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| SOFTBALL LINKS |
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Practicing To Make Great Plays
by Dave
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
I am a firm believer in doing repetitious, mundane plays in practice. I like the concept of a player fielding 100 ordinary grounders every day. I like throwing drills to all bases performed many times, over and over again. This is a reaction sport in which a player does not want to stop and think in the middle of a play. She needs to have performed each particular skill thousands of times in practice. But if you (team or individual) want to stand out from the crowd, perhaps something more is required.
There are all sorts of mundane plays which any good player must execute properly in games. Fielding balls to the right, left and right at you; making throws to the left, right, home, etc.; shuffle throws, crow hops, catching balls while on the run, these are all important skills which arise on everyday ordinary plays and must be made routinely, with a success rate, if one is to step up and be a player. There are countless other plays which should be made too. Some of these are slight variations of mundane plays and some of these are more advanced. But we seldom see such things worked on in practice and I'm not sure why.
Before I get into this, many will see these plays and say, there's nothing extraordinary about them. I make (my daughter makes / my team makes) plays like that routinely. We practice those all the time. That may be but not everyone thinks along those lines and few teams actually practice any of it.
The best example of a play which is just ouside the mundane happens when a shortstop goes to her knees on a ball up the middle. That is considered to be routine by many a good shortstop. But a 12U or 14U SS may not ever practice such a play. The best do but most do not.
There are a couple aspects to making a play when diving to the grounder up the middle. For one thing, there is the dive and making the judgment that I am going to get this ball if and only if I dive. That takes experience. I understand the need to field 100 balls in front, just to either side, etc. But at some point, the quality SS needs to have enough repetitions on balls just outside her reach, unless she dives, to distinguish such plays. You sometimes see infielders even at the highest levels fail to recognize quickly enough a ball they must dive for. The more practice, the better!
The dive itself needs work in terms of posture, footwork, laying out, and getting the ball. I won't give you a mechanical diagram for this - that's beyond my scope here. You can handle this. Watch a bunch of shortstops laying out for balls and copy their movements.
Now, our intrepid SS knows when to dive for a ball up the middle. She is skilled at diving and makes the play on the ball most of the time. But she hasn't got anyone out yet. After the grounder is caught, she needs to get up and make the throw, or learn to throw from her knees. That's simple enough but she needs to do it and repeat it so she gets the right feel. This whole exercise requires repetition. And the very best shortstops do this in practice. They don't just jump out onto the field with all that natural talent and make spectacular plays.
Other similar drills need to be worked for all infield positions and it is nearly impossible to list them all here. I'll just mention some of these because I know you are smart enough to identify important but nonmundane plays and then devise drills for them.
A similar drill to the above needs to be run for the second baseman who has to dive to her right on balls up the middle. She'll also need drills for balls to her left which require a dive. And she will possibly need to work on making throws from her knees and/or one knee. The shortstop is going to need work on plays in the hole. And lest I forget, they are going to need to make these plays followed by throws to each of the bases, including home.
It may seem counter-intuitive for a shortstop to need to go into the hole and then make a throw to home but comnsider a hard shot line-drive in which the SS dives and knocks down the ball while the runner from third retreats to avoid being doubled off and then breaks for home when the ball hits dirt. A good throw needs to be made to nail her, a good practiced throw!
Similarly, the third baseman needs to be able to dive on hard smashes, retrieve the ball, and then make a throw to any of the bases or maybe get up and step on third. We see these plays all the time. We marvel at the athleticism of the fielder when she records an out as the result of some spectacular diving stab. But when she gets up and throws the ball over the first baseman's head or fails to make any play recording an out, we yawn and think, "that was a nice play but...." Throws from the dirt on good plays must be followed by a putout in order to really gain notice! And like any other throw, these should be practiced.
There are two kindred plays a third baseman can make to stand out from the crowd. One involves the ball that nagging slapper bounces into the dirt. She pounds the ball so hard that it doesn't come down to earth in time for you to even attempt a throw. Well, she does have 1.3 speed (I'm making that up) and the ball was in the air for 1.5 seconds! But most of the time, you could get that ball in time to just barely make a play, if you practice it. And practicing it could benefit you when the batter is a more realistic 2.9 runner or is some other hitter who accidently does the same thing.
If you just stand there and wait for the ball to come down, then snag it with your glove, reach in and grab it with your throwing hand, hop into position, and then throw, you probably aren't going to get even the 3.8 runner out. The third baseman on a chopper needs to do a bit more. This could involve a jump for the ball but that's probably relatively inefficient - it looks good but accomplishes nothing. This could involve barehanding the ball immediately into a throw. That involves working on the footwork required to set up while simultaneously charging the ball and practicing barehanding choppers. A coach could help a third baseman by initially soft tossing balls into the air in front of her, having her charge, grab and throw to first or shuffle to home for those bases loaded situations. Then assuming the practice infield is hard enough, a coach, with some practice, could learn to hit some good choppers for her to work the skill.
The second play for a third baseman to work in order to stand out from the crowd is similar to the shortstop's play. She dives to grab the smash hit to her right, just barely in fair ground, gets up and throws to first in time to nail the runner. An important variation of this is, again, when bases are loaded, to dive for the ball and come up throwing from her knees to home. I've seen this oplay accomplished and the crowd expresses their delight. I;ve also seen three quarters of the play get executed and then be followed by an errant throw. These skills need work with respect to footwork and throwing from knees when necessary. If you never work them in practice, I'll lay odds against these plays ever culminating in an out during a game.
Another play which a good softball player should make but which sometimes doesn't happen is the low pop-up behind first base. Many first and second basemen make an attempt to field this ball but they fail by a step or because they didn't dive for the ball. They missed it by a step because they didn't recognize the opportunity, didn't turn quickly enough, took bad steps to the ball, or otherwise just didn't have enough practice at this.
I strongly suggest going over the footsteps needed to make such a play and then repeating them, over and over again. Then I suggest running a drill for first basemen in which a coach tosses the ball behind first base, into both fair and foul ground. The player should try to make the catch and the coach should try to throw the ball just out of range. The player should be encouraged to dive when necessary - its opretty soft back there, isn't it? The coach should not take the approach that if he or she throws it out of the player's range, an adjustment into the range should be made.
The same play is important for second basemen. That is, sometimes the ball will be struck badly but fly beyond the potential reach of the first baseman, well beyond the possible retrieval by the rightfielder, and into "no man's land." In softball, these types of hits usually happen in the late innings with runner on third and two outs! If the second baseman can get there and make that catch, games can be turned from losses to victories. But the 2B has to know how to take a good route to the ball and when to dive. This can only be accomplished, other than in times of great luck, by practicing the play. These plays can be practiced the same way those for the first baseman can. Actually, it would be great to practice pop-ups into no man's land with 1B, 2B and RF all involved so the three fielders can get used to each other's abilities and ranges in order to avoid collisions. The SS and LF have a similar play in "no man's land." These could also involve the third baseman though most of the time, she's up so far that it seems unlikely that she'll get into that position.
A related play which could be worked in practice occurs when there is a gifted slapper up and she pops one into no man's land on either side of the field. These are really low, soft linedrives more than popups but they take basically the same route to the ball by fielders. If you've got a slapper defense set up, the outfielders are probably closer in. Maybe the SS is in tighter too, though somebody need to be situated so as to be able to go after balls hit right behind third. Some slapper D's I have seen put the 3B back by the bag and in those circumstances she can handle these plays. But when you have that gifted slapper who can lift the ball out beyond the infielder's reach down along the lines, your outfielders need to be able to make diving plays. And they need to practice these. I have often seen good slappers do this but I've never seen a team practice to defense it.
There are other diving plays for outfielders though the situations when diving is an acceptable strategy are important to go over. And teaching outfielders how to dive so as to be able to block the ball should they not succeed in catching it is equally important. The best outfielders are aggressive going after short liners. They often dive for them. But when the ball lands short of their reach, the best outfielders do not lay mired in their defeat. Instead, they tend to block the ball and keep it in front of them.
Catchers and other players have plays outside routine they can work on but I hesitate to call anything the catcher sees nonroutine. Still, many catchers practice throws to bases from a standing position but fail to work on them from their knees. I like to perform a drill in which a coach throws balls in the dirt to a catcher stationed in her regular catching position. Those are great to develop the necessary muscle memory for blocking low pitches. But why not add a throw, especially to third and also to second, from the down in the dirt blocking position? There are many occassions in which this play is necessary but if this is never practiced, a catcher is not going to throw out the runner as often as she might if they were.
Pitchers often get short shrift in infield drills. I've told you I like to run the drill where the pitcher throws a pitch to a catcher and a coach stationed just off the plate hits grounders at her feet, the pitcher fields them and throws to the various bases. I don't want to get into the habit of trying to really drill balls right back at her. These can result in injuries. I don't want to send three pitchers to the emergency room two days before a tournament. But the coach could hit fairly hard smashes using softees. I should note that these kinds of plays are probably more reliant upon the underlying athleticism of the pitcher than they are on any kind of practice. The more important aspect than fielding the balls is making the throw.
You have heard many people talk about the infielder's "internal clock." That is a developed sense of how much time she really has to make a play on the runner. This is displayed in all sorts of circumstances but never more so than in the type of plays we are talking about today. If the shortstop goes into the hole, dives, retrieves the ball and then makes a throw to first a full second after the runner gets there, thereby allowing the runner moving to second to proceed easily to third, that's a bad play. She has to develop the sense of when to hold the ball and when to make a throw. That sense can only be developed through repetition. So any of the drills we are talking about here could and should be performed with baserunners involved. That will help fielders develop that internal clock and avoid turning great plays into really bad ones.
There are other types of drills which can be worked into a practice which develop the skills needed to make great plays. We do some of these but altering a few elemtns of other drills can help build the extraordinary skills we seek. In softball the ground ball double play is a rarity. Yet, we run this in our ordinary infield practice because we recognize that the skills can be important in various circumstances.
When there is arunner on second and the batter drills a ball straight at the 2B or SS, most often the runner at second will find herself 5 steps from the back and off balance. She staggers, stops, and then returns as quickly as possible to the bag to avoid being doubled off. Most often, when this happens, the other middle infielder is off shooting craps or texting her girl friends. Everyone looks at the fielder who caught the ball, then to the runner trying to regain her balance, then over to the vacant bag. The opportunity for a double play is lost. And then we all look to the other middle infielder who stands there with an blank stare in her eyes and egg of her face. Sometimes, the other middle infielder has good instincts and runs to cover, arriving just before the baserunner. But the girl with the ball is waiting for her arrival before making the throw. The fielder beats the runner but the throw comes in well after she has returned.
If we practice this situation, it is just possible that we'll build a reaction which happens automatically in games. The two middle infielders are positioned properly and a coach hits light liners to short or second from a position around the pitcher's plate. One fielder makes the catch while the other races to cover the bag. The fielder with the ball leads the one covering the bag so she can catch the ball in full stride and double up the runner. These drills use the various types of throws one middle infielder might make to the other, overhand, dart, underhand, shuffle. The more we work this, the higher the likelihood we'll see one of those very convenient double plays when the score is tied 0-0 and we're trying to get an out in ITB.
You might be able to make any or all of these plays without ever having practiced them. Maybe you are just a great athlete who makes these sorts of non-routine plays routinely. Maybe you are a natural. Maybe you are just that good and your team all has ESP. They can read each other's thoughts, motions and body language immediately. They know when they don't have to go after a ball because Sally is going to get it. They can make double plays blind folded. Then again, even if you are that good, I have to wonder why practicing these things would hurt you.
Tom writes in to discuss something for the pitcher which I'll include here and in another place I mention defensive drills for pitchers:
"One of the more important drills that I've seen involve teaching pitchers to defend themselves from batted balls. A fielded ball can result in an out and a missed ball can take out your pitcher for the season. The most effective practice that I have discovered uses the lite-flite Jugs ball. They look like softballs and throw like softballs but don't break anything. When the pitcher is in her workout, the coach throws lit-flites back at her to defend as she pitches to the catcher, starting easy and moving to more difficult. We work with her trying to deflect the ball with her glove and not using her throwing throwing hand. Pitchers tend to try to catch with the bare hand which can cause a season ending injury) We work with her to get into a defensive position as soon as possible after delivering the pitch. Again this is practiced with the emphasis on safety and NOT on making a play. I can get the next out but I can't replace an injured pitcher easily. This changes her focus and quite frankly her overall fielding improves as her confidence increases."Labels: coaching, defense
 
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