If the pitcher does not stand on the rubber, the umpire calls "illegal pitch," gives the batter a ball and play continues. Games frequently end 1-0, 2-0, 3-2, etc. Sometimes the championship goes to ITB (don't ask if you don't know). There are real flyballs which are often caught. Sometimes, not often, there are homeruns hit 200 feet in the air.
Now consider that these 9 year olds will play to the end of their spring/summer travel season which, in some cases ends around August 15. Practice for fall ball starts August 16. The fall team might break up the day before Halloween or it may be playing a tournament on October 31, if that day falls on a weekend. Then practice for the spring/summer team usually starts up something like November 15. These girls will hit at least once a week and conduct defensive drills on another day, perhaps two. On the other hand, the rec player will put her glove away right after all-star season, if she is really good, and that happens around the middle of June. Then she'll get her mitt back out for rec tryouts in January but then put it back in the closet until her first practice sometime near the end of March.
The 9 year old travel players were much better than their 10 year old rec counterparts last year. Who do you think is going to improve more this next year? The year after that? The year after that?
I once had a 9 year old rec player who was also playing travel. She insisted on playing rec because that's where her friends were. I agreed. I knew there was a problem when kids didn't want to get in and catch her. They couldn't catch her overhand throws. There was no way they would be able to handle her pitching. I found someone who was willing to try and put her behind the plate.
I really knew I had made a mistake when opposing coaches asked her to be taken out after the mid-season point. They complained and I know why. She was a 9 pitch wonder - 3 K's every inning, often without throwing a ball. I wouldn't let her pitch real hard. Heck, I didn't let her throw her screwball, drop, curve, or dying quail change in order to give the other kids a chance. Girls would sometimes refuse to come out of the dugout to face her. They would stand crying with the bat in their hands.
I understood what the other coaches were saying. They didn't want a bunch of crying girls on their hands, especially when this was supposed to be fun. But they raised a ridiculous issue. They claimed they were concerned for the kids' safety. They said they were afraid my kid would hit their batters. I said, yeah, maybe, if she ever throws a ball!
I understood what these people's concerns were but you know what? My kid isn't that good of a travel ball pitcher! She's not bad but she certainly isn't "special." She sometimes get hit hard in tournaments. There is no common ground between my kid and the vast majority of kids in her former rec league. There is one kid who can occassionally hit her. She's also on the travel team and my kid pitches batting practice! Neither kid plays the rec league any longer.
The real rub of this, however, is the same people who caused so much ruckus last year, when my kid played, noticed that she isn't in the league any longer. We run into them from time to time. These people who: 1) were afraid to "let her pitch," who wanted to prohibit her from ever pitching in the league; 2) want the league to be competitive and keep the really good players so their daughters can benefit and one day make the school team; 3) believe there is no reason why rec can't compete with travel, etc., etc., these same people actually have the nerve to ask me if my daughter has given up softball since they don't see her in their rec league anymore. I just say, "no, she hasn't, she still plays." They get confused and wonder, "oh, you mean she's playing somewhere else?" I just say yes.
In conclusion, you can do what you like with the rules in order to make a rec league more fun and competitive for the majority of players. Just don't try to make it "the place to play softball." It ain't going to happen. Rules can be modified but that does not bring the travel players back. If you have some say-so and you want your daughter to face some real game conditions, keep in mind that you are shortchanging some of the other girls. If you really want your daughter to face reality and fastpitch is part of that reality, bite the bullet and get involved with travel.Labels: Travel vs. Recreational
Permanent Link: Somebody Always Gets Shortchanged
 
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