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But My Daughter Likes Shortstop!
by Dave
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Jill from Nebraska wrote in to say:
"I have a bit of a predicament. It is quickly becoming a BIG problem for my family. We live in a fairly rural area and there are not many competitive travel teams nearby. My daughter's current team is pretty good. The coaches are the best. They know their stuff.
When the team practices, the coaches have the players join in drills without regard to where they probably will play in games. Infielders do outfielder drills. Outfielders do infielder drills. &n bsp; We love this team and are grateful that our daughter gets trained in so many different positions but this creates a problem.
My daughter is a strong hitter and has a good arm. She regularly plays left and bats sixth. But on her school team, she plays short. The talent on the school team is nothing like it is on the travel team. My daughter really enjoys playing short. &nbswp; She'd like to at least get a chance to play short for the travel team but the girl at that position is amazing. My daughter will never play shortstop for this team and it makes her sad sometimes. Sometimes she thinks about leaving this team and moving to another where she might get more of a chance to play short. Any team we go to will not be as good as this one. Any team we go to will not have the same level of coaching. Still, we are tempted to leave so she can play short. Did I mention that she will play short when she goes to high school
What should we do? Stay with the current club team or make the switch now so our daughter can play some short?"
OK, Jill, I understand what you are asking of me and I feel your daughter's intermitent pain. Most of us, who have ever played the game or had kids involved, have been down this road before. There is a really simple answer to the question. That is, stay right where you are, if you want to. Or, if you feel you must, leave!
It's really that simple and yet, somehow, totally complicated. Let's see if I can shed any light at all into how I think you should view this situation.
Let's picture this for a moment from another angle. I once coached a team on which there was a girl who was a very good athlete. She was quick, fast and agile. She had a good, strong, accurate arm with a quick release. her fielding mechanics were pretty solid before she joined us. We were lacking one critical element to having a competitive team, a good shortstop.
So we picked this particular girl to be our shortstop. But there was one problem. When we asked if she would like to play short, she replied, "but I'm a third baseman."
This girl had gone out for her school team and made it. She was a regular starter despite being younger than many of the other starting players. She had initially gone out for shortstop but there was another girl who owned the position. She was pretty good although not as good as our girl. But the coach for the school team saw things differently and there was almost no chance this girl was ever going to play short for the school team. She had resigned herself to playing somewhere else, had found third, and wanted to work there no matter what sort of ball she was playing. She saw herself as a third baseman, period.
But my team really, really needed to identify someone for short. Once we had the right girl, we would work her as much as we could to teach her the position. We were sure we'd be able to create a shortstop provided we had someone with the general athletic requirements and, and, and ... the right attitude. A girl who didn't want to play the position from the bottom of her being was not going to be the best choice.
Before I move on and get to the point I'm going to try to make, let me tell you that we decided to approach the father and more or less manipulate him into changing her mind. We succeeded and the girl became a pretty good shortstop for us. Should I tell you that the school team shortstop is struggling and our girkl has a decent chance of beating her out of the position for years to come?
The point I would like to drive home here and I'm struggling to figure out how to say it is, there are 9 positions on the field, plus one for the DP, if your team uses that. Any one of these spots in the lineup really has to be good enough under most circustances. If you cannot get used to this general concept, I'm afraid that this sport may not be a good match for you. Maybe that's not stated properly. The right thing to say, the most direct, succinct thing to say is, if you cannot at least get used to this concept and not allow it to interrupt your life, perhaps life is not for you.
I have a sister who is always looking outwardly at what other people own, do for a living, or drive around town. For some unknown reason, she thinks that everyone on the planet is happier than she. She often believes she knows what makes these people happy. She looks outward at others and says in her head, if I only had an SUV, then I would be happy. She sees someone with two kids (she has one) and thinks, if I had two kids, I would be happy. She sees someone with 2,500 square feet of home underneath them (she has 1,500) and reasons, if I had a bigger house, I would be happy. I could go on and on but I'll spare you. Isn't there a phrase which covers this circumstance? The grass is always greener ...
I once read a book written by a famous inmate at a concentration camp. He spoke of how difficult it was to merely survive each day of the ordeal. Many managed to keep going only by focusing on some goal like making it until their birthday two months away, getting through until New Year, or finding some point in time at which they hoped things would change. These people did generally survive to the specific date, but not much beyond that.
There is no way most of us can possibly understand the extreme hardship of living under the circumstances this author managed to survive. I do not pretend to have the slightest inkling of what those who survived it went through. Right after I read this book, I made the mistake of asking a Holocaust survivor to tell me what profound philosophical lessons he had learned in the concentration camps. He looked at me with utter disgust and said, "no, I didn't learn anything profound there. I was not that clever." For a brief speck of time, as my eyes met his, I had the slightest understanding of what the man had been through. But that does not diminish the profound philosophical lessons the Holocaust surviving author expressed in his work. That was, we each decide for ourselves, internally, whether we are going to be happy or sad about our circumstances. If we look for external indications by which to gauge our plight, we are in for problems. We may find short-term relief. But over the longer term, it's not gonna work out for us.
The Holocaust victims survived until their birthdays and then died. My sister was happy for a week after she incurred way too much debt to buy an SUV. The school ball shortstop / travel ball outfielder is going to be very pleased with her new travel ball shortstop position on the new travel team until her team faces the old one and gets pummeled into the ground.
I said there are 9 positions and I meant it. To me, any play is good play. That's why they call it play!
I loved playing baseball. Early on, things went smoothly. I was pretty good and always played "my" positions. In early rec ball, you really don;t have to compete for spots. On the all-star team, sometimes you have to make way for a truly gifted kid. But most of the time, you get what you want. Even on early travel teams, you usually get your desire or close to it. But as we age, things change.
My friend refers to the process of aging through given sports as "the funnel." It's an easy analogy. In the beginning, the opening is wide and there is a lot going into the funnel. But as we approach the business end the tube gets smaller and smaller. Not everyone can fit through at the same time. One has to adapt.
I've told you many times about my personal baseball predicament in which I was whjat I thought was a pretty darn good catcher but the guy on my travel team ended up being a major league catcher. I could have fixated on getting my chance. I could have quit. I could have sat the bench. Thewre was zero chance I was going to catch, none, nada, zilch. But I liked to play. So I not only learned LF, I embraced it. In the process I learned that not getting all that sweaty and having sores on my legs ansd my pants sticking to those sores was good for hitting! Very few balls were hit to left. All I had to do was run out there, not flub anything too badly when balls came my way, run back in, and hit, hit, hit!!!
There is a girl who is a pretty good pitcher. She plays on a school team which has a better one. Actually they have several better pitchers, both older and younger than she. She may get to pitch. She pitches in travel. She's also got a good stick and is a decent fielder. She could just get upset about her pitching opportunities. But if she does that, she's probably not going to hit very well. She should keep quiet, do her work, enjoy the game and take advanatage of any oppportunities which come her way. That's the way the game works.
Life (as well as softball) isn't about getting your way. It is the process more than the result. In the end, we all more or less lose. We all die. We all are eliminated. If that depresses you, it is because you are focused on the result rather than enjoying the process.
One of my favorite TV shows of all time is "The Twilight Zone." One of my favorite episodes of the show involves a crooked gambler who dies and goes to a place. In this place, he is surprised to find much gambling and cavorting. He wins every time he gambles. Everything goes his way. When he questions his host, the man who seems to take care of things, he tells him something along the lines of "you see, there has to be a risk of losing, at least some of the time, that's what makes it fun." The gambler wonders something like "gambling is no fun here because I always win, what kind of place is heaven if you never have a chance of losing, if you can't get the excitement from the gaming?" the caretaker turns to him and says, "Heaven? What ever made you think you were in heaven?"
Finally, this reminds me of the people who are always looking to find the absolute best team they can. By best, I mean the team that actually wins most of its games. These folks travel far and wide to locate a team which might not merely go to the championship tournament but which has a reasonable chance to actually compete for the title. They'd like to get that team to the final four and then tell all their friends about what a great team their kid is on. I suppose there is a time and place to find the absolute best team you can find. But if your child is sitting the bench for the greatest team to ever grace the face of the earth, keep in mind that she is not playing softball, she is watching it.
So there is a fine line out there someplace which tells you that under certain circumstances, you ought to leave and go find a new team. Under certain circumstances, you should stay. I cannot judge that for you. You have to make the call and when you do, please be happy wherever you are. Softball is a great game. It is a great game if you are the star shortstop on a mediocre team. It is a great game if you ride the bench on a great team. It is a great game if you are playing your second favorite position for a pretty darn good team. Ultimately, you have to make the decision about whether you are happy or not. Nothing external is going to do it for you.Labels: attitude, high school, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: But My Daughter Likes Shortstop!
 
Baserunner's Body Position
by Dave
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Heidi wrote in with a question that is not so much a good fastpitch softball question as it is more of one of those which baseball people are always asking us which we sometimes have trouble answering to their satisfaction.
Here is the question:
"I have heard so many answers to this question and have been unable to pinpoint an exact answer. Please help. In softball we position our runners with one foot on the bag, the other behind or off to the side of the bag, and when stealing push off with the foot that is on the bag when the pitcher has the ball at 'the top of the clock.' So many little league (baseball) families will ask why that is, why do the girls not lead off like baseball players to be closer to the next base? I would appreciate your guidance and response!"
Heidi's question has a couple possible meanings.
First off, why is there no leading in softball? That is pretty easy. It takes too long for the delivery.
Baseball pitchers have something called the stretch in which they bring their hands together for one second and then once they take them apart, they must immediately deliver to the plate or attempt a pickoff. It takes just moments between the hand separation and a delivery.
In fastpitch, though it is not required, pitchers almost always complete a full circle (plus a little) before releasing the ball. There is no "stretch" possible within this delivery. I have thought a lot about how a stretch might be accomplished in softball. I suppose it is possible though rather unwieldy.
Besides this observation, do I need to say that it is not our intention or desire to make softball identical to baseball? The two are different games though decidedly similar in many ways. I think there is some notion on the part of baseball people that we do things in fastpitch to make it different or easier "for girls." That is not at all the case. I can prove that with one simple phrase. Fastpitch softball is not a "girl's game" - it is played at a high level by both genders.
Secondly, in our game, the bases are just 60 feet apart, whereas in baseball they are 90. Pop times - from pop in catcher's mitt to pop in base coverer's glove - are about the same in each sport. But it takes under 3 seconds for a good fastpitch baserunner to reach second and would take a baseball stealer a bit more than that. If girls could lead, we would have to move the bases and I think that is inadvisable since one of the strengths of this sport is its speed.
Lastly and most likely to the heart of your probable question or perhaps the questioners' questions, since there is no leaving the base before the pitcher releases the ball, the trick in our sport is to have all your momentum going before you leave the bag. So we "coil," put our feet behind the bag, and begin the running motion - get our momentum going - at the top of the circle so that immediately after the ball is released we not only are just breaking contact with the bag but also are in full-motion-mode.
By contrast a baseball baserunner gets off the bag before the pitcher even brings their hands together. The play is very much live at every moment once time is in and/or the pitcher makes contact with the rubber. The baserunner can go at any moment (there is no look back rule) and the pitcher can attempt a pickoff at any moment. The baserunner needs to be able to go in either direction - to his right if he is stealing or to his left if he needs to get back to the bag. So they take up a ready position which is suited to moving in either direction.
Their positioning is not superior to the traditional fastpitch position for running in a one-direction straight line. It is superior for being ready to go in either direction - which by the way is why once we get off the base in fastpitch, we take up about the same body/foot position. If their position were superior, sprinters in track and field would mimick it. They don't. In truth, the fastpitch baserunner attemps to mimick the positioning of a sprinter within the environment in which we do not have starting blocks!Labels: baserunning
Permanent Link: Baserunner's Body Position
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