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Power of Prayer
by Dave
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Hi folks,
No this is not an article about the power of prayer. This is an important request I want to send out to you in order to spur you into some action. Please read it and follow my instructions.
Early in July, I posted a message about a 15 year old ace softball pitcher for the Vienna Stars '93 named Ashley Runion. Life threw Ashley an unhittable pitch which the umpire insists on ringing up as a strike. She is sick with AML (leukemia) and has been undergoing treatments of a nature that makes waterboarding seem like a nice warm shower when one is cold and dirty.
Ashley recently went through one of the harshest of the treatments she has received to date. She is moving forward like the trooper she is. She has performed in a manner which only a true softballer can. But she needs your help.
I have no idea if Ashley practices any particular religion at all, if she is Christian, Jewish, something else entirely, or a practicing atheist, but folks, today is December 4. I don't particularly care what religion or lack thereof you practice. But I need, Ashley needs, your prayers.
She needs your prayers because she has only one wish this holiday season and that is to leave the hospital and go home, if only for a while. She cannot leave the hospital now because the treatments have left her body no means to fight off the most timid, weak and innocuous of infections. The only way I can see for her to go home is if we all collectively invoke the power of prayer and will her to get better, again, if only for a while.
One more time, I really don't care what religion you practice. If you are Christian, I suggest you say the Lord's Prayer in as much earnest as you can. If you belong to another religion, choose the most powerful prayer you know. If you are an atheist, agnostic, or whatever, pray to the god of nature, Gaia, or whatever you do when you really need some sort of power from outside your own being. After you have prayed to invoke whatever power Nature can give you, I need you to pray that Ashley's resistance to infection be restored for however long it can be.
Ashley needs to go home and have something of a nomal life for even the smallest periods of time. This holiday season is as good a time as any for her to go home since she is not under a specific treatment for her disease.
So I'm begging you to find it in your better nature to perform prayer on behalf of someone far less fortunate than yourselves. I implore you to take time out of your busy schedule to pray for Ashley.
Thank you for indulging me.
Dave
Permanent Link: Power of Prayer
 
Unique Perspectives
by Dave
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The American softball community may never get over the loss to Japan in the championship final of what could be the last Olympic game. There is no need to over analyze what transpired there. Pretty much everyone is of the same mind - the game turned on two pitches, both Osterman riseballs. I heard a unique perspective on the issue. Somebody told me they thought Nuveman had temporarily over-thought things and had made a mistake by calling those pitches. She had mistakenly thought the batters were set up for rises. I have no way of knowing whether Nuveman called these pitches inside a vacuum, the coaches had talked to her about trying to set up a couple batters for riseballs, Osterman had talked to her about using the pitch, or perhaps she had just made bad pitches, not hitting the spot called for. But I do think we need to get a little perspective on things.
For beginners, obviously the US offense did not produce enough runs to overcome Japan. Ueno pitched one hack of a great game as she has on several previous occassions. Let's face it. She's quite good, as good as her American counterparts, this time better.
For another thing, Japan is quite a good team. They don't beat themselves. They play a smart game offensively and defensively. They have defeated the USA in the past. At this level, you have to expect to sometimes lose a game, even the biggest game in the history of the sport. That is the nature of high level athletics.
When you get to a certain point of development within a sport, on an international level, there should be a degree of parity. When the USA men's or women's basketball programs romp all over the international competition, the only logical conclusion is the sport has not yet reached its proper height. When other teams are capable of beating our team, then and only then, has the sport reached its zenith. It is good that at least one other country can win a gold medal in softball. It would be great when any member of the 8 team field has a realistic chance of winning gold.
Particularly in women's sports, aside from track and perhaps gymnastics, there is a long way to go in terms of international development. We would be wrong to assume that any particular sport should remain the absolute domain of one specific country for more than a decade or so. If that happens it means the international community has not really embraced the game. They haven't analyzed what makes one country great and then made adjustments to their programs to combat those advantages. Parity means the things is popular on a worldwide level. Parity indicates development.
Third, in regards to those two pitches, they may have been the wrong call, or just bad pitches. They may have been the result of Nuveman over-thinking or some other cause. But let's face it, those two batters did not have great swings at those two pitches. The one that went over the fence was barely a real swing. It more closely resembled something you might see in a whiffle ball game. She wristed that, made good contact, and was lucky it wasn't a mere flyout. That's the way the cookie crumbles. I've seen other hitters take hacks like that and drive the ball out of the yard but, more often than not, the result is a pop-up or lazy flyball. The pitches may have been the wrong call or simply missed their spots. But whatever the cause, they were not horrendous pitches.
I suspect that the notion that Nuveman made wrong calls comes from a unique perspective, the perspective of a coach accustomed to calling every pitch. And that's the issue I really want to examine today.
Anyone worth their salt will tell you that catchers should call the game. That is because they have a unique perspective of not only the batter, but also the pitcher as well as other aspects of the game. They are the only person on the field or in the dugout who can really sense what batters are doing. I say sense because a well-schooled (we'll get to that later) and experienced catcher uses more than her vision.
Obviously, the catcher's view of the game is different from everyone else's. Each player on the field sees things from a unique position. But the catcher is the only person, other than the plate ump, who can see both the pitcher and catcher up close and personal simultaneously before, during and after each pitch. After a lifetime spent behind the dish, she begins to notice some very small things nobody else can see or sense.
I don't go in much for the ESP stuff. I should tell you that long ago, on more than one occasion, I have found myself having drinks with a woman named Donna who happened to be the personal assistant of a fellow named the Amazing Kreskin. She claimed Kreskin could do so many absurd things that we dubbed her "Mad Donna," partly because we thought she was quite mad and partly after the pop star because her tendencies to frequent "singles establishments" was somewhat legendary. She claimed that Kreskin was a genuine psychic. I don't know, maybe he was or is or will be. I just don't go for that stuff. I prefer more tangible things.
I don't go in much for ESP but I do believe human beings are capable of picking up subtleties which exceed their capacity to consciously perceive via the sense of vision. Isaac Asimov wrote a series of novels which included characters who were able to communicate with each other using very slight, possibly imperceptible to most of us, facial expressions. That's fiction though I do see the possibility in fact.
One of the features which characterizes certain people is the ability to almost sense what others are thinking via acute observations of slight facial feature variations and other "body language." I think we all know people who are acutely observant of others. They are often ones we think of as being excessively uptight. They say something while looking into the faces of their conversation partners, make a judgment about the way in which their sentences are received and then make adjustments. They tell a crass joke, see a twitch in someone's face, and then follow up the joke immediately with a comment meant to moderate their crassness. In almost every aspect of conversation with people who possess this characteristic, they are acutely aware of our reaction to almost everything they say.
People who live in very densely populated places tend to have this hyper-sensitive characteristic more than those who live in wide open spaces. It is more of an urban phenomenon than a rural one. I believe this is a matter of survival. Those who interact with large numbers of people every day find the need to exercise their up close and personal perceptions. We all have the ability to be hyper-sensitive to subtle changes in people's faces but those who use the ability become ultra-perceptive. It is said that the children of alcoholics and once-abused children tend to have this sense because, as children, they constantly observed and tried to anticipate when things would go badly. They learned to read the moods of explosive people before they exploded.
I don't wish to go deeply into a psychological study but I do wish to raise the point that a well-schooled, experienced catcher reads batters, and perhaps more importantly pitchers, better than any other person in the park. Batters come to the plate with loads of baggage. They have varying degrees of general confidence. They are either comfortable or relatively uncomfortable picking up the ball with this particular pitcher's release points. They stand in certain ways in and out of the box. They twitch in certain ways before they take a swing or take a pitch. They do many things which only the catcher can perceive.
From the sidelines, one can perceive only so much about a batter. Usually this is limited to seeing what she does before the pitcher goes into her wind-up. Every coach, fan and player, not on the field, has a tendency to look at the batter, wait until the pitcher begins the wind-up, then look out at the pitcher until just before release and finally look back at the batter. The catcher on the other hand, gives the sign and then stares out at the pitcher throughout the whole wind-up, release and pop in her mitt, while also watching the batter. She sees the subtle, imperceptible to anyone more than five feet away, movements of the batter. She smells her perfume and sweat. She hears her breathing. She see her facial ticks. She senses her confidence or lack thereof. She notices whether she takes a good hack or a defensive one. In short, she sees and otherwise perceives almost everything about the at-bat while a mere 50% or less is apparent to everyone else.
I say this not as a casual observer but rather as one who has found himself behind the plate many times. I loved catching. I had been a baseball pitcher for the many early years up until the time when baserunners could really steal. I think I was 13 or 14 when the coach came to me and said he was moving me behind the plate because I was the only one who could throw out stealers. I went there somewhat reluctantly. I had really enjoyed pitching but that wasn't the issue since I would still perform that role for the regulation number of innings. I wasn't sure what life would be like behind the plate. There were no grounders to field. I couldn't walk around and spit between pitches. I wasn't sure I could make as much noise as I usually did while wearing that facemask. But once I got there, I liked what I found.
As a pitcher, especially at the young ages, I found myself always trying to figure out batters from that place, 60 feet away, in front of them. My catchers were not skilled. They offered me no help. But as soon as I got behind the plate, I realized how much I had been missing. This was a much better vantage point to discover hitters' weaknesses.
I went to a junior high and high school that was what they called "regional" which means kids from several towns attended them. Our recreational league involved play between several towns including those which attended the schools. There were any number of very good players in that league, some of whom kind of intimidated me when they stepped to the plate. I grew up watching them play and playing against them. As a pitcher, numerous times, I got all worked up when I had to face some of them. Sometimes I got them out, sometimes they whacked the ball. But once I got behind the plate, I could see most of their weaknesses in ways I never contemplated. This made me a much better pitcher. But to be honest, after several times behind the plate, I completely lost interest in pitching. I got completely hooked on catching and gave up pitching shortly thereafter.
I almost forgot, attending school with these fellows rovided much advantage to the catcher. Jack would stand in to hit and I would ask him how science class was going - because he had failed it the mnarking period before and his parents were going to take baseball away from him if he didn't pass it this time. I asked Bill how his social studies project was going (when there was no such project), knowing that he would freak out and then nbot be able to play for the rest of the day. I told Bob we were going to have a huge English test right after he went away for Easter to go surfing in Hawaii. He thought he would have to bring his books on a surfing safari! Of course, after a while, everyone learned not to listen to me, so I had to devise other strategies.
Maybe more importantly than the catchers point of view during pitches is the fact that she is more likely to remember this hitter or that at game time. In tournament ball, each and every girl begins to look alike after a while. Coaches will remember this kid or that who really drove the ball or was otherwise a standout. But they do not remember every or most of the girls on a team the way a catcher does. They see every single player up close when they come to the plate. Whereas hitter number 6 is just like hitter number 6 from the team you played two games ago, or hitters number 7 and 5 from two other games or this one, the catcher probably is more likely to remember this particular kid.
In a typical tournament season, you may see the same team or teams two or three times, perhaps evenplaying them twice at a single tournament. There's no way an adult can remember everybody on a given team, let alone everyone on every team. They begin to look alike after a short while. To the girls on the roster, these are all individuals who they possibly remember. And the catcher is the onlyone who meets them all face to face. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard a conversation between my players, including the catcher where some nameless faceless opponent came up and one said, "I think she played on such and such a team last year." Then the catcher corrects the opinion by saying, "no, she played on that team last year and this other one the year before that. I remember she hit a homerun against us two years ago." Usually, the catcher's memory is right.
Catchers have a unique perspective on pitchers as well as hitters. When a coach wants to find out how a pitcher is doing in contemplation of removing them from a game, they do not seek consultation with the pitcher. Instead, they go to the catcher. The catcher who knows her pitchers can more accurately tell you where a pitcher is right now. That's because she knows exactly how on she is. She knows if the pitcher is missing her spots by a hair, a half an inch, a full inch, or six inches. That is not readily apparent in the dugout.
The catcher also knows if the pitcher's curve, drop or whatever is moving like it usually does, a little more or less, or is way off its usual jump. She can see if the movement pitches are breaking right where you would want them to in your wildest dreams or if perhaps they are breaking a bit too early or late. She knows if everything is a little too fast or slow today. She subtly perceives when the pitcher is tipping her pitches. She can judge whether the batters seem to be completely off her, right on her, or possibly right on the verge of getting on her. Nobody else is situated so as to have an opinion on these elements of pitching.
Many times a pitcher will convince themselves that this or that pitch is working really well. Coaches do similarly. The catcher often holds a contrary opinion because her view is so different from everyone else's. Very often, her view is the only good one. It would be foolish not to take advantage of that.
In addition to being able to see and otherwise sense hitters and pitchers, catchers are able to view much more of the game than most, if not all, of us can. I remember when my playing days were over and I became a spectator. I always got anxious watching games. I moved around constantly because I never felt like I could see what was going on.
The feelings I felt moving from behind the plate to the sidelines remind me of a person I once knew. She told me that she had moved from the midwest to the northeast as a teenager and suffered anxiety attacks all summer long. They got so bad that she had to seek psychiatric help. The final analysis determined that she was suffering what I'll call "false tornado syndrome." She had lived with the ever present danger of her area being hit by tornadoes and as a result had developed a sixth sense which told her that when certain atmospheric conditions were present, she ought to seek shelter. Those atmospheric conditions were almost always present all summer long in the northeast but there were no tornadoes and often not even electrical storms. Her anxiety came from the expectation of tornadoes forming, not from any real danger. Once she realized this and dealt with the reality that tornadoes do not often form in the northeast, she was able to find peace during the summer months. I was not so lucky.
To this day, it bothers me when I watch a game from the sidelines. My nerves fire off constantly. My head darts back and forth between catcher, pitcher, and fielders in a desperate attempt to try to simultaneously perceive the whole thing. I get upset, stand up and move around. Once, by mere accident, I happened to be somewhere from which I could go behind the cage to watch. I instantly felt better watching the game from back there. But many times, umpires will not allow a fan to watch from behind the backstop because they feel it distracts the pitcher. And many facilities have screens behind the plate so the pitcher has a clean background. It is very difficult to watch a game from behind a screen.
When I call pitches, I like to be as close as possible to the backstop. Some facilities and umpires will let you sit on your bucket right next to the backstop. Many facilities are not set up that way and even when they are, many times the plate ump will chase you. I get extremely agitated when I am forced to call pitches from 30 or more feet away from the batter. I get extremely agitated when I have to coach a game from anywhere besides right behind the plate. I've never learned to deal with this and I don't see that changing.
I've gone astray into my personal psychological softball problem. I want to refocus the discussion on catchers as not only pitch callers but also as uniquely positioned to captain the team. It is no accident that many coaches were once catchers. Regarding MLB managers, somebody fairly recently wrote, "of the 30 current Major League managers, 12 have squatted behind a plate and called a game at some point in their playing careers, and that number would have been 13 ...." There are not a huge number of pitchers, shortstops, centerfielders, etc. who manage big league baseball teams. The only position which might be said to have a monopoly on the coaching ranks is catcher. This is not an accident. Major League Baseball does not have accidents when it comes to the selection of their managers. Catchers are so prevalent in coaching ranks because they lived a playing career with a unique perspective on the game.
In my personal experiences as a softball coach, there are those other coaches whose knowledge I respect and those whose I do not. Almost without exception, the ones who I come to respect were once catchers. It isn't that I have some sort of prejudicial like of catchers. Rather, once I come to like a coach, I usually ask them which position they played in their younger years. 75% of them were catchers. And that figure remains constant whether the coach is male or female. I'll go you one further, of the parents with whom I have had interaction, the ones I like (vs. the ones I have had trouble with) are more often than not people who caught!
But enough about my reasons for wanting a catcher to call pitches and help out with other game responsibilities. Let's talk about developing catchers in these roles. You can't take some kid who calls herself a catcher, hand over some huge responsibilities, and expect a positive outcome. Particularly at young ages, you need to identify and cultivate catching skills.
The first element of catching potential is, I believe, gamesmanship. The potentially great catcher needs to be a competitor, by which I don't mean she loves to win games though probably she does. She is possibly not your best hitter nor possesses the greatest arm. More likely she cares more about beating the opponent than she does about winning the game. Stay with me on this because it is not quite as contrary as it seems.
The catcher is the person who, after suffering a three inning run rule loss, says "yes, we lost but we got that number 17 to look really stupid twice at the plate." She relishes beating others more than she takes satisfaction in winning games. When her team wins, she isn't really happy unless somebody who she doesn't care for, for whatever reason, wasn't made to look foolish.
She may not like the kid because she wears her hair a certain way or not, because she appears to be prettier than everyone else or uglier, because she carries herself with an air of superiority or inferiority, because she is friendly or unfriendly, or for myriad other reasons. She made a rash judgment that she doesn't like that girl or the entire team and she wants to beat them, not so much in terms of the final score but in terms of the balance sheet she keeps in her head - how many times did we show this girl or that team up.
In short, catchers are kind of edgy. They may be socially competitive though not in the sense that they rank amongst the most popular. They despise anyone who dares to belittle them in any real or perceived way. They seek to embarrass the princesses among us. They like to make others look foolish. They also have pretty good memories, especially for any real or perceived slight. When they want to beat a team or strike out a batter, their desire comes from their souls, not from their intellect. They are competitive, relentless, and edgy in ways most cannot relate to.
Catchers are also rather intensely observant, particularly of the type of subtleties we discussed earlier. They notice things others do not. If you have one of your socks on inside-out, they are usually the first one to make fun of you. If your undies are sticking out from your shorts, expect a catcher to notice before anyone else. They are also rather observant when it comes to facial ticks. They are tightly wound and pick up on things others do not even notice.
If you have ever had a conversation with a bona fide catcher, you probably know what I mean. They say something and then intensely watch your reaction. When you speak, they seem to be reading your mind, looking through your face. They often respond to things you were thinking rather than actually saying. You meant that or perhaps thought about saying it that way, but they actually perceived it in the way you were thinking rather than saying it. They sometimes complete your sentences or say "I know what you mean" before you complete a phrase. They are often slightly uncertain of themselves and freely ask for clarification when they aren't quite sure they have the right idea. You say something incoherent and they interupt you and say "did you mean this?" More often than not, they are right. They picked up what you were saying even though you did not say it well.
So there's your potential catcher and, now, what do you do with her? The focus here is really on pitch calling because that is such an important part of the game. I'll move on to other subjects briefly but I want to discuss developing the pitch caller most.
The way in which you develop a pitch caller is not to merely throw her to the wolves. You don't want her to simply make mistakes and then learn from them. The typical young catcher doesn't really have any clue about what to call on any given pitch. You need to school her on what to call, when and why. You might take on the responsibility of pitch calling early on in your interaction while letting her know that one day you are going to hand off all or most of it to her. Now you have her attention. She is intensely competitive and recognizes that one day the responsiblity will fall to her. She doesn't want to fail at it so now she is really paying attention.
Once you have your catcher's attention, between every inning, you want to converse with her about why you called this pitch or that. You need to go over situations with her as soon as possible after they occur. I didn't call the change-up because I knew that girl was going to steal or the batter was going to bunt. That girl seemed like she was afraid of the pitch so that's why I worked her inside. That girl steps in the bucket on every pitch - all we have to throw her is outside fastballs and she'll strike out every time. We had that girl looking inside on four straight pitches, that is why I went outside. Ask her how she feels about your reasons. Teach your catcher everything you think you know about pitch calling. She'll absorb it gradually and then add a few tricks of her own.
Shortly after you begin to feel that your catcher is beginning to understand how to call pitches, let her flex her muscles a little bit. Work out a sign for her to call the pitch. Use this in certain spots like when you are up by three runs, the hitter seems fairly weak, or some other circumstance in which she can do little real damage. You want her to gain the experience of making a quick decision and then experiencing a little success. This will be the opium-like taste that will further her desire to develop her skills.
Gradually as your relationship and her skills develop, you should give her more and more responsibility. Let her call certain batters. If she makes a mistake, let her know that this is just a part of her development and it is OK. Then explain why or how she made that mistake. This should be a two way conversation in which you must ask her why she called that pitch. As she comes to understand that you are specifically coaching her to make her a better pitch caller, she should allow any natural barriers to resist coaching come down. Understand that she is tightly wound and easily hurt. She doesn't want to fail. When she does, as we all must, she is likely to become a little gun-shy. So you have to tread softly at first.
As her abilities grow and you decide to allow her to call an entire inning, work out a way for you to re-insert your authority whenever you feel it is necessary. You need to be able to make a pitch call in certain circumstances like when there are runners on 2nd and 3rd or whatever. After you find yourself re-inserting your authority, tell her the reason you did that. Don't just leave it unsaid. She'll take it as a lack of confidence on your part. You don't need her to carry that baggage into the game.
Once you have given her the responsibility to call an entire inning, you need to more completely discuss pitch calls than you did before. She'll do most of the talking but you need to go over everything she called with her as soon as possible afterwards. Tell her that you want to learn from her too. That should raise the level of responsibility she feels and discourage her from making random pitch calls.
At some point, you are going to need to turn over pitch calling for an entire game. This may only happen once or twice or may never happen say at the 12U level. It should happen more frequently by the time she is 13, assuming you have worked with her for a year or two. By 14, it should be commonplace. You still want to be able to have some say in pitch calls but she should be calling the vast majority of pitches in the vast majority of games. She'll still need to look over at you on every pitch for signs having to do with pitch calls and other elements of the game but she should be calling at least 70% of pitches in 70% of games.
I say that you want the catcher looking over to a particular coach on every pitch for a couple reasons. Obviously, we're talking about pitch calling so that is the primary reason. The secondary reason is you want to be able to gently remind her of some things, to tell her about something you noticed which she may not have,or prevent her from making rash decisions.
As much as catchers despise batters and seek to make them look foolish, there is one other animal on the field which she despises more than the hitter, the baserunner, particularly one in a position to steal. Early on in their catching careers, catchers develop a visceral dislike of baserunners. They are challenged by them. The minute they don't make a clean catch, the baserunner takes off for the next base. Catchers hate that.
Early on, catchers making pitch calls can make the mistake of trying to call a pitch which is easier to catch or which puts them in a perfect position to throw out the baserunner, if she goes. We want to avoid that unless you concur with the opinion. For catchers, stealing is personal, not business. They want to throw out the runner in order to make her look foolish, not merely to get her off the base. If the catcher could have her way, after she throws out a runner, she would have her put back on the base so she could try again. If catchers could have their way, all outs would be recorded on pick-offs or on throw downs to 2B. But if she is not careful, that stealing runner will get to advance more than one base as the batter drives the bad pitch into the gap.
I have had personal experiences with catchers calling pitches to suit their deep-seeded need to throw out baserunners. In one instance, we had a pitcher who had a killer change-up which moved like a knuckle ball. The catcher got into the very bad habit of not calling that change-up with runners on base because she feared missing it. In one instance, the game situation dictated not worrying at all about the runner and merely focusing on getting the hitter out through whatever means possible. This catcher did not call the change because she wanted to throw the runner out. The coach needed a way to tell her to work the batter not the runner.
In terms of pick-offs, I have seen catchers who throw far too often to bases in order to try to nail runners. In perhaps one out of ten attempts, maybe far less frequently than that, catchers will actually catch someone napping. But after that first or second failed attempt, most likely the runner is not susceptible to being picked off. Still, the catcher wants to make her look foolish by picking her off so she continues to throw down. Sometimes the ball will get away and sometimes the runner will advance a base, perhaps score a run when she might have died right where she was if the catcher hadn't kept gambling on nailing her. For this reason, coaches should call all pick-off plays. And the catcher needs to look to you on every pitch for that sign.
In regards to other aspects of the game, coaches call any number of plays for certain situations. By some appropriate age, any such signs should be filtered through your catcher. If you want to call "blue thunder" to work a specific play on first and third situations, fine. Tell your catcher blue thunder or give her the sign for it and let her call it out to the team in the field. If you want to play the infield in, tell her and let her tell the team. Also, many times catchers will remember exactly where a girl hit the last basehit even better than the guy or gal keeping the book. She may feel that your shortstop is shading too much towards third. Encourage her to move players around, if she feels it is necessary, but without overdoing it becoming too mossy about it. Chances are pretty good she'll have your playersplaying in better positions than you would. Make her into a leader since she is already one and since most plays involve her anyway.
So, catchers have a unique perspective on the batter, the pitcher, and the game. They fit into a particularly category of tightly, wound, hyper-competitive, ultra-perceptive people. They are street smart, perhaps posessing a little ESP, if you believe in such things. They have a better view than you for pitch calling. They need to be coached and given the opportunity to develop this skill. They need to sometimes be reigned in via signs and they should be developed into team leaders by the coaching staff. They also need to understand that they are going to make mistakes and that is perhaps the most important part of the learning process. You, as coach, have a greater responsibility than merely making pitch calls. You need to develop your catcher into a great pitch caller and leader. You need to give up some of your responsibility while taking on a greater one. If you succeed, your team and pitchers will benefit greatly.
And when your catcher makes what some "Monday-morning-catcher" would call a key mistake in the biggest game the world has ever seen, chalk it up to the game's development. Everybody loses sometimes. Champions overcome losing.Labels: catching
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