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They're Watching You
by Dave
Monday, November 10, 2008
In my experience, many girls have trouble dealing with people they don't know watching them. As a young man, my friends and I used to play a game in which we picked a random girl out of the crowd and stared at her. This was a mere passtime, not some "pickup" technique (and that's a good thing since it would never have worked). If we found ourselves sitting around someplace bored, we picked a girl and stared at her.
Just so you fully understand what I'm talking about, we would decide to all stare at her shoes or maybe the top of her head - you could not get the desired results by looking at the things boys often look at, when involuntarily staring at girls. Sometimes, when we were at close quarters, we would all stare at one particular point on a particular girl's forehead. The results of this passtime were, almost without exception, always the same. The target would become extremely self-conscious and uncomfortable, and seek to move out of sight or otherwise move so the specific spot was no longer visible. If she did this second technique, almost without exception, she would thereafter have to move again to see if we were still staring at the same place. If we were, she might actually burst into tears and leave immediately.
Shoes were probably the best. If four or more boys constantly stare at a girl's shoes, she may get up, walk out and go buy another pair while throwing out the old ones! Girls do not like boys randomly staring at one particular article of clothing or one particular spot on her face. They begin to feel that these boys are looking at some fatal flaw. They begin to believe everyone, not just the couple of boys, is staring at the fatal flaw. It must be removed. Whatever it is everyone is staring at is somehow wrong and must be fixed NOW!
I'm not being sexist. There are certainly boys on which this works too. I've known girls who use this technique when bored or just messing around with boys who are hitting on them. I've had this done to me but as soon as they realize one is not a willing participant in the game - as soon as they realize you are on to them, it ends. And in discussing this game with girls, it has come to my attention that girls are more susceptible to it than boys are.
Girls are overall more concerned about looks than boys are. I know this because I grew up in a household with three older sisters and, as an adult, I have fathered girls rather than boys. My entire life, I have been surrounded by girls. And it doesn't really much matter if we're talking about "girly-girls" or "sporty" ones. I know this because I was close friends with a lot of girls who were "sporty." In fact, I think sporty girls may be more sensitive to this than the "girly-girls."
I remember in college working academically at length with the ace pitcher of our softball team. We had numerous projects together in a class we took. Sometimes that work got very tedious and boring. In those moments, I naturally lapsed back into my personal favorite variety of self-entertainment, staring at a random place to get some sort of reaction. On more than one occassion, this girl asked me if there was something on her forehead or hair, or something weird about her shoes. She honestly wanted to know!
That's an observation on my part and you may be wondering what has this to do with softball. Actually, there are a couple of ways in which I think this has relevance. I'm only going to share one with you now because I want to keep the other one private for my team's use in the future. What I want to tell you is, when you are up to bat, the other team is "watching you."
I don't wish for you to become self-conscious by having the knowledge that you are, in fact, being watched. What I want you to do is recognize that where you stand and how you stand in the batter's box really does matter. The pitcher is watching you to find a weakness. So is the catcher. The players on the field should be watching you to try to determine where you might hit the ball, should you make contact. The coaching staff on the other team is trying to do all these things and perhaps more. They really want to get to know you. They can't have much in the way of conversation over an hour and a half but they want to really get to know what kind of person you are from your body language, facial expressions, etc. The place where they obtain most of their inputs is the batter's box.
As I said, I don't wish to make you self-conscious with this knowledge. Instead, what I want is to make you aware so you can manipulate those watching you. This becomes more difficult if you are tense or generally insecure, get into a hole in the count, or otherwise do not believe you are in charge when you step to the plate. Before you can manipulate other's perceptions of you, you must be confident and believe with all your being that you are in charge.
If you are supremely confident and/or feel in charge, you can pull off some grand manipulations. If you know you are going to be taking a pitch, I suggest that at least some of the time, you do so from a different location in the box than you would normally seek to hit from. For example, let's say it is in the third inning of a 0-0 game and the pitcher walks the first batter of the inning. Your coach may signal you to take a pitch until she throws a strike. If you normally stand right oppposite the plate, right in the middle of the batter's box, try moving up to the front of the box, perhaps hugging the plate, or maybe both of these things. Chances are pretty good the pitcher and other players will assume you are bunting. The pitch may come in very low or a little high, depending on the pitcher's strategy. Moving around may accomplish more than merely manipulating those watching you. It may even get you a first pitch ball which puts you even more in charge.
Probably more important than getting a first pitch ball, your actions make the pitcher's mind start going. Whether she is conscious of it or not, she most likely begins crafting a strategy to combat you based on where you stood in the box for that first pitch. Likely the coach on the other team did likewise. And he or she is most likely going to call the next pitch before you again set up in the box to hit the next one, this time in a different location. If, now, you move to your real hitting location, the result is most likely going to be that coach saying to themselves, after the next pitch, "oops,I thought she set up in front of the box." That next pitch is likely going to be something you wouldn't have been able to hit from the front of the box but you certainly can hit from your normal spot.
While we are on the subject, often coaches do call the pitches. Sometimes catchers do this (and I advocate that but this is a subject for another day). The pitch-calling coach cannot see subtle adjustments you make in the box so if it is a coach calling the pitches, your technique may be even more useful than if a catcher is making the calls.
Also, some catchers set up in accordance with where the batter is standing. Not all do, particularly less experienced ones just set up wherever they are most comfortable and ignore where the batter is. By moving around in the box with a catcher who sets up in relation to you, you are moving the pitchers normal targets and, thereby, making her comfort level drop off a bit. Most pitchers and catchers do the majority of work without a batter present so when the catcher starts setting up her target in new unfamiliar ways because you, the batter, are moving around, the pitcher is more likely to make a mistake.
If the catcher does not adjust to where you are standing, this changes the zone in the pitcher's perception. If you move up and close in on the plate, not to hit but rather to take, the pitcher's perception of the strike zone is altered, not merely on that particular pitch but also on the next one. The zone is uncomfortably narrow in that first pitch and then way too comfortably wide when you set up in your real spot.
Pitchers often make their adjustments via the placement of their front, landing foot. If a pitcher wants to throw inside, she is going to look at the ground and then try to hit a spot with her front foot in order to make her pitch go where she wants it to. She isn't, most likely going to alter her arm slot since that can spell disaster and she has been schooled to never do that. She isn't going to otherwise alter her delivery. The only way she can change the sideways location of the pitch is to land in slightly different spots. If she wants to go outside, her foot has to land in a particular spot. Often when we see a pitcher in a groove, she has found a nice comfortable landing spot and is hitting it on almost every pitch. When you move around and make her adjust to you, she just may lose that spot. She may involuntarily dig it out or she may find that it is no good any longer and dig out a new place. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, nothing much is lost.
Further, umpires generally set up with reference to the location of the catcher. They want to be as close as they can be so as to get a good look at the pitch but they need to give the catcher room and they seek to use her as something of a shield. So, from a pyschological point of view, when the umpire is viewing the pitch from all sorts of different angles because the catcher is continually moving because the batter is moving, he or she tends to begin to be less comfortable too. An uncomfortable umpire tends to believe the pitcher's control is suspect or that she is trying to get strikes without throwing any. An uncomfortable umpire is less likely to give the pitcher the corners because the corners are moving with reference to the ump's set-up position.
Also, because the umpires perceptions change when he or she sets up in a different location, the actual strike zone begins to move around a bit. If the umpire is forced to move backwards, the pitcher is not going to get the low pitch she got on the pitch before. If the umpire moves laterally in one direction or another, a corner pitch that was just a strike, may be a ball. Nothing frustrates a pitcher more than a moving strike zone. That was a strike just a minute ago. Where is the strike zone now. Where is it going to be on the next pitch?
So moving around in the batter's box can change the equation. But to be clear, we're not looking for walks. What we are looking for is a hittable pitch. Still, the best way I know to get a hittable pitch is to take a ball that was intended to be a strike. If a pitcher intended to throw you a ball, she isn't going to get excited when the umpire calls ball 1. But if she wanted that pitch to be a strike, she is going to get at least a little uncomfortable that the pitch didn't raise the ump's right arm or cause you to swing. We have all seen very good pitcher's get pinched. The result may be more walks than normal but eight or nine times out of ten, the more likely outcome is the pitcher who is usually unhittable gets hit hard. So moving the strike zone is about getting hittable pitches, not about earning walks.
Two of the ways in which coaches, pitchers and catchers assess you are via your warm-up practice swing and via how far from the plate you set up. Rotational swingers take a particular kind of warm-up swing. Linear hitters use a different kind. If you happen to know which you are and learn what the other gals use, you can at least partically emulate this before setting your feet up and thereby get a more hittable pitch than you might otherwise get. Many times, the coach calling the pitch determines what to call based on that first warm-up swing. We'd all like to think we are really smart and can pick out a batter's tendencies from more than simply her first practice swing before setting up. But we have a lot on our minds. And human beings are subject to first impressions. So that very first warm-up swing can change the pitches you see throughout your at-bat.
Secondly, whether the pitches will tend to be inside or out often is determined by reference to where you set up relative to the plate on the very first pitch. If you don't like a pitch in a particular spot, set yourself up on the first pitch where that pitch is virtually impossible to make. If you don't like them insides, crowd the plate and take a pitch. Most likely, she will not throw one inside. Then, when you move back to your normal depth, she may try to come inside but most likely, that inside pitch will correspond to the sweet spot on your bat - it won't be far enough inside.
I think that too often batters approach the plate, take their warm-up swing and otherwise proceed through their at-bats trying to remind themselves of something they are working on in their lessons or at batting practice. They aren't involved in the cat and mouse game of trying to manipulate the pitcher, catcher or coaches. Instead, they are getting in a little batting practice before they actually hit. This gives the cat an edge. This shows the world what it is a girl is working on, what her weaknesses are. If she swings high, she is 1) looking or a high pitch, 2) working on that type of swing, 3) perhaps demonstrating the weakness which caused her to make an out in the last game, or otherwise showing something she would rather others did not see.
The time to work on hitting high pitches, leveling out your uppercut, finishing higher, or whatever it is you are working on, is in practice, not in games. If you show the pitcher something about your swing before she throws you something, she is going to develop a theory on the fly and then test that theory on the first pitch. If your practice swings are high, she's probably going to go for your knees. If you show a deficiency in your swing or what she thinks might be a deficiency, she is going to try to work against that. If you show her nothing or show her something that is not relevant, she may make a mistake.
Similarly, when batters are swinging before games, there is often one coach from the opposition watching. I know I do this from time to time. And on numerous occassions when I have been tied up with our own warm-up drills, another coach or parent has approached me to say, "they're all rotational" or "they're all linear." The hardest times I have entered games involved circumstances in which we really weren't sure if they had any particular tendency. So, I suggest that if you are a ceerebral hitter, you develop certain habits for warm-ups which do not clearly show the other team what your real tendencies are. If you are a coach looking to outsmart your opponent, do your warm-up hitting out of sight of the other team. Otherwise just have everyone doing dry swings at the same time and limit the number or reps so they can't see very much they can use against you.
So my hitting advice for the day involves a paranoid delusion. They are watching you! As the saying goes, even parnoids have real enemies. They are really watching you. This should not make you self-conscious, at least not out on the ball field. This should give you courage, courage to manipulate others. Be smart. Know they are watching. Give them a little incorrect information. Then, hit the ball. Hit it hard. And know that you earned that fat pitch.
Follow-up posting:
Larry wrote in to ask for some aditional thoughts on setting up the pitcher, particularly with respect to sitting on certain pitches, and noted that the traditional "see it, hit" strategy is a formula for disaster. My reply was, "the only thing I can add to this involves knowing a particular pitcher's tendencies ..." Basically, aside from the specific manipulation of the pitcher's view and a misrepresentation of your hitting tendencies, I don't think there are other things you should physically do during the at-bat to manipulate the pitcher.
As far as "see it, hit it," that really does not have to do with the cat and mouse game. To me, "see it, hit it" is a mental approach which essentially means the batter has already done all the preparation she can do. Now is the time for action, to implement what she has prepared for. I think "see it, hit" is an important approach at the plate. I don't want the batter going up there and trying to think her way through an at-bat. Perhaps I led everyone to believe otherwise. You develop your approach outside the box and then implement it during an at-bat during which you stop trying to think everything through and instead just "see it, hit it."
The approach I am discussing in this piece is not something I want to see a hitter develop during a single at-bat. When I say manipulate the pitcher's view, I mean develop this strategy before actually batting. You don't get in the batter's box and think, "let me see what I can do to mess up the pitcher." You walk into the box thinking, "OK, I'm going to take the first pitch and do so from way up in the box while crowding the plate. Then I'm going to movce way back in the box and have a look at another pitch. Then I'm going to begin my real at-bat." You develop the strategy back in the gym or while laying in bed at night, maybe in the on-deck circle. During an at-bat, that's the time to implement a previously developed strategy. Perhaps I failed to make that clear.
As far as additional thoughts on strategies in the box, those are developed for a specific pitcher whose tendencies you know or think you know. If you have batted against a pitcher 2, 10 or 50 times, you should have some sense about what she does and/or what she tries to do. On a rudimentary level, this might mean she only throws her change-up when up in the count, while looking for a strike-out. You should be prepared to see a change, if she does. That's a very rudimentary tendency and I hope you wouldn't see it much beyond 10U or 12U ball. A 14U pitcher throwing change-ups on every 0-2 or 1-2 count, and no other time, is looking to get hit.
Even high level pitchers have tendencies. I'll get into more detail about that another time but, for now, let's acknowledge that pitchers tend to fit into a few categories we can identify if we sit down with pencil and paper. When thinking of any pitcher, for the most part, they will use one particular pitch in perhaps as many as three ways more than 50% of the time. One girl, for example, uses a curveball 60-80% of her pitches. She tries to get you out by throwing a strike with it and then getting you to swing at successive curveballs more and more outside the zone. If you know that, you should be able to craft strategies to deal with the tendency. Another pitcher, like say a Monica Abbott type, is going to try something completely different, but something specific most of the time. When you face her, you should try to know what those tendencies are and then develop a strategy to defeat it. If it works, stay with that strategy until it doesn't work anymore.
Beyond the general discussed above, additional strategies are pitcher-specific. That doesn't in any way diminish the validity of a mental approach we call "see it, hit it." And a complete discussion of hitting strategies is well beyond the scope of this piece.Labels: batting, game strategy, mental toughness
 
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