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Rec Softball Skill Progression
by Dave
Friday, October 26, 2007
Robert writes in to ask:"As a ... spectator when my two older girls play on our all-star team, I grew increasingly frustrated watching the team's players use bad fundamentals (i.e. outfielders using one-handed catches to miss fly balls rather than square up under the ball) to lose games. During the all star tournaments, I began conversations with coaches and parents regarding lists of skills and game knowledge appropriate to each age group. With such a list, current coaches would know to teach the basics then focus on other strategy/skills. When the player moves up to the next age group, the new coaches would be (somewhat) confident that they could use terminology and strategy without questions from experienced players. Do you know of any resource(s) that would help me and our local league develop this fundamentals list?"
I am not aware of any particular resource which lists a skill progression by age that would provide a checklist you could hand to league coaches and parents to make sure everyone is on the same page. There are a number of problems with creating such a list, not the least of which is everyone involved in rec softball seems to have a different opinion. That is largely due to the fact that everyone seems to approach rec ball with a different agenda. Also, the skill set of girls at a particular age in rec ball is so broad and varied, one list never seems to fit all. Nevertheless, I shall try to outline what I believe is a proper skill progression for rec girls in order to enhance their enjoyment of the game and advance their playing abilities. As I set out on this venture, I am reminded that this can only represent my opinion and it sets me up for a large portion of criticism from those whose opinions vary from mine.
General OverviewBefore I begin a skill progression, let me describe the quandry in which one finds oneself as one enters the rec world. First of all, I think sometimes the names we use (recreational and travel, for example) don't do justice to the way folks approach the game. "Travel" does not always involve a lot of travel. "Recreational" softball most often is not undertaken with the purpose of getting girls out in the open air for exercise and recreation.
Recreational softball and baseball contain far too many instances of parents living vicariously through their children. My personal experience with rec was not a positive one. I have found coaches and parents involved with the sport in its "recreational" version to use it as a proxy for other competitive outlets.
Our town recreational league is highly competitive. That doesn't mean the kids or teams are any good - they aren't. But the coaches and parents seem to all be involved for a single purpose, to win games. This manifests itself in many negative ways including teaching the girls what they need to win at a given level rather than teaching them the skills which will make them better players in the long-run and thereby enhance their enjoyment of the sport.
In the early years, many teams take their best player and stick her at first. This is done so they can get the outs more often than not on grounders to the infield. Games are often won by the team which can get a few outs. It doesn't matter that the girl stuck on first might be the best shortstop or want to play some other position. If you don't have a girl at first who can make a lot of the difficult plays, you lose.
Another common problem is the girl who can "just get it over" is made into the pitcher. Her mechanics might be awful but she can throw strikes. The girl who is in lessons and has pretty good mechanics will end up playing someplace else because she hasn't found the strike zone just yet. Never mind the fact that if she pitches in games, she'll progress faster. We haven't got time for that. We need to win right now and if she walks too many batters, we can't. Put somebody out there who can throw strikes for goodness sake.
Another phenomenon which happens in rec ball is kids who really cannot hit are encouraged to stick their bats out and just tap the ball. Coaches realize that if their weakest hitters put the ball in play, there is a good chance errors will occur and they'll score a lot of runs. Never mind that the kid will never learn to hit. The point is to win games, isn't it?
Most often in rec ball there is a lot of lip service paid to giving girls experience in the field. Players are apparently moved around from position to position from inning to inning in order to give them that experience. Yet the same kids end up playing key positions and the girls who are not quite as skilled are moved between the lesser important ones. I never put a kid who absolutely could not catch a thrown ball on first or a girl who could not field a simple grounder at third, but I taught those kids how to do those skills and tried to get them ready to play at those positions. Most of the time I succeeded in getting the weaker players ready to do more than stand in the outfield.
Finally, in rec, many girls of lesser abilities are encouraged to just get the ball back to the pitcher rather than making a play which could possibly result in an error. They are not taught to make ordinary plays which will be required at the next level. They are taught to perform damage control actions which have the least possibility of "hurting the team." If, for example, baserunners are permitted to advance after an overthrow by the catcher, coaches often do not encourage their inexperienced catchers to make throws on stealing runners. They don't mind the steal that much, but can't live with the overthrow. That hurts the girls but it does avoid losing games because of errors.
The most egregious example I have ever observed of a poor approach in rec ball occurred one season in a tight game. The teams were separated by one run. The team in the lead was in the field during the final inning. The trailing team had its three best hitters due up. The leading team's coach told the pitcher to walk these first three batters because the kids who followed them could not hit. The pitcher threw wild balls to these first three batters, walking them to load the bases. The next three batters were pretty much hopeless. The first one took three strikes down the middle, never even attempting to swing the bat, ostensibly because her coach had told her to do that so his team could win! The next girl was extremely nervous and swung at everything, striking out on three pitches. The next batter was the worst of the bunch and flailed hopelessly, ending the game. The winning team's parents screamed in joy as the poor girl swung wildly at the final pitch. They had won, they had won ... a crappy rec game. Big Deal!
My kids weren't involved in that game but it was very disappointing to me. That was 12U ball and none of those girls learned a darn thing from the experience except that winning was very important to their parents.
In a season between even younger girls I had a similarly bad experience. My daughter was 9 and had been trained to pitch for a couple years. She was a hard thrower with pinpoint accuracy. I recognized that her abilities were not appropriate for rec softball at her age and petitioned the league to allow her to play up. They refused because, as they told me, my kid's skill could help the other girls learn to play better.
My daughter pitched several games. The league had an inning limit which was instituted not so much to protect kids' arms but rather because a long time ago there had been another kid who could really pitch in the league. Her father was mine's pitching coach. She was lights out so the league created a rule limiting pitchers to 3 innings per game. That way they could make pretty sure that one pitcher would not have quite so much impact on the outcome of games.
We were resigned to the fact that my daughter would never learn to pitch a whole game and that our team wasn't permitted to draft any players until all the more skilled and older girls were gone. The result was we didn't have a viable option for pitcher number 2. During one game, after the first 9 pitch inning my daughter threw, the opposing coach came over to me and let me know that "we only let our girls pitch one inning" just in case I was thinking of throwing my daughter for a second one. He did this because he wanted his team to have a good chance of winning the game. How ridiculous is that? Well it isn't nearly as ridiculous as the mid-season petition started by other coaches to prevent my daughter from pitching in games because of a made-up fear that she might injure a girl if she hits one. When that started, she had only thrown about ten balls the entire season - she had outstanding control. Still, several coaches got together and tried to rally support for preventing my kid from pitching!
During another season, I uncovered just how deeply this overly-competitive rec problem runs. The league President had a daughter playing in 10U. He had decreed that girls were not permitted to windmill pitch. At some point in the early spring, he discovered a private coach for his kid and that coach began to teach her to windmill. She wasn't any good but at this level, it really didn't matter. She could get it over and that was enough. In mid-season, the President announced that from this point forward, windmilling would be permitted. His kid was the only girl who could perform the motion and the batters she faced were overwhelmed by this new style. Do I need to go on with this discussion? I don't think so.
In rec, there is a mistaken belief that the "real athletes" will simply manifest themselves over time. They'll be the ones chosen for all-stars, eventually become good ballplayers, and then progress into high school ball when they get older. There is little done to actually coach these kids. Rather they are left to their own devices since they are "real athletes" and much of the limited practice time is spent preparing girls for what they will do in games - get the ball back to the pitcher, not make difficult throws, etc. Skills are just not taught.
I have seen as many of these "real athletes" fall by the wayside as I have seen lesser girls who never learned a thing from their coaches leave the sport because "it's stupid." The "real athletes" begin to falter as soon as girls with more sophisticated parents begin dragging their kids out of the rec league and into travel programs where often skills are taught because they have to be. The "real athletes" often develop mechanical throwing flaws which set in for years and then are unable to be corrected. They become those awfulk side-arm throwers. They develop strange hitched swings reminiscent of adult beer league swings meant to hit the ball over the fence. They never adjust to the challenge of facing fast pitching because there isn't any in the rec league. The girls who can actually pitch leave rec earlier than others just to get the opportunity to pitch in games. Worst of all, the "real athletes" are never coached so they become uncoachable. You can't all of a sudden be accepting of constructive criticism at the age of 14 when nobody has corrected you for the past 6 or 8 years.
Be that as it may, let's move on to skill progression.
Age GroupsI'm going to break this down into age groups with an understanding that not all girls at a given age need the same skills taught to them. I'll skip right past anyone younger than 8 because the largest span of skills is evident in girls this young and because real play does not begin until coaches stop pitching and standing in the field to direct the girls. I'm going to break skill progression into the following age categories: 8-10, 12U, and 14U. At late 14 and up, many girls are playing high school varsity ball which means they are really playing 18U. Also, by that age, it is too late to discuss skills progression.
Girls at 8 are often getting their first or second year of softball, the first being some sort of teeball. A few can throw the ball further than 30 feet but most cannot. Very few girls can catch a ball thrown by another girl. They can hit the ball sometimes. They can field a slowly rolled grounder. Pop-ups are out of the question.
By 9 or 10, most rec girls can throw 40 - 60 feet though not very accurately. They can catch balls thrown by others though not every time. Most can run bases fairly well. They hit pretty well especially with slow pitching that is around the plate. They can field many hit grounders and a few pop-ups are catchable.
Still I lump 8-10 together because many 8s are as good as decent 10s and many 10s need as much attention as beginner 8s. Within this span, there is a broad diversity of capabilities and it is often better to describe skill progression in two parts, that for more competitive and that for lesser.
By 11 or 12, almost all girls can throw reasonably well, some far better than others, and it is now possible for the entire team to warm up by throwing to each other since most girls can catch somewhat well. Hitting is better than it was at 10 though some still struggle to just make contact and pitching is improving a bit though it is nothing like its travel counterpart. Girls remaining in rec 12U are still very interested in the game and while there is a decided skill divide, most of the kids who have real skills have left for travel so the difference between kids is not quite so readily apparent.
By 13 and 14, most of the girls who can actually play the game have left rec ball but a few whose parents have made them stay are still there. They don't take it very seriously unless and until the Little League's Senior tournament rolls around. They view practice and games as social events. The skill divide widens at this point as girls who seemed promising last year in 12U begin to lose interest rapidly.
So, the question remains how and what should you teach these girls to play?
Rational ApproachThe most rational approach I have ever seen taken in rec ball begins with a separation of skills. The first identifiable skill is pitching. The best rec leagues identify the girls who want to pitch and then teach them to windmill properly, at least in the basic sense. The league conducts clinics every weekend for as long as two months before the season begins and often well into competitive play. Girls who want to pitch must attend a specified percentage of these clinics. Can't make it to the clinics, that's OK, you won't be pitching.
The identified and trained pitchers begin play in a league for 8 and 9 year olds. Player drafts begin with each 9U team being alloted the same number of pitchers. Again, only these girls can pitch in games. The better 8s and 9s are moved into the 10U league. The 10U league is broken into more competitive and lesser competitive divisions. Good 8s and 9s first pitch in the lesser competitive 10U division. Then, if they progress, they move into the more competitive division.
The very best leagues I have observed do not permit walking at the entry kid-pitched level. They have girls pitch until 4 or 6 balls are thrown after which the coach pitches until the batter hits the ball into play, strikes out swinging, or watches a set number of coach pitches go by. Girls who are moved into more competitive divisions are those who can hit live pitching. Batters are thus encouraged to not just wait for the coach to pitch.
Emphasis in the pitching clinics should be placed on mechanical issues. Girls should not be encouraged to, for example, throw with bent arms in order to get it over. Coaches qualified to teach basic mechanics, often outsiders, run these clinics and girls are encouraged to practice on their own.
Catchers should also be identified and taught. They should accompany pitchers to the pitching clinics and learn through experience and teaching how to catch pitched balls. After the pitching clinic is concluded (usually these are one hour long sessions), it is time for the catchers to be taught throwing mechanics for another hour. In later years, blocking and other skills can also be taught but at the earliest, most fundamental levels, they aren't resady for that yet.
Fielding/Throwing 101For everyone else, at the beginner level, leagues should provide a different set of clinics, one for fielding and throwing, and another for hitting fundamentals. The single most important skill which should be taught to girls in the beginner 8 and 9 year old range is throwing. Many bad habits can start at this age and arm injuries are also an important issue. If I had to identify one skill which 8s and 9s must focus on, that would be throwing.
The sister skill to throwing is, obviously, catching. This is probably a more difficult one to teach but there are approaches to teaching it which work. Clinics at which these skills are taught should be conducted by the league - don't leave it up to coaches who sprint to practice after long commutes, after longer work days. The 8 and 9 year old learning of throwing and catching skills should be taught in as structured an evironment as possible. Again, self-practice should be emphasized. Parents of these kids should be asked to commit to playing catch for 15 minutes at least twice a week.
In addition to learning to throw and catch mechanically correct, girls should be taught how to field a standard ground ball properly. This entails a lot of repetition and constant supervision with appropriate correction. Once these skills are taught in clinic, there may be time to work on mechanics of fly ball fielding but I believe that is best taught to more advanced players.
The more advanced but younger kids also need to be taught basic skills such as throwing and catching. But in more advanced kids, there should be more emphasis placed on footwork and more advanced skills. Don't skip throwing skills because the name of the clinic is "advanced 10U" but teach the fundamentals while also teaching crow hopping for longer throws and skipping or popping into position on infield grounders. More advanced 10U kids should be taught fundamentals of flyball and pop-up fielding in addition to grounders.
In both the beginner and advanced 8-10 category, baserunning skills should be taught in at least a cursory manner. Proper positioning at the base is the first, most important, skill followed by getting off the base properly and at the right moment - usually after the pitch reaches the plate. Running hard to and through first base should also be covered. More advanced kids should be taught to "break down the run" after reaching first with an eye towards being aware when overthrows occur. Beginners and their more advanced contemporaries should also be introduced to rounding a bag on outfield hits as well. And moving from first to third could be introduced too.
I do not believe a lot of situational awareness should be taught at this age. Some of that will happen naturally in team practices and games. And a lot of that is best taught in a game setting rather than practices or clinics.
In terms of hitting, for some reason rec leagues usually have a teeball league which feeds into the pitched leagues and as soon as teeball is over, we throw away the batting tees! My personal preference is for all kids 10 and under to continue taking hacks at the tee. Clinics for hitting skills could be set up on alternate weekends with those set up for fielding and throwing skills. Emphasis must be on swing mechanics including proper stance, taking a short path to the point of contact, and making contact with a fluid follow-through. This is best taught at the tee and with soft toss.
As I said, typically in rec league, batting practice is live pitching, usually a coach doing the pitching so strikes are thrown, and there is no emphasis on a good hitting mechanic. Kids never learn to pick up the ball off a windmill pitcher and their swings are horrible.
By contrast, in most travel organizations, kids take a ton of tee, soft-tossed and live-kid-pitched batting practice. They have to develop good swings in order to deal with the relatively high quality of pitching they will face. In rec league, the emphasis is on hitting the coach-slow-pitched ball as hard as possible. For this reason, coaches usually teach kids to pull the bat way back, take a huge stride and swing as hard as possible.
Skills at 12UIt is important to note that you just cannot gloss over the fundamentals taught at 8, 9, and 10 once girls get to the ripe old age of 11. Rather, the very same skills must be taught in clinic. But at this age, you want to work in fundamental plays and a more developed situational awareness. Girls should be taught to get the lead runner by throwing to second base on grounders up the middle. Outfielders should be taught to throw to the lead base and to cutoffs, and in all cases, not to simply throw the ball to the pitcher after every retrieval.
Bunt defense must be taught at this age even for rec players who do not see as much bunting as their travel counterparts. Bunting is more the reality in fastpitch softball than it is in baseball. The skill of barehanding slow or stopped balls, which is least worked on in rec settings, must be taught at this age. Drills can be worked into fielding clinics to cover this as they don't take very much time. Every kid playing rec ball should, by the age of 12, know how to barehand a ball while moving her feet into position to make a throw.
Girls should also understand the fundamentals of tagging up both from an offensive and defensive point of view. While working baserunning drills, some sort of tagging up drill should be worked into the mix. A full blown discussion of situational base running should be included wherein the rules regarding tagging up should be discussed from both the offensive and defensive point of view. If clinics are held outdoors, or at the very least during outdoor practices, both offensive and defensive sides of the tag up can be worked simultaneously.
Additionally, some other more advanced concepts should be worked into the 12U discussion, clinics, and practices. For example, holding at second, when not forced, on grounders hit in front of the runner and rounding third on outfield hits should be covered. Also, moving to an uncovered base can be discussed though many will never attempt it. Other offensive strategies can begin to be introduced at 12U.
Hitting mechanics must still be taught but bunting must be worked in at this age. The fundamental sacrifice should be something every rec girl is at least familiar with, if not something she can execute. Similarly, anyone playing third or first base should know how to field a bunt and get the out at first. Second baseman should understand the need to cover first. Shortstops should similarly understand base coverage fundamentals including steal coverages.
Skills at 14UAt 14U, I still do not want to skip the throwing, fielding and hitting mechanical issues. But at this point, girls get really bored, very easily, when such topics are gone over in detail. To advance these girls skills while also keeping them interested, I suggest that more complicated skills be taught during the fundamentals. Some of these are run-downs, safety squeezes, slapping, double plays, advanced baserunning, and perhaps some advanced set plays on defense such as those dealing with first and third situations. If all the available talent has left rec for other pursuits, you may not get far along with these skills but you should at least educate the girls in order to enhance their enjoyment of the game.
CarryoverIn the original question, Robert said he wanted to develop a common set of skill progressions so "when the player moves up to the next age group, the new coaches would be (somewhat) confident that they could use terminology and strategy without questions from experienced players." I understand the objective but there is one problem with this approach. Rec softball usually spans the end of March through the beginning of June. That's at most two and a half to three months. I believe the notion that a person can do anything for that period and then retain a significant portion of it into the following year is flawed.
We put our kids in school for about 9 months of the year. They get something like 2 to 3 months off for the summer. The next fall, when they return, teachers spend about the first half of the year going over what was learned the prior year before moving on to more advanced topics. Yet, in a softball discussion, we assume girls are going to retain skills and knowledge after a nine to nine and a half month layoff from the sport. I believe that is overly optimistic.
By contrast, travel players usually tryout in fall, begin practicing immediately, play a dozen or more games, practice twice a week all winter,and begin play as soon as it's warm outside, continuing for the duration of the summer, after which they start up the cycle again. At most, the typical competitive travel player spends a month to a month and a half away from the sport.
Rec players usually play a dozen or so games, more if they make all-stars. Travel players play anywhere from 50 - 100 games each year. Yet many travel players do not retain very much of a common set of skills and terminology. I do not think their rec counterparts can either.
ConclusionDespite my bad experiences in recreational softball, I think there is a logical skill progression which can be applied to develop rec players. But I'm not as ambitious as most in this respect. I think before rec can accomplish its goals, it needs to decide what those goals are. There isn't room for both a logical skill progression and the objective of winning a meaningless game. The initial skils should be throwing and fielding. (Pitchers and catchers should be segregated.) Then hitting mechanics should be worked in but with an eye towards good mechanics not in hitting slowly pitched balls as far as possible. Situational awareness has a place in rec softball but only after fundamentals have been learned. As girls age, they can learn additional aspects of play but fundamentals and mechanics cannot be ignored.
If a league endeavors to teach such fundamentals and then gradually work in more advanced topics, the rest will take care of itself. The players will enjoy themselves while becoming better softball players. They'lll stay because they are having fun. All-star teams will improve and probably develop an eye towards competing in a few tournaments. Girls will develop more of a common terminology with which to be taught because they enjoy the game and want to play more and more of it. This is how I answer the question Robert asked.
One Important Though Almost Forgotten IssueAs a final note, I should probably have spent some time discussing the single most critical issue required to be addressed in order to develop a better recreational league. That is coach training and development. I'm not talking about the minimal requirement for safety training or some other program in which coaches are reminded to put the girls first or something along those lines. I'm talking about a sophisticated program under which coaches are taught the fundamental skills they will be teaching their players.
It is often difficult for leagues to line up enough coaches for their teams in the various age groups. Nobody has any time nor the will to do more than they already do. But if you want to see real improvement, coaching seminars are the only way. These seminars should focus on age appropriate skills and the manner in which they are taught. Coaches should be given drills to perform at practices and basically be coached on how to coach. While it is entirely understandable that it is difficult for leagues to find coaches and coaches to find time, attendance at these seminars should be closely monitored. Later, during the season, coaches should be asked about follow through on skill progression drills in their practices.
The most important aspect of running any league is communication with the parents of participants. When the league establishes some sort of logical skill progression, that should be communicated to the parents and a feedback mechanism for their concerns and observations should be established. This should be written and it should remain anonymous so as to avoid the kind of off-field conflicts it might otherwise engender.
Parents are the greatest resource any league has. If parents are told that their 8 year old should be taught proper throwing mechanics and they never observe their coach teaching these in practice, they should have a mechanism by which they can communicate that to the league. If parents observe any of the sort of nonsense I observed in my earlier comments above, they ought to be able to write the league and complain about the conduct of coaches. The league should not so much seek to smooth the ruffled feathers of such parents as it should take the comments under advisement and act on them if they are repeated from multiple sources.
Similarly, other coaches should be able to report observations which raise alarms. If a coach sees the same four 10U girls always playing infield while the others rotate through the outfield, that could be reported. If a coach observes another continually making several girls not make throws in order to avoid errors that could also be reported. If a coach observed one team walking the best hitters of another in order to pitch to the lesser skilled girls, that should be reported to the league and acted upon.
Leagues should keep records of parental and coach concerns and questions, and use them for the betterment of the league. The entire pool of coaches should be graded much the way umpires are. Appropriate steps should be taken to address concerns and move the best coaches into managerial roles while removing managers and coaches who are there just to record wins.
You can skip all of my advice on improving the rec league, if you want. If you know of a good resource which more directly answers the question put to me, please tell me where it is and I'll list it if I agree with the contents. You can leave the status quo alone and just continue in the manner you and your league always have. But if you do, please, please, please don't write to me and tell me how upset you are that 1) your league stinks, 2) your daughter didn't make the school team despite being an all-star for ten straight years, or 3) you wish there was some sort of alternative to recreational and travel softball.Labels: Youth recreational softball
Permanent Link: Rec Softball Skill Progression
 
Obstruction!
by Dave
Thursday, October 25, 2007
I apologize for rehashing the subject I wrote about not 3 weeks ago regarding obstruction and interference but it happened again this weekend. This has become my cause celebre for the simple reason that I have yet to see an ump apply the rules properly despite a lot of discussion from umpires in charge (UICs), regulating bodies, and others. We, in the softball community, need to decide what the rules are and then make absolutely certain they are applied correctly by those PAID to officiate our games. UICs need to not only make sure they understand the rules but also that the umps they assign to games fully understand them as well. Short of that, we should scrap the rules and play just like the big boys in MLB do - run down anyone who gets in our way!
Here's the situation:
A runner from third is racing towards home. The catcher stands awaiting a throw from an infielder. The catcher straddles homeplate. The runner arrives what appears to be a split second before ball and, without sliding or making any effort to avoid contact, collides with catcher who fallsdown while holding onto ball but having made the tag too late. The umpire calls the runner safe. The catcher is shaken up. After the play becomes apparently dead, coaches call time out and attend to their catcher while also arguing with the umpire that interference should have been called because "the runner didn't slide."
Later, between games, the umpire approaches fans sitting on sidelines and announces that he knows "you are not happy with my call." He explains that "the catcher obstructed the runner and that's why I called her safe." I replied directly to him, "but you didn't call obstruction, did you?" He replied, "Uh, yes, no, but I didn't have to. I called the runner safe."
That's not exactly correct.
This was a game which, while not sanctioned specifically by ASA, was expressly played under ASA rules and officiated by an umpire wearing ASA insignia. Neither the play nor the call, or lack thereof, altered the outcome of the game. The issue is safety and proper application of the interference/obstruction rules.
There is absolutely no question that a fielder may not block a base when not IN POSSESSION OF THE BALL. A fielder cannot be in the act of catching a thrown ball and blocking a runner from touching a base. A fielder must be in possession of the ball before she can be in the runners path. However, runners are obligated to avoid contact to the extent they can reasonably do so. Runners are not allowed to run into players deliberately in an effort to cause the fielder to drop the ball or otherwise prevent them from making a play - that's unquestionably interference. Accidentally running into a fielder and thereby preventing her from making a play can be called interference. Running deliberately and with great force into a fielder while staying on one's feet must be called interference.
In its May, 2006 clarification for umpires, the ASA has a discussion entitled "Obstruction Mechanics" which reads:
"PLAY: B1 hits a line drive into the gap between center field and right field. B1 is obstructed by F3 as they round 1B. The umpire signals delayed dead ball and verbally declares "obstruction" loud enough for everyone around the play to hear. The umpire determines that B1 should be protected to 3B. When does the umpire drop the arm that signaled the delayed dead ball for obstruction?
MECHANIC: The umpire signaled the delayed dead ball and verbally declared the obstruction correctly. The delayed dead ball signal should be maintained only long enough to ensure the players and coaches near the play are aware of the obstruction. If the obstructed runner is put out while still protected, dead ball is declared and the runner awarded 3B. (Umpire Manual – pages 229, 230 and 258 (Umpire Signal Chart))."
"Delayed dead ball" is signaled in every rulebook I have access to by extending the left arm horizontal to the ground. In some rulebooks a fist is made. Obstruction, again in every rulebook I have, is called orally by stating "obstruction" loud enough to be heard by the obstructed runner and anyone else, especially players and coaches effected by the call.
The ASA has a download on its site for umpires entitled Interference and Obstruction. In every instance in which obstruction is ruled to have occurred, the publication says that the umpire should "call 'obstruction' and signal a delayed dead ball." There is no discussion where an obstruction is judged to have occurred in which the umpire needn't make any call (delayed dead ball) because the runner reached base safely anyway.
In the events I described above, one could argue that the catcher did not have possession of the ball so she could be guilty of obstruction. However, she was not blocking the plate either. She was straddling it. There was plenty of room for a sliding runner to reach home. It is also difficult to call her for obstruction when you consider that there was significant contact - significant enough that she went down and then was shaken up afterwards - and yet she held onto the ball. The ball had to arrive before the runner, if but momentarily, since she caught it before going down. The fact that she was not blocking the plate has to be the deciding factor on whether there is an obstruction. Clearly there could not be one.
But I'll go along with the notion that she may have been obstructing the runner for the sake of argument. As an aside, when the ball and runner arrive simultaneously and the runner and fielder collide, the ASA calls this a "train wreck," which is a collision occurring when both players are doing what they can normally be expected to do, and holds that no call should be made. I can go along with that too. But in this case, no call was made beyond the safe call and the runner did not take any steps to avoid a collision as she is required to do. Every rulebook is clear that when a runner collides with a fielder purposely, with great force, and while remaining on her feet - not sliding - she is guilty of interference and should be called out. When obstruction and interference occur simultaneously (if that is actually possible!), interference must take precedence - there is no obstruction - and the runner is called out.
I want to make a couple points as a result of this experience. These are:
1) It is never appropriate for an umpire to explain his or her calls to fans on the sidelines. Umpires should restrict any explanation regarding specific calls to those involved in the game, including coaches who make proper inquiries. Fans should stay out of it as well, but in this case, it was the umpire who approached them.
2) There is in fact a way in which to call obstruction. That requires an extended arm to signal "delayed dead ball" and the utterance of the word "obstruction" loud enough so that players and coaches nearby can hear it. In this instance, there was no obstruction called. The umpire merely wanted to cover his butt by telling fans that he knew what he was doing and had really made the proper call.
3) I submit that in the case in which the ball and runner arrive simultaneously, no obstruction call can be made unless the fielder was blocking the base prior to the ball's arrival and this altered the runner's action. Similarly, no interference should be called if a runner collides with a catcher not in possession of the ball at the time of the collision who is blocking the path to homeplate. Also, runners are obligated to avoid collisions with fielders when they can by taking such actions as sliding (though sliding is not specifically required). These particulars involve the umpires judgment which cannot be questioned nor appealed. Yet umpires need to be fully versed in the rules regarding interference and obstruction, judge the facts as they perceive them, and make the right call based on their judgment and a proper understanding of the rules.
4) When an umpire makes a call such as the one I observed and then explains it to fans by claiming that there was an obstruction on the play when no proper signal was made at the time, this indicates to me that he knows deep down that he may have made the wrong call. He is more concerned with maintaining his stature as a revered official than he is with understanding the actual rules and making the correct call. He has lost credibility.
5) There is no particular advanced knowledge required to call balls and strikes, safe and out, etc. The infield fly rule (often referred to as the most complicated rule in sports) actually requires a minimal level of real understanding by anyone who otherwise knows the game. Fair and foul similarly require a minimal degree of higher intellection. Umpires are paid a fair rate (usually $25-50 per hour and a half game). They should at least make an attempt to understand the rules they are charged with enforcing. Umpires in charge (UICs) must take their "in charge" responsibilities seriously and make sure the folks they hire understand the important rules.
Otherwise, one of these days, somebody is going to be seriously hurt in a play like this. When that happens, somebody is going to make a federal case out of it. And the whole umpiring profession is going to pay the price (psychic or otherwise) for some child's serious injury or death.Labels: interference, obstruction, rules
Permanent Link: Obstruction!
Middle Ground
by Dave
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A reader of the site writes in to say/ask:"I have two DD's (darling daughters) who play for our local rec league. The oldest pitches at the 10U level and the youngest has another year remaining with the 8U coach-pitch team I coach ... We had enough teams in the spring to play all of our games in-house but with the reduced enrollment for the fall season, we've had to play games with teams from other rec leagues in our area. We've played games against these other rec leagues in the past and they always had a number of competitive teams. This fall we noticed a sudden drop off in the quality of these teams ... Horrid pitching and games where the other team failed to put even one ball into play. The reason given among our league's officials for this drop-off was the other league's support of travel teams which had depleted most of the talent from their rec leagues which brings me to the point of my question for you. Are parents choices in softball limited to either gonzo travel ball or poor quality rec ball?
It didn't even occur to me to have DD try out for a travel team last August because I had no idea our rec league's competitive environment would be so bad. I am also committed to coach my rec league's 8U team for another season and my oldest loves being the star on a team comprised of her friends from school. Honestly, I'm not sure she currently has the skills to be a travel ball player. While she's good enough to be an ace in her rec league, she will walk a couple and occasionally load the bases before she's able to strike three out. It's not like she's overpowering either. The better hitters in our rec league are able hit her. While I've never put her fastball to a gun, I would guess it to be in the 40-45 mph range and she is just starting to learn the change-up but is nowhere near ready to use it in a game. In terms of her other skills, she is one of the best singles hitters on her team and is better than most at fielding and throwing, at least on the rec level.
I have thought about seeking out a summer-only B level type of travel team for her join after her spring rec season. The problem is that I can't find any in my area, just a couple of notices on other leagues websites in which they also usually looking for a coach. Maybe they start to spring up as the spring season approaches. My other concern with that type of program is that it might just be a more expensive and glorified version of rec ball. I plan to get her more private instruction this winter and maybe gain some insight from the coaches who run them as they seem to be tuned into what's happening with local softball. My wife is also reluctant to get her involved in something as expensive and time consuming as A level travel ball, assuming she makes a team. While we both want to encourage her to improve her game and experience of it, we don't want to burn her (and us) out on it at such an early age ..."
Very Typical QuestionDo I need to explain to experienced people how common this experience is? I am of the opinion that this precise conversation or thought process has occurred to half of all travel players when they contemplated taking the plunge. My kids played rec ball before travel. We were extremely disappointed in the level of play, particularly pitching. Our games were boring affairs filled with walks and few balls hit into play. We went to observe the older rec kids play a game and were even more disapppointed.
At the time, I really didn't know very much about travel. I had heard of it. I had seen kids in fancier uniforms climbing into cars. I had seen girls throwing the ball the way they're supposed to in their yards. I had been told by others that if your kid is any good, somebody is going to approach you sooner or later and ask you to join a travel team. This was in 7-8 year old ball a long time ago. The popular notion was that, if you were going to play travel, you had to be asked based on the skill you demonstrated on the rec field. How wrong of a notion was that? Completely wrong!
I decided to educate myself and see if there was a game girls played which I would find acceptable. As I have said many times before on this blog, I found out where a tournament was being played and went to watch it. I was shocked and almost turned around immediately to go home and forget my fantasy. I was unfamiliar with the fields we visited and ended up at the wrong one. I thought I was going to watch a 10U game but the team I observed warming up was actually an 11 year old 12U one, though I didn't know that at the time. I sat down and watched this pitcher warming up with her father along the sidelines as they waited for the winner of another game to show up. She threw about as well as I had previously expected high school pitchers to throw. This team ended up winning the tournament, despite being young for their class. Over the years I have seen the team several times and they are extraordinarily good.
After that experience, my kids and I worked very hard at their skills, including pitching, in a desperate effort to get them ready to tryout for travel. I inquired with a team that was a travel-lite team but they weren't interested in any new players they didn't already know - they were a closed group of friends who all played travel soccer together. Years later the good softball players would leave them and our travel team would see them around every now and again. Yes, we pounded them into the ground and I enjoyed it!
Another organization finally wrote back to us after we hounded them for several weeks. They told us to join their fall ball 12U team and see how things worked out. I was impressed not only with the skill level of the older girls, particularly the coach's daughter, but also the manner of coaching and the style of game they played. We resolved to join this team right then and there.
Later we would learn that this team was going to be one of two at the age level and my kid was going to be placed on the lesser team. That "B" team would play fewer and easier tournaments than the "A" team. Then the "B" concept fell apart and the "A" coach said we could stay with them though my kid would not get a lot of action. We continued to work very hard at skills, especially pitching and then winter workouts began. At the pitching practices, my kid had improved so drastically that the coaches couldn't believe their eyes. From that point forwards, my kids have played travel and seen a lot of action.
Many Different Flavors of TeamsAlong the way, we have encountered all sorts of other teams. My local rec league formed a "travel team" out of their all-star program. They played a league and 2 or 3 tournaments. Another older program we sometimes play against fields a "travel-lite" team which is pretty competitive. But they play just a handful of tournaments and mostly very local ones at that. These tournaments usually have teams which developed the same way they did plus a couple true travel teams which are looking to fill in their schedules with additional tourneys.
Several towns' all-star teams in our area are in various stages of evolution in the conversion from all-star to travel. One took a team from all-stars and continued to play after Little League tournament elimination. They found several tourneys looking to fill gaps, joined in, and got their heads bashed in. The resolved to learn from their mistakes, continue practicing, play into the fall, work out in winter, abandon Little League, and play travel tournaments in the spring and summer. They've done fairly well but along the way have lost several players to more competitive programs. When this happens, they place ads in the paper and conduct a tryout.
Another such former all-star team evolved into a full blown organization which fields teams at several age groups. They weren't very good to start but have developed into a more competitive organization each year. Their leaders became more and more educated and they have begun conducting clinics. They play a half dozen tournaments and a bunch of lesser leagues in order to season the girls. Most everything is local though sometimes they go further away to try something out for the first time.
In addition to the teams I have mentioned, I understand that there are some leagues just outside my area where travel-lite teams come into contact with town all-stars. Usually this causes two things to happen. First of all, the better travel-lite teams steal the all-stars who are looking for travel-lite. Secondly, the better town all-star teams often decide to take the plunge into travel-lite. They return to these leagues but they have their team together from the previous year, have drilled the girls all winter and attended clinics as a team, and the coaches are more well versed in aggressive "travel-style" tactics.
This is a constantly evolving landscape. This year's all-star team becomes next year's travel-lite program. This year's first-year travel-lite program becomes next year's good travel-lite program. This year's good travel-lite program ventures out and becomes the newest true travel team. Sometimes teams or organizations crumble when a group of kids leaves because playing or commitment levels of teammates don't live up to expectations. Sometimes organizations fracture or teams at given age groups jump to other organizations. There is a constant motion and a constant game of musical chairs. The result of the continous turmoil is usually opportunity for the first or second year travel player. But because ambitions vary so greatly from organization to organization, team to team, you have to ask about plans in order to make sure you are where you thought you were.
The thing to remember when you are first contemplating jumping from rec into travel is that your rec league's level of play is not going to improve. Don't get me wrong. Leagues do improve but it takes a long time to accomplish that. I know of several rec leagues where the level of play and competition are quite good but those are few and far between. And they result from the efforts of very knowledgeable people who had a vision, very early on. Very rarely were they the overnight result of a poor league whose leadership changed. A rec league is like a large mass of anything. It has tremendous inertia and resists change unless a long-term concerted effort is undertaken.
Answer Is In Front Of YouGoing back to the initial question, I am of the opinion that a good place for you to start looking for travel-lite programs is in the the very rec league you are trying to leave. You can start by inquiring about the travel teams the other leagues support which draw off all the talented girls who normally would play in your fall league. One of those probably is a team which fits into your desires for a lighter travel program. But, again, ask questions. You may not find a "summer only" team but you may find one which offers you a better level of league play in the spring, summer and fall, and which plays a couple tournaments here and there.
Lighter travel teams will usually play games in a "travel league" and then maybe 2, 3, 4, or 5 tournaments made up of mostly similar type teams. Ask what their plans are before you join. If they say 8-10 tournaments with some big out-of-state tourney, you haven't found travel-lite. You have probably found an ex-travel-lite team which now has bigger ambitions. If they say something about a league and a few tournaments, you're probably in the right place. Ask how many games, tournaments, practices, etc. These are normal questions for a parent to ask any travel coach before committing.
An important part of any competitive travel program is going to be a winter practice regimen. Most travel-lite programs do not perform extensive winter practices but some do. If you want your daughter to make real progress before her first year of travel, I suggest you try to find a team which does some sort of indoor workouts before the weather warms up. But if you are really not interested in that, ask the questions, learn the plans.
You may also want to know about the warm weather practice commitment. If your interest in travel-lite is really just about a slightly better level of competition with a few more games but without all that commitment stuff, you need to inquire about every aspect of being a member of the team which impacts your already busy schedule. You don't want to sign up for a team which plays 3 tournaments and then learn that they practice 3 times a week from March through September. Heck, you'd be better off with a true travel team, if that were the case.
Right Time To Join Travel?In terms of age specific considerations, 9 to 11 years old is a good time to venture into travel. My personal belief is 8 is too young unless you are capable of playing for a travel-lite 10U team. A team I was involved with had an 8 year old on the team who was very good for her age and was pretty sure she wanted to be serious about softball already. She was enrolled in private pitching instruction and, while not as good as most of the 9 and 10 year olds, she held her own. She was able to play and the next year when she was 9, she was a good player. By the time she turned 10, watch out!
On the other hand, I think 8U ball should really just be for fun. I have watched several competitive 8U teams play and I don't like the way the coaches act. They seem to think they are on a crash program to make these girls into real scholarshipcontenders. For the most part 8U teams are about skill development and enjoyment of the game. That is the way it should be and if you were to get there and find some sort of maniac coaching the team, I would pull my kid off immediately. My preference is, again, to jump into travel no sooner than 9.
I wouldn't want to try to get involved in travel any later than 12 years old. I have seen kids who could do that at 13 but they mostly played in very competitive rec leagues or played baseball with the boys before jumping into travel fastpitch softball. 14 is too late as the girls have developed skills which a 14 year old is going to have trouble with if she has only played rec before this point. 12 years old is not too late but if your kid is 12 and you are in travel for the first time, you have to recognize that you have a lot of catching up to do. You must be committed to working on your skills on your own. It's kind of like trying to pass college calculus after a ten year layoff from school (something I did once). You must throw in the yard several times a week. You need to get batting instruction and go to the cages at least once a week, in addition to your team practices.
So, my point is, if you are 9, 10, 11, or 12, come on in, the water is fine. The ideal age for entry into travel is probably 10 since you are one of the older kids in your age group. 12 is OK for the same reason but after that, you're asking for trouble.
Good Enough For Travel?I have heard all sorts of people state that they are not sure if their kids are good enough to play travel ball. I've said it myself a few times. The truth is, you'll never know what your kids are capable of doing unless and until you give it a try. You may be shocked to see the lack of ability some "experienced travel players" possess. I have personal experience observing third and fourth year exclusively travel players who can't field, can't throw, and can't hit. They found teams through persistence and maybe one day they'll learn to play better but they are travel players.
You can't let fear, apprehension, and appearances throw you for a loop. Things are, in reality, not always what they seem. If I had a dollar for every time somebody wrote to me about how they went to tryouts, their kid certainly wasn't the best but held her own, and they were surprised when they were asked to be on the team, I would be a very rich man. The best way I can explain this phenomenon is by telling you a story about my tryout experiences.
I remember the first time we went to a tryout and there were about 40+ girls there. Our objective was not to make the team - we already had one - but rather to give my kid experience trying out for a team. We never heard back from the organization because, as it turned out, they usually conduct numerous tryouts, expect kids to just comeback without being told to, and then they conduct additional tryouts endlessly with the girls who return until they spin it all down to 12 kids. But the presence of 40+ applicants for 12 slots might have scared me off had I not started to go to multiple tryouts, ostensibly because we had nothing better to do and my back was sore from hitting grounders!
When we began venturing to multiple tryouts, we again found 40+ kids trying out for various teams. It finally struck me when I began recognizing people that it was the same 40+ kids at all the tryouts! Let's say the real number was about 60 kids at 5 tryouts. Well, it doesn't take a genius to recognize that each of these teams is going to eventually take 12 girls and in the end all 60 kids are going to find slots!
Another phenomenon I see is the number of girls who are apparently already on the team. This is made plain by the presence of girls who wear their practice or game unfiroms to tryouts. Out of the 60 girls at one tryout, 9 were dressed in team colors. We wrongly assumed this meant there were 3 slots for the remaining 51 girls - not particularly good odds. In this instance, we were really looking for a team, were asked to join, and decided this was the right place for us. When we got to the team, we saw that many of the girls wearing team colors at tryouts were not on the team. Some of the kid were not as good as the other girls and had not been asked to join. Some had been asked to join but had decided to join other organizations. Many were looking to move up in age group, whether they had aged out of previous teams or not, and the team coaches really did not know these girls from the other kids who were in tryouts. The organization simply wanted to put together the best team it could from the available talent. As it turned out, we had seen many of these girls at other team's tryouts.
So my points are, things aren't always what they seem. Sometimes your kid will just make the team because the team needs her regardless of your perceptions about her abilities or who at the tryouts has "automatically" made the team via prior year participation. Don't make the decision to not tryout because you think she's not good enough. Let the coaches make that decision for you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Don't be shy. Just do it. You can always say no, if the team turns out not to be what you were looking for.
Private Coach As Information ResourceYour local private softball coaches can often be your best resource when it comes to finding a travel program. Chances are pretty good they have girls playing for dozens of teams. They know who the teams are, where they are based out of, who is coaching each, how good they are relative to each other, how intensely they practice and play including the number and type of tournament, who needs a kid just like yours, etc. I dare say that if your coach doesn't have all this knowledge, maybe you should find another coach.
In our "pitching gym," there are about 60 girls who go to the same coach we use. They run the gamut from 8 year olds who can barely hold a ball to somebody who just left on a full scholarship to join a top 20 NCAA Div I team. These girls represent probably more than 20 travel programs. And that doesn't count the kids who have come and gone from the gym while remaining friends and the organizations they play for. Many of these kids' parents are the travel coaches.
Almost every significant detail about each team is obtainable for the asking. The information flow is two way. When I hear things, I run them by our coach. If a team is being pulled together and so and so was at tryouts, I tell him. If a team is looking for kids, he tells me. We talk about almost every aspect of travel and high school ball you can think of. He educates me. I feed him information. And when I'm pulling together a team which needs a player for a particular position, I not only hang a sign up in his place, but also tell him exactly what I'm looking for. The last time I pulled together a team from scratch, I filled at least 4 of 12 slots with kids he sent to me.
My Daughter Wants To Play With Her FriendsWanting to play with one's friends can be a bit tricky. Some kids don't really want to play softball, they want to play anything with their school friends. For me, this is something you cannot judge unless you try something else. You can always come back to the rec league and just play with your friends if that's what you want.
I have a daughter who was not very socially adept. We held her back from first grade because of her social immaturity. When she first played travel, she didn't say a word to anyone unless it was in response to a direct question from a coach. Halfway through the year, she changed. Most recently, a parent of a shy kid expressed some regrets about his kid not mixing it up like the other girls do. I told him my kid was that way. He pointed at my daughter and said, "you mean that kid? You have got to be kidding me. There's no way she was ever shy."
Kids change their views and perspectives on things but that usually comes from personal experiences. Say your kid likes macaroni and she likes cheese. She may never want to try macaroni and cheese because the stuff looks funny. She can't imagine the two together and is unwilling to try it. But as soon as she does, she'll realize they are good together and may never eat them separately again!
I know my kids wanted to "play with their school friends" when we first started in travel. I allowed one kid to remain in the rec league because her travel schedule was decidedly light. But after a year of that, she no longer wanted to play because "the kids all stink." It helped that a kid from school was on the travel team but they weren't friends before travel softball because they weren't in class together. Now they are friends despite the fact they still have few classes together and are no longer on the same travel team. They still have travel softball in common and often talk about their respective teams.
Also, while I certainly understand what you mean about school friends, friends are friends. Your kids are friends with their school friends because they have school in common and because they spend time with them. They have common experiences with the same evil teachers and evil homework assignments. But kids in travel softball also go to school! Your kids will have that in common with them too. They just won't be complaining about the same teachers.
And trust me, after one travel season, your kids will become very close to their travel teammates because they spend so much time with them. I've yet to see the travel team which didn't become it's own sort of clan or gang. These girls win together, lose together, and complain about their teachers and parents together. They will become at least as tight as the school friends.
They'll also have softball generally in common. My kids have historically been as attached to their school friends as any kids. But via our experiences in travel softball, they also have friends all over the place. One kid has several friends who live as far as 40 miles away. They talk via text messages every day and then see each other at practices and tournaments. Several of these friendships have continued when the kids have switched teams. My daughters both expressed desires to play softball with their school friends before we jumped into the travel world but have never mentioned it since. They still have their school friends but their experiences are, unlike their peers, not limited to that.
I am as confident that your current experiences are not unique as I am sure you will find a travel team that is right for you. You need to do a little leg work but that comes with the territory. I strongly urge you to jump into some sort of travel. The competition in your rec is not going to get better as your girls age. The disapppointment you feel today is going to become stronger and stronger. Eventually your girls will get sick of softball because it will lose the interest it originally engendered as skill levels drop off.Labels: Travel vs. Recreational, Youth recreational softball, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: Middle Ground
Lifestyles
by Dave
Monday, October 22, 2007
In a few of my e-mail exchanges with folks who are newly involved with tournament softball, I have closed the exchanges by wishing them good luck and hoping that they enjoy the travel softball lifestyle. Usually they'll respond back with something like "thanks and what do you mean about the lifestyle?" One correspondent recently asked me if I would consider writing an article about the "travel softball lifestyle" I was referring to. I'll give it a shot, though I doubt I can do justice to the overall concept.
Let me begin my saying that everything I write on this or any other subject is purely from my point of view. The universe of girls travel softball spans everything from a slapped together 8U "all-star" team which plays one or two local tournaments to an 18U ASA Gold showcase team which has several players flying Friday nights to get to Saturday practices and jumping on planes a dozen times or more each year to play tournaments. That's too big of a universe to cover in a single writing. I'm going to try to focus on the lifestyle of good 10U through average 16U tournament softball in which players drive to 10 plus tournaments each season from fall to summer. I'm focusing on the type of play in which the team competes under some sort of national umbrella organization such as PONY, FAST, NSA, ASA, etc., ultimately driving to some "nationals" tournament towards the end of the season. I'm not discussing the Little League International tournament or Babe Ruth's version of the same thing because these are entirely different animals.
The first thing anyone playing at this level will notice is the quality of play. This is where girls play "just like the boys." For the most part, the pitching is good, the defenses get the outs, and baserunning often wins (or loses) games. Games move pretty quickly and time limits of 90 minutes are usually sufficient to complete 6 or 7 innings. The games are exciting to watch. It is rare for one team to score more than 2 or 3 runs in any one inning unless there is a mismatch between levels of talent. Scores are typically in the single digits, often 2-1 or 5-3, and there is not a constant littany of walked batters. These aspects of the play make it a lot of fun to watch. For the uniniated, it is a pleasant surprise.
The next element of the experience worth mentioning is the number of games. Typically, a team will organize during the fall, practice a few times each week, play anywhere from 10 to 20 games, possibly more, and then move indoors for the winter. Some teams may play an indoor winter league (another 8 - 10 games) and almost everybody is ready to compete outdoors around April Fools Day. If you count the number of weekends from April 1 to July 31, you come up with about 17. If the team plays 10 tournaments, that leaves about 7 open but usually several of those will be filled with scrimmages. Scrimmages can be anything from a simple double header to a quasi-round robin in which the team plays 3, 4 or even 5 games in a single day. Regarding tournaments, typically a team will be guaranteed four games, assuming they lose in the first game of the championship round. Very good teams will play an additional game or possibly more on a Sunday. The end result of this is a minimum of 50 and a maximum of as many as 100 games in a season. Few teams play either 50 or 100. Most probably come in around 60-70.
60 games is a lot of softball. For the most part, your kid will vastly improve her skills with that much action. And I haven't even mentioned the practices which add significantly to the amount of experience a kid gains in travel. Practices range somewhere between once a week from September to July, including winter workouts, to several times each week. Many teams practice 2 to 3 days per week in the fall, twice a week in winter, then 2 times a week in the spring, jumping up to 3 times before tournaments and when school lets out. Each of these practices can range from a simple one and a half hours on a weekday night to four or more hours on a weekend day. I have seen some information which suggests to me that a particular 12U team practiced as long as 4-6 hours on weekends and a total of 14 hours per week throughout the winter. I've never been involved with such a team but I'm sure there are some out there which perform a routine this rigorous.
Understand that I'm not trying to scare anyone. There are plenty of teams out there which practice once a week for an hour and a half, have limited winter workouts, mostly after New Years, and which play a limited tournament schedule. There is probably a flavor for everyone. But the average experience fits somewhere in the middle of the range I have listed.
To go a bit further into the experience of tournaments, for us, the typical one is about an hour's drive away from home. We usually end up playing the first game of the day around 8:00 am. Our teams usually want the kids there an hour before game time to warm-up. That means our typical leave time is 6:00 am on a Saturday morning. You really need to encourage your daughter to wake up, do whatever morning routine she needs to be able to play, including (ahem) fixing her hair properly, eating something that will stick to her ribs, and gathering all her stuff so you can put it into the car. That's about a 5:00 am wake-up call. Over time, we have been able to get ourselves organized and put off the morning eye-rub until 5:30 or so. On occassion, we have been able to schedule starting games later and made life oh so much happier on Saturday morning. As far as Sundays go, you have less to say about when the team's first game is scheduled since that really depends more on where they are seeded after the first round.
I should also tell you that having your first game at 8:00 am does not guarantee that you will be done early. Scheduling is difficult and organizations do the best they can but sometimes you can arrive early and are just coming off the field as 5:00 pm rolls around. It doesn't happen often on Saturdays but on Sundays it is a very real possibility, assuming the team does well. The ramifications of this reality are, you need to plan meals, errands, etc. around a day or two mostly away from home. On some occassions, there is little doubt that somebody who has a swimming pool will invite everyone back to their house after the games to have an ad hoc party.
I remember when we first moved into our current house. The neighborhood was pretty small, about 40 homes, and very tight-nit. People often got together socially. We had a block party at which pretty much everyone showed up, everyone except this one family. My kids were pretty young then and we hadn't even played our first rec softball yet. This one family was never around on weekends during the day. They often had pool parties which began after dark on Sunday nights during the summer. We never really got to know them as a result. All sorts of possible explanations came to mind for their odd, almost anti-social behavior. Years later I recognized the father as we sat in our new travel softball team's organizational meeting. His daughters had been playing travel softball! They were at tournaments almost every summer weekend. The pool parties were post-tournament victory celebrations!!
Often the three day weekends which people use to get away are filled with tournaments. Those usually take advantage of the extra off day from work by scheduling games. For example, we always play a tournament on Memorial Day. That one begins late Friday for some of the more local teams. Then we play all day Saturday and hopefully stay for a while on Sunday. The latest we have ever gotten home on that Sunday is, I think around 10:30. But Monday we never plan to do anything because we are always too tired and because, if something gets rained out, there will be games scheduled. One three-day weekend we've played has a scheduled minimum 5 games, 4 in the preliminary round, and a championship on the last day off.
July Fourth works out better because, normally, depending on where the weekend falls, games are done by July 2, allowing us to catch some fireworks and maybe even attend a family BBQ. Aside from that holiday, we do not see our extended families much during the summer. They try to plan some sort of get together in August but we are usually busy again with tryouts, a post-nationals tournament, party, or some such. Then it's time for school to start up and we get a week or two of low volume, low impact softball before fall ball starts up again.
Do I need to tell you that this regimen does not leave much time for vacations? For our family, we haven't had a vacation in so long that my weak mind can't remember the last one. I suppose that isn't exactly fair. We have had vacations. We go to nationals and since there is a hotel with a pool involved, we spend a lot of money, and we have to put our dogs in a kennel, that's our vacation. This year it looks like we'll have vacations over two weeks, in two places as our kids will be playing nationals in different locales during consecutive weeks. If that happens, we'll consider ourselves lucky because we thought they would be playing in two different places during the same week. The only way we would be able to schedule a prototypical "American beach vacation" is if we went during the week, while blowing off a few practices, or if there was some sort of tournament near a beach resort!
Sometimes we are "lucky" enough to play tournaments which are located near some extended family member's home. Usually somebody will organize a BBQ or a get-together for Sunday evening. And on those occassions, our team usually plays its best, well above their heads, and goes very deep into the championship round. Extended family members are able to see the kids play a little softball and then I get to make the excuses as to why we can't make it to the party. Usually this is done around 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon. My voice is hoarse and my sister can't make out what I am saying over the background noise of kids performing organized cheers. She tells me that they spent a lot of money buying some crab or expensive steak and they'll make sure to keep it warm for us. I explain that I don't know when we'll be there because if we win this game, we have to play another for the championship. Then around 6:00 pm, I call her again and she tells me everyone is about ready to leave unless I can get there within the hour. I explain what "ITB" means and that there is no way to know if we'll be done soon. Then I call again as we are packing up the car around 7:00 and she says, "maybe next time." I croak a barely discernible "yes" and privately hope that my voice will return before that day. Then we drive the hour back to home and crash on the couches waiting for the pizza delivery guy.
You know, the softball lifestyle is not all fun and games as I have made it out to be over the past several paragraphs. There's a lot of serious business to it too. For example, you really must constantly evaluate your daughter's performance and plan some private practice sessions in order to pick up her skills. Say your daughter plays second and she's having trouble covering grounders up the middle. You are really going to want to reveiew the calendar and make sure you have time to go to the fields and hit some grounders. That is in addition to several days per week of throwing out in the yard or at an open field someplace close by. If your kid is a pitcher, you'll undoubtedly have her in lessons at least once a week and, if you are going to get your money's worth out of them, you'll want to make time for pitching practice. We try very hard to find time for at least two sessions in addition to the lessons. Those are at least a half hour long but prefereably an hour or more. And I've got two budding pitchers to make time for.
If you aren't raising pitchers - good move - you'll need to pour over your schedule and see if you can find decent softball camps which fit conveniently into it. You'll want to go to every decent clinic within an hour's drive - that goes for winter as well as the rest of the year. Whether your daughter is a pitcher or not, whether you've got her in camps and clinics or not, I strongly suggest you locate a competent batting coach and plan on doing some private or group lessons for at least 10 weeks of the year. I can't tell you how to fit this stuff into your busy lifestyle but I am confident you'll be able to do it. Just get yourself organized and try to stay that way.
In addition to becoming far more organized than you ever thought you would be, you'll also acquire numerous other skills when you become a travel softball parent. You probably will become a power buyer on ebay. You'll need to be since you will have to acquire certain pieces of equipment such as pop-up awnings, composite bats, bat bags, coolers, navigation devices (you'll need one, trust me) etc., etc. There is more stuff we have accumulated for softball than I care to list here. Much of it has been purchased at significant discount via ebay and other web sites we have found over the years.
In addition to becoming a power buyer, you are also going to learn how to clean and stop cuts from bleeding as well as any professional boxing corner man. You'll learn many other first aid tricks. You'll also be expert at lacing mitts, fixing cleats to last a couple more games, predicting weather from radar images, finding and using reasonably clean laudromats open 24 hours and located near your hotel, and most of all, you'll become a psychologist specializing not only in sports psychology but also sports parenting psychology. You'll become expert in these fields through actual first-hand experiences - not via vicarious learning.
You will learn to deal with any number of personality disorders but not the kind usually discussed on TV programming. There will be conversations with the father or mother, whose kid really doesn't belong at this level, who is 100% confident that the kid will get a full ride to college, perhaps even make Team USA, if only they shout the right encouragement during games and offer the right kind of advice between them. You will undoubtedly encounter parents who believe their kids should be treated as stars because, even though they never practice or attend any sort of lesson, they are "extremely talented" and will progress if the coach just gives them the right opportunity and instruction during games. You'll meet others who believe their child is a worthless human being unless she truly stands out from others. You'll know this when they criticize their child after she puts down the sacrifice bunt the coach signed her to do and then the next kid up hit in the winning run. You'll see this when the kid takes two strikes, putting her into an 0-2 hole, not because she was afraid to swing but because the coach gave her the take sign because the bases were loaded and this pitcher had not thrown a strike yet that particular inning. Unfortunately the kid struck out "protecting the plate" on a drop curve 12 inches outside the zone.
There are many other dysfunctional personality traits you will encounter during your visit to the travel softball world. Some of those traits will have nothing in particular to do with the game. They have some bearing on the reasons the kid plays travel to begin with but the personality stuff will not be directly softball related.
If you think real hard about your circumstances, you have 11 new sets of friends (odds are good they'll be some one parent families / possibly "alternative lifestyle" families) with all that entails. You did not meet these people and make friends with them in the usualy manner. You didn't meet them while taking a cooking class at the local community college, at a friend's party, or in any of the conventional ways people get together. You met them and agreed to spend 90% of your spare time sitting and chatting with them while watching ball games because their kids were good enough to make the same teams your kids made. You may have absolutely nothing in common with them in terms of background, politics, parenting styles, avocations, hobbies, etc. The only thing you have in common with them, at the outset, is a child who really likes this sport. Even that can be questionable at times. Worse still is that it is entirely possible that your kid is taking time away from their kid when it comes to the desired position. The possibilities are endless.
You are going to meet some socially very ambitious (dare I say competitive) people. You will meet braggarts. You will meet everything from the extremely wealthy to the troublingly poor. You will meet parents who are outstanding people and you'll meet abusers. You'll meet very sober people aas well as raging alcoholics. You'll meet people who are nice until you get to know them and you'll meet shy people who, after you get to know them may become your best friends. You can meet this assortment of people anywhere but you are going to spend all your weekends with these people for the next year.
There will undoubtedly be parents whose kids are better than yours as there will be others who aren't quite as skilled yet. Some of the parents of the least skilled kids will not see things that way. Some of the parents of really good players will resent it everytime your kid makes an error or doesn't perform quite as well as their kid. If your kid is any good, you will meet people who want to attach their wagon to your kid's. You'll meet people who blame your kid when she doesn't single-handedly beat the other team. You'll meet parents who claim that their kid is the only one giving 100% even though it was her error(s) which blew the game open for the other team.
Well, that doesn't nearly cover things. The point I wanted to make is, travel softball can be very intense. It's intense for the kids whose schedules are filled with practices, clinics, parental practice sessions, lessons, camps, and, especially loads of games. It's also intense for parents who may very well all end up hating each other rather passionately. The whole thing is a pressure cooker with all sorts of new demands, skills, experiences, etc. It's a blast. It's great people watching. The food stinks. It takes all your time, esp[ecially if you get involved with coaching and writing a blog on the subject. You'll never simultaneously enjoy and hate anything to the extent you will travel softball.Labels: parenting, teams, youth tournament teams
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