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A "Zen" of Fastpitch Softball
by Dave
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
There is an old poem named "If" by an old poet named Rudyard Kipling. I say "old" because, while the late 1800s and early 1900s are not particularly long ago, especially within the world of literature, most folks walking around today react to the name Ruyard Kipling with "Rudyard? That's a weird name!" Most people walking around today are not familiar with the poem "If." That's really quite a shame. Also, I say old because, given that this is a blog dealing with a subject for teenagers and their parents, Rudyard Kipling is not a common name thrown around in everyday parlance among the nation's youth. Most Americans know Kipling however, whether they are aware of it or not. He is the author of the work on which the Disney animated classic "Jungle Book" is based. In any event, I am assigning all softballers, their coaches and their parents the homework of taking 5 minutes out of their busy schedules to read, "If." You can access it here:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html
My grandmother gave me a book of poetry when I was very young. It included some of the greats and lots of words I had never seen before. I wasn't all that interested in it, or poetry, at the time. Still, "If" made a huge impression on me. I instantly knew what its meaning was and understood its value. I believe it holds a very useful piece of wisdom for everyone. I also happen to believe it holds a Zen of softball which all of us need to consider before our next game.
In the movie "Apocalypse Now," one character described another as one of those people with a weird light around them. He, Martin Sheen, went on to say that the character, played by Robert Duval, would not "get so much as a scratch" on his person in battle. Later, there was a scene in which Duval was seen standing tall while all about him were diving for cover and holding onto their helmets due to incoming rockets. Do you know anyone like this? I do. &nb sp; If I am ever in a life-threatening situation, I would like to have those people around me.
It is not clear to me whether certain people just happen to be cool under fire or whether this is an acquired trait. I know I possess some of this characteristic but I also flatly know that I have experienced panic in certain situations. I think that the quality of keeping one's head in difficult situations, on and off a ballfield, is something that each of us possesses and which can be developed yet even further via experience and through the power of learning to control one's emotions while preparing for anarchic events.
Many, many years ago, I was a teenage lifeguard at a peculiar place called Sundance Lodge, located on Route 46 in Fairfield, NJ. I need to explain a couple incidents which took place there because it plays into the theme I wish to discuss today.
The facility contained two pools, one of them much larger than the other. It had one side with a larger pool open to the public and hosted numerous company picnics at a smaller pool which also had large enough common areas for soccer games with thousands in attendance. It was not uncommon for there to be two or more thousand folks on the grounds for certain events. We had fifteen or more lifeguards on duty for these dates and that was barely enough. While my friends took cushy jobs at country club pools or improved their tans while pulling a few wayward swimmers from rip currents at the state's beaches, we used to keep track of the number of people with absolutely no swimming skills who we pulled each day from the deep end of the large pool.
The place served adult beverages. The crowd which frequented it was a bit rough at times. We had more than one armed off-duty police officer on duty as security guards at most times. Once, a homicide took place on the grounds during regular business hours.
The lifeguards were not there merely to pull drowners out of the deep end. We also served as bouncers. It was a common occurence to be asked to stay around after the pool was closed until the beer taps were shut down. More than once, we teenage lifeguards were called upon to, ahem, put some disgruntled patron back into his proper place and allow the person sent to shut the taps to be removed by emergency personnel and taken to the hospital. Usually the emergency personnel would return to take the patron to another hospital but sometimes they didn't. Suffice it to say that lifeguards were mstly chosen for physical and mental toughness. Our high school's offensive linemen were all employed there by the pool.
Once we hosted a professional fire department's company picnic. I was in charge but short staffed that day because this event happened during the week. The firemen decided they wanted to conduct a tug of war over the deep end. I wouldn't allow that because our insurance would never tolerate such idiocy. The firemen were big. I was 17. When 50 of them encircled me to discuss the issue at greater length and detail, one of them started jabbing me in the chest with his finger. He was so much in my face that I could smell the beer and whiskey on his breath. Somehow I managed to keep my cool and survive that incident. My boss basically saved me. He stood about 4 foot 10 and was one of those people who never really lost his cool. He came into the circle they had formed around me and informed anyone interested that they would indeed be conducting a tug of war over the deepend that day. In fact he insisted they do just that and stop this tomfoolery of beating up the head lifeguard!
The reason I was so adamant about not allowing the firemen to conduct their tug of war was because I didn't want to be put in the position of having to pull a bunch of drowning, drunken, newly paralyzed firemen from the pool. Years before we had an accident at the place in which one of the lifeguards was paralyzed while going in to rescue a swimmer. That lifeguard remains paralyzed today. He was and is a remarkable individual who won numerous paralympic gold medals and had his mug on the front of the Wheaties box for a time. But the event in which he was paralyzed had etched something on my brain which told me I had always better keep my whits about me while working here.
When my co-worker dove in to save a swimmer and cracked his head and neck on the bottom of the pool, his brother recued him. He pulled him gingerly down to the shallowest area and had all the other guards stand around. He then looked each of us in the eye and said, "We have to put Doug on the backboard. If you remember how to do this, stay here. If you don't, that's OK but get out of the pool now. When I turned to look at my co-workers, they all were leaving the pool. The only people left there with the task of putting Doug on the backboard were his brother and me. We did get Doug onto the backboard. He lived and accomplished great things. I was told that our work that day had saved his life. My reward was when the time came for Doug's brother to leave the job, they made me head life guard. Just wonderful! That's how I had found myself in the middle of 50 angry, drunken firemen. No good deed ever goes unpunished.
I learned that day that many people can have panic attacks and become incapable of doing things for which they are trained. Subsequently, when I was head lifeguard, I learned that this event was not necessarily unusual. Once, I drove between pool areas to check on my guards. I arrived at the very crowded, larger, open-to-the-public pool to find a crowd milling about the deck. I hustled to see what was going on. The scene I came upon consisted of my guards standing in a circle of about 75 people crowded around a 3 year old (I don't remember if it was a boy or girl) who was laying on the deck lifeless. The child's skin had all turned grey. Next to the child was one of my lifeguards on his knees, in the midst of an asthma attack, aspirating his lunch. I pushed my way into the crowd, and began mouth-to-mouth on the toddler. A few moments later the victim began to breath on its own after similarly aspirating its lunch repeatedly into my mouth. My lifeguard had failed me in a panic atatck which induced his asthma attack and other eventualities. The other guards had similarly failed me and the little kid since none of them stepped up to the plate. But I suppose that's life and, unfortunately, death.
Just to give you a feel of the place at which I worked, this was not a particularly odd event. Once the shild was conscious and crying, the mother jumped in, grabbed it by the hand and began yelling at it for sneaking away from her. She may have beaten the child - I don't remember. The crowd, now probably more than 100, quickly disbursed and went to the snack bar to purchase beer. My lifeguards went back to their posts. The mother never so much as said thanks to any of us. Nobody ever talked about that incident again. It wasn't important.
To me, this is a microcosm of life. We send these well trained boys and girls over to Iraq and Afghanistan to essentially perform an impossible task. They do it and we never hear anything much more unelss one of them tells us a story or two upon their return or the media (perhaps a Senator named Kerry) criticizes them. Literally thousands of police and fire personnel do impossible work every day and we only hear about those things when one or two of them draw their weapons on a wanted pedophile with a loaded assault shotgun, hiding in a closet, and kill him, after he kills four of their comrades. Then we hear things like charges of racism and police brutality. But I suppose such is life. I thank goodness for the police, the firemen, my boss, and Doug's brother. Were it not for such folks who have that weird light around them, were it not for people who could keep their heads when all about were losing theirs ..., we all would be in a worse place, perhaps living under Nazism or in the afterworld itself.
There is a lot in the poem "If" but one of the main pieces I take from it stems from the phrase "If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs ..." Does this not describe exactly what happens on a softball field when, for example, your opponent is running the bases very aggressively?
Once, when I was an inexperienced travel ball coach with two or three inexperienced assistant coaches, we played a game using an inexperienced catcher and several players who had never before played travel ball. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, an experienced baserunner reached second against us. She got off the bag on a pitch, proceeded to take a large lead and then danced as if she were going to delayed steal on us, which is exactly what she had planned to do. I said outloud to our catcher, "run after her." Then another coach said something else in a slightly louder voice. A third coach said something I didn't make out, yet even louder. I repeated my words still even louder and then began to say it again and again, "RUN AT HER" whereupon each of the coaches began saying whatever they were saying louder and louder until all of us were yelling at the poor inexperienced catcher in a din which served only to confuse her more than she already was. She just stood there frozen until finally the runner broke from second, reached third and our catcher threw the ball into left field. The game began 1-0 with our team in tatters and got worse from there.
The same sort of scenario played out later in the day when an experienced runner reached third and then accomplished a delayed steal of home. On another occassion, the same thing happened when our catcher listened to us, ran halfway up the line towards third and then threw the ball back into the circle. As she turned to throw the ball to the pitcher, the runner got ready to run and as soon as the ball came out of her hand, she went. She was past the catcher, I think, before the ball ever reached the pitcher. She scored easily.
The way to handle these situations really depends on the ability levels of the girls involved. I have seen similar plays attempted and dealt with successfully and unsuccessfully in different ways at all levels including 12U, 14U and 18U travel ball, high school, but not actually in college games. One way to deal with this is passively, another more aggresively. Coaches need to determine the abilities of their personnel but there is no reason to either just let them develop on their own or to lose one's head in the middle of a game. In fact, the tactics are employed by our opposition specifically for the purpose of making our team lose its head. The single base or run is far less important than causing a team to fall off its hinges. No team is ever quite as emotionally down than they are after another team has just kicked it to the dirt and there are still many more innings to go.
The most passive way to deal with the dancing runner / would-be delayed stealer is to decrease her impact on the game and cut down her chances of making it successfully. The first order of business is the team and everyone on it including coaches should remain calm. When your opponent or one member of that team is trying to make you panic, the best way to snuff the attempt is to remain calm, to keep one's head about her or him. There's no reason to holler. There's no reason to even get a little excited. Nothing much is happening. We now just want to get the ball back to the pitcher, the runner back to her base, and the next play ready to go.
In the case of a runner at second, the catcher is well advised to casually come out from behind the plate. She's got all that equipment on. She's working hard back there. There's no reason for her to get excited and worn down. She shouldn't run. She can merely take this opportunity to stretch her legs a bit while doing no sunstantive physical exertion. She needs to have the ball in her throwing hand in case the runner breaks. Then she needs to find a way to get the ball back to the pitcher without allowing the runner to advance.
In older levels usually this isn't that much of an issue since the catcher can make the throw to pitcher in a half second and the pitcher can throw to third in another half second. The runner should be out by a full second. But if you have weaker 12s or 14s, the odds of successfully getting the job done go down. In those cases, what should happen is the catcher move casually towards the pitcher and then return the ball to her when she is a few feet away. She can even hand the ball to the pitcher and then return to the plate. The runner is obligated to go in one direction or the other as soon as the pitcher has the ball within the circle, assuming the pitcher is not making a play or feigning to make a play. If she runs, the pitcher, who should be looking right at her, throw the ball easily over to third where the third baseman should be stationed ready to make a play. That is unless there was a bunt attempt or some such and tyour third baseman is in near home, in which case the SS will be ready to take the throw. But this should not be a big deal. The keys are to remain very calm and just do what you talked about and practiced.
When there is a runner on third, again coaches and players should all remain calm and perform an act which has been pre-planned and practiced. The catcher cannot and should not leave the plate area. The pitcher should casually stroll in from the circle, claim the ball from the catcher, and then stroll back inside the circle while keeping eyes on three. That should be the end of it. If you want to work a play on the runner to try to get her out, there are a couple ways you can do it, but these again depend on the ability levels of your team.
For one thing, the catcher can make a throw down to thuird. But these throws can be a little hairy. At third, more than any other base, a throw to get a returning runner is risky. And that's true at all age levels. The reason throws to third are risky is because the baserunner is in the throwing lane. She can block the actual throw or obstruct the view of the base player so that the throw goes into left. If you want to try a throw from catcher, it is absolutely critical you have your leftfielder and / or shortstop in good position to back up the throw. Even then, you risk having the throw strike the runner, bounce away, and perhaps end up out of play beyond the infield area fence. I would not try to work a play from home to third unless the situation dictated.
Another play you can work which has somewhat less risks associated with it because it involves a shorter throw and because it may catch the runner off guard is for the pitcher to receive the ball back quickly and then proceed to throw to the bag. If you try this, there are a couple considerations. First of all, what I would want to have happen is for the SS to sneak in behind the runner rather than the third baseman moving back to cover. Most base runners are schooled to, at the very least, follow the third baseman back to the bag while staying just ahead of her. The only way you're going to be able to pull off a surprise is to bring in SS behind her. Even then, likely the base coach will pick up on this. Secondly, you want to have the LF well into foul ground to back up the play. She can't be half committed. &nbvsp; She has to be there. For that reason, this kind of a play must be pre-called via some sort of signal, probably from the coach since catchers can get overly aggressive about trying to nail runners, especially ones who have recently stolen against them.
As a final word on considerations in combatting an aggressive offense, the best approach I have ever seen involves a skilled catcher. By skilled I mean one with quick hands, a reliable arm and the disiplined approach of always throwing the ball immediately back to the pitcher. I have told you in the past that catchers should be taught to throw easily and without effort when they are working on the sidelines or practice area with pitchers, when they are in games with no runners on base. That is to preserve their arms because they are going to need them in real situations.
When there are runners on base, catchers need to fire the ball back to the pitcher with 100% accuracy every time. the absolute best defense against delayed stealing is a catcher who returns the ball in one half second after she receives it. That means no baserunner can delayed steal on your team unless she can cover the distance between bases in under a second - a human impossibility.
The quickest catcher I have seen this year is a lefty who plays for Long Beach State. If you get a chance to watch her, see if you think she is quick. I saw her scoop a ball in the dirt on a third strike and throw the right handed runner out before she got past the left handed batter's box. She couldn't tag her - the preferred way to deal with dropped thirds - because she was on her knees to block the pitch. But she threw that ball from her knees and it popped the first baseman's glove before the runner got past the other box. Now that's quick. You probably don't have a catcher that fast. But almost any catcher at any age level can be trained to fire the ball back to the pitcher within a half second of cleanly catching it.
The key to any of these plays used to stop the offense from creating mayhem involves first keeping one's head. No shouting need ever enter the equation. Second, whatever you do to combat an aggressive offense, pre-planned, practiced plays should be executed. The reason there is no reason for a coach to ever yell anything in these situations is because the players know exactly what to do. They have played before. They have seen these situations before. They have discussed exactly what to do and everybody on your squad is on the same page. This is as simple as anything else you do, including setting up a batting tee.
I bring up the delayed stealing suituation for the same reason I told you my personal battle stories from a bygone era. That is to demonstrate a circumstance on the softball diamond or life in which panic does not serve anyone well. If you can keep your head about you ... then you'll be a softball player, my girl. The Zen of softball is a certain inner calmness which comes from planning and practicing reactions to certain anarchic situations like aggressive baserunning. The last thing anyone wants a team to do is panic. It is very effective to remain calm at all times. I used baserunning defense but the same concept applies to everything else in this game.Labels: catching, mental toughness, practice
 
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