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Were You As Good As Your Kid?
by Dave
Thursday, April 23, 2009
I have a question I would like to ask you. It is a rhetorical question because, in a certain sense, I expect no answer. On the other hand, I expect no answer because there isn't really one - you cannot really answer it. That makes it more of a philosophical question than a rhetorical one. The question is, were you as good as your kid is.
This question struck me after reading some of Marc Dagenais' blog on softballperformance.com. The piece I was reading had to do with types of parents. I don't believe there are really types of parents though I do think certain patterns arise with which one might classify sports parents. That blog piece was targeted to coaches and their dealings with parents. My blog piece today is aimed at making you, parents, a little bit more introspective about how you deal with your sports children.
So the question is, were you as good as your kid, way back when you competed in youth sports. And the reason you cannot answer it is because you really cannot compare your experience with theirs. The youth sports world has really changed that much.
Think hard about it for a moment. Most of us played some sport in a local rec league. Looking back, it may appear to us that we were more of an impact player in those days than our kid is today. But the truth is, when your world consisted of fifty or a hundred kids all playing in the youth baseball or softball program, you in no way competed the way your kid does in today's travel setting.
In today's setting, on any given Sunday, any 12 of maybe 600 kids might line up across the field from your daughter. Those kids probably come from each of two or three states. Your rec league might have had kids from three towns in it. And, for the record, I choose the number 600 more or less randomly as representing 50 travel teams filled with somewhat elite players. Your rec league, even if it was ever that large, did not consist of kids who were chosen after tryouts. You go to a tournament today and find maybe 12 or 16 of the best 50 teams from three states playing for a championship. Your experience was not like that. In your experience, everyone who signed up for the league played. They weren't excluded after a stressful tryout. So, while you may have been one of five or ten all-stars in your little pond, your kid is swimming around in a larger, more competitive ocean.
Secondly, when you played, you went to practice maybe once per week until, perhaps later when high school or local competitive quasi-travel teams were pulled together. Right now, your kid practices twice or more each week and her schedule includes spring, summer and fall ball, winter workouts, and perhaps lessons. You can argue that you would have been happy to have had all that - I know I would have been. But the fact remains that you, in your entire life, never had the kind of intensive training she has had and she's only 10-12 years old right now!
Third, if you are like most people, when you played, the season consisted of 15 or slightly more games. Your kid gets that much in just a couple weekends and she plays all year round. You were lucky to play one game on Tuesday and one on Saturday, assuming it didn't rain. She plays three on Saturday, a couple more on Sunday, a scrimmage on Monday, a school game on Tuesday, practice five days a week, and perhaps a travel scrimmage Friday night.
I was talking with the father of one girl who was 13 or 14 and he noted that between a little bit of rec ball - yes she still played some rec, a season of school ball, a full year of travel, and a partial year guesting with some travel teams, his daughter had played 140 games during one year. She had also attended countless practices and once a week lessons, not to mention some physical training sessions and the exercise routines she did on her own. By the time a girl reaches the ripe old age of 14, assuming she has played travel ball for 4-6 years, she has played more games than you have your entire life. She is loads more game experienced. She has more game savy. She is better conditioned and she probably has better skills than her parents did at the same age.
Now, I understand that you most likely played a broader variety of sports. That was the world we grew up in. Back in the day, it was pretty common for one kid to compete in two or three sports during high school and probably more than that during the pre-high school days. Today, that is far less common because to even make some high school teams requires absolute dedication to a single sport for years before trying out.
Not all high schools are created equal and some girls do still play multiple sports, starting for the varsity in more than one of them even as a mere freshman. But in any reasonably large high school, in any reasonably fanatical-about-softball area, if you want to do more than carry water for the starting squad, you need to play travel ball, year round, for several years prior to your freshman season.
Our local high school has a pretty good varsity team. I haven't tried to exactly count but I believe there are 4 or 5 Gold level players on it. Several girls have had their names appear on SpySoftball at one time or another. the starting pitcher is going Division One next year after graduation. The other girls have played a mix of travel ball and were good players in statewide competitions during their pre-teen years. There are girls on the team who have pitched at Gold level and will never pitch for the team because they have somebody better. There are players on the bench who have played travel ball since they were 11 or 12. This may not be the norm but many teams out there have similar situations. If a girl really wants to play high school ball, during actual games, she had better prepare from a relatively young age or it ain't going to fall into place.
So think about the question for a few minutes. Were you, at about the same age, as good as your daughter is? Were your mechanics as good? Did you work as hard? Did you run sprints and work on agility drills just to compete in baseball or softball? At the age of 12? Did you receive instruction and coaching on a par with what she has? Were you nearly as game experienced as she is? Did you walk around in a youth sports world that was anywhere near as competitive as the one she has been in for years?
If you are truthful with yourself, I believe the answer is going to be, no, I was not as good as my daughter. OK, so maybe there are folks out there who played baseball to the double-A level in the minor leagues. Yes, there are some former professional athletes among us. There are any number of kids, even on my own team whose parents competed at high levels in college. But the question involves an analysis of when you were her age and the degree to which you were trained, prepared and experienced. I dare say that even that guy who played professional football did not train seriously until he was perhaps 13 or 14 years old. I dare say that the minor league baseball pitcher or college softball shortstop who is reading this piece right now, while tremendously gifted, can honestly say that they were not nearly the athlete their daughter is when they were the same age. I take nothing away from all those outstanding athletes who are now parents. But I ask each of us, each of them, to make an honest assessment of how good, how dedicated, how well trained their daughters are.
OK, so I'm hoping that you have been truthful with yourself and admitted that your daughter is better than you were at the same age. I'm hoping that you have now a healthy regard for all that she has done to prepare to play this game. I'm hoping that you appreciate her not only as your daughter, a great student or whatever, but also as an athlete. OK, so now you're prepared for what I have to say next. What gives you, since she is better than you were, the right to criticize her play?
I understand that A) you are her parent and you will raise her, B) you only want is good for her, and C) she has played better in the past. But I heard what you said to her and I'm really wondering how somebody who wasn't nearly as good can criticize her play like that. That's different from raising her, having high expectations, or wanting what is best for her. Were you absent from the baseball /softball clinic the day they taught "shaking it off" and/or learning from your mistakes, not dwelling on them?
Let's be realistic. There's no way you ever faced this level of pitching when you were 12. Those girls all were above 50. If you're a man, you faced that kind of split-second decision making at the plate when you played varsity baseball and only then if you were facing a very good pitcher. If you are a women, there is only one way you faced that level of pitching at all and that is if you were an elite player in southern California or one of a very few other places. It didn't exist outside a limited geographical area when you played so it is highly unlikely you ever faced anything like it even in high school.
To go a step further, I do understand that you'd like her to get a hit. In that game, she got 3 at-bats and only hit the ball into play once. That was a fly out to right. Aside from that she walked once and struck out the other time. You know she can do better and perhaps you were rude to her about it but you want her to try harder the next time she gets up. But let's examine the game for a moment. There were a grand total of 5 hits during the entire 7 innings. We got three and the other team got two. Combine that with a couple walks and, out of 50 batters who came to the plate, just 8 reached base, with 5 of them hitting safely. You would like to see your daughter collect one of those hits. So would 15 other similarly situated parents of somewhat elite athletes who practiced all winter and went to hitting lessons 50 times last year!
I was standing along the sidelines at a very contentious high school game recently. There were a handful of baserunners in this extra-inning 0-0 game. the father of one player was stressed out. I was stressed out though I had no kid playing. I laughed at his stress level and he said something like I just want her to get a hit. Later, when she grounded out, he got upset. I chided him and he said something about her just getting a &^%$ hit. I said, OK, but there have only been two or three hits this whole game and we're in the 12th inning!
By the way, I don;t want to be self-righteous about this. had I been the father of a player and not a mere onlooker, I would have been just as stressed out as my friend was. her would have been laughing at me rather than the other way around.
We played several games the other day and the errors totalled up. The totalled maybe 5 for all teams in three games, not a bad day. But somebody had to make one or two. It is inevitable that the more games your daughters play, the more attemps they have, the more errors they are going to make. As I said before, your daughter has played far more games than you. She plays more games each year than you played in any five year period. She's going to flub a few plays. Even major league shortstops do. Just chalk this up to experience. If your kid's mechanics in the field or at the plate are off, by all means feel free to work on them. But before, during and after a game is not a good time to make those little tweaks you think might do the trick, loike when you tell your daughter, "for God's sake, get your butt down and stop turning your head."
Finally, there is nobody standing along the sidelines at your games thinking to themselves, "that Bob guy must have been a great athlete, his daughter is so good." Similarly, nobody is thinking, "that Mary must have been a real loser, her kid stinks." We all love our children. We all want them to succeed at everything, including softball. But they are good players. They are seasoned players. And wanting them to be better, wanting them to try harder, wanting them to do the things right, is not going to help at this moment.
And wanting them to be bette does not give you or them the right to criticize them. She deserves better than that. I believe she has earned more from you. After all, she is better than you were.Labels: parenting
Permanent Link: Were You As Good As Your Kid?
 
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
Permanent Link: A "Zen" of Fastpitch Softball
Game Changers
by Dave
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
There is a softball truism which says: "players win games, coaches lose them." I agree with the general philosophy of the phrase. Yet, if we don't analyze its meaning and come to an understanding, much is lost. And to take the idea one step further, I'm going to supplement it by adding, given today's youth sports climate, players win games, parents can only really participate in losses. Before I explain what I mean by my corollary, let me explain the original truism.
When we look at lop-sided losses, often the coaches have not adequately prepared their players for combat. Certainly sometimes the other team is just that much better and there is no way on Earth we could possibly ever beat them. That is the world of travel fastpitch softball. There are teams out there which have virtually limitless resources, draw the best possible athletes from several states, demand absolute commitment from roster members, practice 4 times a week through the winter, have so much talent (in terms of players as well as coaches) and work the kids so hard that the team just cannot be beaten by any team that is not similarly situated. But this circumstance is somewhat rare.
Most games are played between teams which have about the same quality of athletes, do about the same amount of practicing, and have about the same amount of resources. Even in games with relative team parity, there are lop-sided outcomes. In those, clearly the coaches have not done their work well enough, at least most of the time.
When we view closer (but not close) games in which the score ends at something like 6-2, 7-4, 4-0, there are often a few mistakes which determine the outcome. Sometimes it is easy to point to one, two, or a few plays which handed the other team a couple runs, took our girls out of it, or otherwise changed the face of a relatively close game, one which maybe we woulda coulda shoulda won.
Often teams with which we are involved are prone to that "one bad inning" syndrome or suffer something like: "we play well in the afternoon but morning games give us trouble." When the excuse sounds like that, mostly that is the coaches' fault, sometimes it is one or more parents whose actions lead to the outcome and habit, and almost never is it truly the players who are to blame. This is true regardless of whether it is the best player or worst who repeatedly makes the critical error.
To add some meat to this, I heard about a team which had some pretty good talent but which did not compete on a level commensurate with that talent. About half the team's parents liked to indulge themselves on Saturday nights during the season. They often got together after preliminary rounds and stayed up well into the night. They brought their kids to such gatherings. The result was a lot of kids crawling into bed well after midnight when they had to get up by 6:00 in order to arrive at the field on time for warm-ups. I don't begrudge anyone a good time on the weekends after a hard week of work. But, you cannot win out on Sundays when kids get 6 hours or less sleep the night before. The partying parents were very quick to blame other kids on the team when it should have been obvious that their actions had at least a contributory effect.
Most teams have a range of abilities on their squad. There is that one kid who pitches lights out, makes the plays in the field, especially at key moments, gets the majority of the big hits, earns the MVP medal most of the time, and seems as if she is destined to play D-1 despite the fact that she is just 10, 12, or 13 years old. Then there is the kid who is playing her first year of travel after just one or two rec seasons who just can't seem to make a play in any meaningful situation. She's a "charity" case. You're not really sure why the coach put her on the roster. Maybe he or she is life-long buddies with one of the kid's parents. Maybe there is something going on behind the scenes which you haven't learned yet.
When teams suffer multiple losses like this, usually the coaching staff can do a better job with both the players and parents to get out of that one bad inning habit or to come to games more focused and better prepared to give their opponent a better match. When we play games like this more than once, when we lose by multiple runs against teams which seem no better than us or possibly seem to be ones which we should beat, coaches need to step back and analyze the precise reasons the team fell into its usual trap. Then they need to take steps to mitigate the situation and improve the team. Sometimes they can make a difference, sometimes they cannot.
My wife is prone to claim you are only really as good as your weakest player. Usually it is not the all-star shortstop who boots one, strikes out with the bases loaded, or makes the baserunning blunder which takes you out of a potentially big inning. They do sometimes play the part of goat but often it is the lesser experienced, lesser gifted kid who makes the game changing mistake or error. Coaches can make a huge impact by giving these kids a little more in terms of technique, preparation, and practice reps. We don't want to get into the habit of coaching in a dumbed-down fashion, of working exclusively with the neediest team members, or of ignoring the kids who are most gifted under the mistaken assumption that they'll prepare on their own or are too good for practice. But we do need to make sure that our weakest players are competent in their craft.
Often, though certainly not always, the weakest members of a team are highly motivated. They don't enjoy the feeling that they are the least skilled. They want to get better. They'd like to attain the same skill level as the team's most talented girls. As a result, they take constructive criticism better and actually work harder than other players to improve their games. If you give them an extra five or ten percent, your overall team's results will improve. Almost anybody can become a serviceable player, particularly at lower age levels, if you correct technique and provide lots of reps.
To address the issue of parental behavior, sometimes coaches can make an impact on that enough to at least make them call it quits by midnight. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to change parental behavior and you must live with it. Given today's limited travel rosters - often just 11 kids - it is difficult to bench a player in order to provide her nap time. This can be a really scary situation for coaches. I absolutely despise when parents put me in the situation to place their daughter at third base knowing that she is not alert enough to protect herself when the number 3, 4, and 5 hitters come to the plate and pound the ball right at her at 90 mph. But I have been put in precisely that situation too many times to count.
The best approach is, as it is in most instances in life, communication. I think it is fair to pull aside parents who were out until the wee-morning hours and tell them that if their kid breaks her jaw or nose playing third base because they had a good time the night before, you will not take the blame. This sort of thing can wake up the parents. It can also backfire on you. But I'm not going to take the blame. I don't care about my words cutting me rather than them. If you can bench such a kid, do it once and then explain why you had to do that and that you are prepared to do it again regardless of apparent impact on game result.
Another trap which otherwise good teams can fall into is the clique issue. I have now been involved with enough teams of both good and poor talent levels, of dedicated and not so dedicated parents, of overall cohesiveness and general disharmony, I feel confident in saying that how the girls relate to each other is as important to competitiveness as any other characteristic. When three girls form a faction and then torment or chide the other girls, this does not produce a positive outcome. When one or more cliques form within the team structure, this is not a good or ordinary development. When several groups form socially, the team is not going to ever achieve its potential.
Joe Torre, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team is famous or infamous for claiming that locker room comaraderie or team chemistry does not build wins and, to the contrary, winning builds chemistry. That may very well be ... when we're talking about professionals ... who have played the game for a couple decades ... who are paid millions of dollars to enjoy their passion ... who know they can earn millions more if they try very hard to be 100% focused on wins and losses, etc. Or maybe Joe is wrong about this and merely lucky. or maybe Joe's management style subconciously creates good team harmony and he is just unaware of what it is he has done to foster this.
I have my doubts about whether Torre is right but he knows major loeague baseball inside and out. I do not. And regardless of Torre's beliefs, I absolutely know this not to be the case when we are talking about 10 - 16 year old girls or, for that matter, boys. I know team chemistry to be critical to competitiveness in youth sports because I saw it firsthand as a participant. The baseball experience which made the biggest impression on me involved a 16U travel team I played for which had great team chemistry. We played well above our heads due to that chemistry. The least talented kids, including yours truly, stepped up and made lots of difference in the outcome of our games. Cliquieness destroys team chemistry, makes the overall experience unpleasant for most team members, and causes kids to be thinking of things other than fielding the next grounder or hitting this pitcher's change-up. Cliqueness has an insidious impact on losing, particularly in contributing to the "one bad inning" syndrome as well as the "we just don't play well our first (or last) game of the day" syndrome.
As a side bar, parents need to be cognizant of the fact that cliqueness is not normal, acceptable behavior. And it leads to losses. Often the worst offenders are the kids of parents who were less popular in high school and who seek for their offspring what they missed. They actually encourage their kids to be popular and to hang with the top crowd. And when they are involved in travel ball situations, they encourage their daughters to befriend this or that kid to the exclusion of others. I know this to be true because I have watched it in action. One girl I coached had a beach house and she made a huge deal about inviting kids to it. She, for whatever reason, could really only handle one or two friends at a time. And those friends had to be her exclusive ones for at least a while. The two or three girls would arrive at the field, mix in with the other girls for a time, and then this clique maker would tell the others about how she and so and so hung out at the beach together all week. She would tell stories about what they had done. The idea behind the story telling was oneupmanship, exclusivity, to announce they were buddies. Then this kid would actually bully other kids on the team and act like she was better than they were. She was not a gifted athlete but you couldn't tell it from her behavior towards others. And her actions made others uncomfortable. She detracted from the team spirit and our focus on the field. I will never have that kid on another team as long as I coach. I would never have a kid on my team who is related to the girl.
It is important to note that parents and coaches have an important role to play in this potentially disastrous dynamic. Coaches need to pay attention to the way their players get on together. They need to nip cliqueiness in the bud when they believe they see it forming. It can rip a team apart and make a mockery out of the structure you thought you were setting in place. Some things to watch out for are one, two, or three girls who are always together and never apart. You should also listen to the what-we-did last night, yesterday, last week after the final game of the tournament discussions. You don't need to intercede immediately. After all, it is important for the girls to make close personal friends with those they spend all weekend, every weekend with. But you need to at least be aware of the possibility of cliques forming.
Parents need to understand that the little harmless comments they make during drives to and from tournaments make an impact on their children. If the team suffered a terrible loss because Sally W. made three errors and "I don't know why the coach plays her at second base when she should probably not even be playing travel," guess what your daughter is going to repeat when she is alone with her teammates? That's an obvious one but everything you say is heard and you need to really guard your language when discussing games or other players. If you comment on one player's skills, your daughter is going to take that as gospel and she is also going to think that is is normal to talk about other people's skills or shortcomings. If you want your daughter's team to win, you as parent need to be more thoughtful before you open your trap!
I'll take this to the next level. If your daughter has ever played on a team that had cliques, you need to address this. One otherwise good kid who has experienced this on one or more teams is going to believe it to be normal. She is either going to act passively and just accept it wherever she is or she is going to react to it proactively and seek out membership to an intra-team clique. In short, she is going to become at least part of the problem. I hope yuou don't want that. I hope you will act to prevent it. If you don't, I'm gonna make fun of you. Didn't you have ANY friends in high school? Are you really that insecure? Are you really that immature?
Let's assume for the sake of argument that a team has fairly well dedicated players and parents, reasonably good talent, has worked the least talented kids to the point that they are competent ball players, and team chemistry is decent, this is where the coaches' work really begins. But the parents have a say too.
The other day I was fortunate to be involved in perhaps the best 12U game I have ever seen. Both pitchers were on. 5 batters came to the plate during one half inning once - the rest were threes and fours. The vast majority of innings had the minimum number of batters regardless of anyone reaching base because both catchers threw out, I think, all basestealers. There were a combined 7 strikeouts. And this was a complete 7 inning game, played in under 75 minutes. There were a handful of errors but I really need to talk to the scorekeeper because I really only remember one and that was at least questionable. The winning run scored in the bottom of the 7th on a close play at home. After the game a parent from the host organization approached me to tell me that this had been one of the best games he had ever seen at any level. Girls made plays I have seen good high schoolers blow. Girls made plays I have seen very few softballers ever make. We lost!
When I look back at the loss, it turned on one mistake. We were trailing by a run and had a runner on base in the top of the seventh. Our number 6 hitter drilled a pitch to within about 5 feet of the outfield fence. The baserunner easily scored. The batter baserunner headed for second as the throw was coming in from the hinterlands to a mid range cutoff. nbsp; I threw up my hands and yelled, "hold, hold, hold, get on the bag" only to watch as the girl looked out at the outfielders, turned around second and headed resolutely towards third. The next cutoff throw came into the pitcher in the center of the diamond. She instantly cut it and threw to third where her throw struck the third baseman in the glove and drove it into the bag where it waited a tenth of a second for our runner to slide into it. It was bang-bang like I've never seen - at this level and infrequently at higher ones. The umpire punched her out and there we were, one out, nobody on, tie game.
One out! Never make the first or last out at third!!
Our next batter struck out but the catcher who was otherwise infallible dropped the ball. No matter - our batter froze and never made a move towards first. No matter, the catcher would have easily thrown her out.
Our next batter flew out to right. The rightfielder had a relatively weak arm. You see where I am with this? First off, we school our kids to pick up the third base coach as they approach second. They are supposed to look for me just past the midway point between first and second. We school our girls to run after a strikeout and wait for the coach to stop them. We work tagups on flyballs at just about every practice. Had things gone according to plan, our number 6 hitter would have stayed safely at second, moved to third on the throw down to first after the dropped third and scored easily on a tag up after the fly out.
The reason I'm telling you this story is because the mistakes made which cost us the game were coaches' and parents' mistakes. The players were not to blame. This was not a champ9ionship or elimination game. It was a friendly. It was also the first time my team had ever played together. But the way it was played, it very well could have been a championship game. And we need to take away from the loss everything we can in order to make the team better. It should not go unmentioned that the reason I'm writing this is more for my team and myself than anything else. I will explain that in a minute.
Let me delve into the reasons why things played out as they did. First of all, we do, as I said, drill the kids to pick up the third base coach. We do that in practice. This particular kid has not been to many of our practices because she is involved in many other activites, including school softball and other sports. So she was not there the many times we had the girls run from first to third while picking up the base coach. We get good attendance at practice. Out of a roster of really 12, we usually get 10 or 11. But this girl frequently is not there because of her activities and it hurt the team although without her hit, we wouldn't have been it anyway.
Secondly, the girl who struck out knows to run to first. I saw her do it a few innings earlier. But in that instance, she was a little awkward anbd the catcher caught the ball cleanly. We all chuckled. She got self-conscious. That caused the momentary hesitation which allowed the catcher to tag her out though it didn't matter anyway because we had no baserunner who would have moved up. But after the first strikeout, I should have approached the girl and told her not to get heady about what just happened, that she had done the right thing and that's what i want her to do the next time. That was a c oaching failure.
Also, I should have made a point of talking with the girl who had been out at third to impress her with the fact that she does not make a lot of baserunning decisions. Those are in my hands. I have told our team that when they follow instructions and they are out, they are not at fault but when they do not follow instructions, it doesn't matter that they are safe.
After the game, the father of the girl who hit the ball to the fence and then was tagged out at third approached me and apologized that his kid had not held. He said the girl is used to her school coach who is unreliable in terms of her role as a thirdbase coach. When she plays school ball, she feels like she is on her own on the basepaths. I can understand that but this is not school ball. And it is important for a parent to impress that fact on their daughter. Also, more effort needs to b e made to make practices or perhaps the kid ought to think about not playing travel softball. I do not want to see that happen in this case but I am trying to give you, the reader, some food for thought. Your daughters need to be at practice.
As a final, final comment, I want to explain why I felt it necessary to provide the details of our loss the other day. We need to learn from our mistakes. More learning is done because of mistakes, because of losses, than can ever be done as a result of victories. Coaches need to understand why they got smoked, why they lost by a few runs to an inferior team, and why they lost great games by one run. They need to be ready to accept the blame for losses while giving credit for any victory exclusively to the players. Parents need to understand where their role is in this. When driving away friom the fields, they need to speak guardedly about how things went down.
Recently, at a 14U game in which my daughter participated which ended 2-0, the team which lost did not have much opportunity to score but the one big shot they had was blown. There were two outs with runner on second and the score 1-0 at this point. The batter had two strikes on her and hit a tweener bloop to right. It fell. The runner at second, a fast kid, went halfway, held, and returned to the bag when the ball came in.
This girl has not played a lot of travel ball. She didn't know what to do in the situation. You can see that as an unforgivable mistake and it might be, had the girl been playing a long time and had this been an elimination game - it was a friendly. I'd prefer to view this as an opportunity to teach. the girl should be pulled aside right then if possible, after the inning in any event, and definitely after the game or at the next practice and it should be explained to her that she should have been standing on home when that ball hit the ground.
I have seen the same sort of mistake from a high school team which is ranked in the top 20 in my state. It almost cost the team a game. It occurs to me that once, probably long ago, this girl was in a game like the one my daughter played. She was on base with two outs and somebody hit a bloop. She went halfway and didn't proceed like she should have. Nobody corrected her or brought the subject up again. They just assumed she would learn from it.
For your information, in case you don't see it, when you are on base, you get a running lead. With the count 3-2, you don't stop on your lead. You proceed to the next base since you cannot be doubled up. If the batter has two strikes on her, you lead and if you hear the bat meet ball, you proceed the same way you do on a 3-2 count. In the case described, the girl should have taken off for third, rounded the bag and focused only on her base coach, who by the way was in full wheel mode though the girl never so much as looked at him. She might not have made it home before that ball landed. But most likely she would have scored. That would actually have been better since most likely they would have tried to make a play on her and the batter would have been on second!
Coaches need to analyze exactly what happened in all games, win or lose, and decide what their take-aways are going to be. Then at the next practice, they need to discuss the mistakes, explain that the object of practicing is to improve upon mistakes and then design drills to addresss any shortcomings. I think, in our case, it would also be useful to emphasize how well they played but that we are going to see other games like this and when those games are elimination or championship ones, we are really going to want to win them. One of my main focal points is something I got from Jessica Mendoza when she said she tried every day to just get a little bit better. I can tell this team that they played very well, especially for a first time out on the field, but if we're going to be as good as we can be, we will need to improve just a little bit each time.
So, that is my piece for the day. To wrap it up, I'm talking about elements which are truly game changers. Coaches, parents and players are all participants in this process. Each can make a difference in the outcome of a game. If we walk away victorious, that goes to the players. If we lose, that is probably on the coaches. Hopefully the parents only factor in via positive ways but you'll get no credit. Of course, you're used to that. I know I am.Labels: coaching, parenting
Permanent Link: Game Changers
Terms
by Dave
Monday, April 20, 2009
At this early juncture in the new softball season (season in terms of school, recreational and travel ball), I find it necessary to define some terms. My reasons for defining terms should become patently obvious but suffice it to say that my motivatiopn has to do with some misconceptions I have heard along the sidelines already this year. I also feel that for those somewhat new to the game, knowing a few terms would be handy. So, here goes.
First let's start with some very basic terms. We'll move on to the more important stuff, the crux of the matter, before long so please be patient. The first terms I want to bring up are in regards to playing level.
The lowest level is what is commonly referred to as recreational (or rec) ball. This level is generally sanctioned by a town, village or group of towns or villages. Fields are typically owned and maintained by local government with tax money but can very often involve those owned by the local government which are leased (for very little money) or ceded to some recreational organization for its exclusive or mostly exclusive use. In these cases, the local organization often maintains the fields, runs the snack bar, keeps the common areas clean, etc.
Recreational ball is most often open to anyone within the specific geographic location who wants to play, who signs up in accordance with the league's practices, and who comes out for the league's tryouts and draft. Tryouts is probably a misnomer because nobody is generally excluded based on performance. "Tryouts" are usually conducted to rate players for the specific purpose of balancing the teams in terms of players' abilities. It should be a rec league's goal to have teams playing against each other which are as closely matched as possible. However, often adults involved in rec leagues try to skew talent towards their own daughters' teams which often defeats the purpose behind the league which is, of course, to create an environment for recreation.
There are some (few?) rec leagues which are not restricted by geographic location. These leagues, while often involving town supported facilities, can be open to anyone who wishes to sign up and pay the league fee. They exist mostly for purposes of providing an activity to town residents but for one reason or another the town sought to broaden its draw. Little Leagues generally are restricted to residents within specific postal zip codes, and for good reason, but there are many rec leagues outside of Little League which do not have any such restrictions.
Very often recreational leagues have all-star programs in which the most talented players get together outside the confines of the rec league and practice and play games against other town all-star teams. It should be noted that many town all-star teams feature travel ball players and can be as competitive as any travel team. But we differentiate between "town all-stars" and travel teams because an "all-star" team SHOULD include only players who ordinarilly are found within the rec league which sponsors the all-star team.
Some of the better "all-star" teams will play tournaments against the best travel teams and compete favorably against them. Some "all-star" teams evolve into travel teams which seek the best players they can accumulate regardless of residence or participation in any rec league. These teams often "hide" behind the all-star label and are really travel teams with a town name.
When we refer to travel teams, sometimes referred to as club, elite, or some such label, we are talking about teams which conduct tryouts open to players without regard to participation in any rec league or specific boundary of residence. These teams often are members of an organization which may be incorporated or not, may be for "not-for-profit" or not, may conduct business openly via a baord of directors or not, etc. The goal of most travel organizations and teams is to put the absolute best team they can on the field, to play tournaments, and to compete for berths to some larger, higher tournament while also developing girls into players who will continue to play during their high school days and perhaps into college.
While recreational leagues should exist for the good of all participants, all-star teams for the good of the best players in the rec league, travel teams really should exist for the good of the travel organization and everyone in it. One often hears things regarding the use of organizational funds like, "sure the older girls get more but so will your kid when she gets there." That is a cop-out. Every kid within a travel organization should benefit about equally or expressly agree that the "older kids get more and so will your kid when she gets there" before joining.
This brings up something which is still fairly rare within the softball world and is something we'll refer to as a softball academy. &n bsp; A softball academy generally is a facility and organization, usually for profit and run like a business, which has the express desire of providing lessons and clinics for a fee. Some such organizations sponsor travel teams in addition to providing lessons for fees but usually the travel organization is separately incorporated and keeps its funds and accounting apart from the academy, though that is not an absolute and does not need to be.
Also, as you will see shortly, it is not my desire at this juncture to closely and completely examine the world of softball academies nor the finances of travel organizations. The important parts of this leg of the piece is the differentiation between types of ball and the possible variations on the organizational theme which you may experience. I want to emphasize, before I go any further, that whether an organization is for profit or not may not impact whether your experiences with it will be positive ones. There are too many examples of a "not-for-profit" organization really being run for the benefit of individuals (via legal or illegal means) to list in a single writing. There are also too many examples of a so-called "for profit" organization in which one receives so much in return for one's money that the "for-profit" / "not-for-profit" designation is absolutely meaningless that one should not harp to much on this aspect. Find a place which gives you what you want and leave the corporate terminology for somebody else.
OK, so that is how I see the world in terms of playing level. But that is not my primary goal in writing today. Rather, I want to go over some common terminology in regards to types of fastpitch softball play outside of what we commonly think of as "practice." That is, I want to define and explain some terms like scrimmage, friendly, tournament, and qualifier. My motivations for doing so is because I have heard and witnessed conduct which indicates that many inside the softball world just do not understand the differences between these types of play.
Let's start with the term scrimmage because that is a logical first foray beyond our typical practices. You can work ground balls, flies, and take at-bats to a certain level inside the confines of practice and cause players to develop only so far. At some point you've got to get girls out on the field with a "blue" (umpire) or two, have balls called balls (hopefully), make outs, score runs, etc. In the early season, and sometimes much later on, teams conduct what they refer to as scrimmages in which one team plays against another in situations which are entirely game. The idea behind a scrimmage is to get the girls game experience in addition to what they will gain as the real season wears on.
It should be noted that a "scrimmage" really exists in the no-man's-land (or no woman's-land) between practice and game. It should never be the objective of any participant (coach, player, parent) to "win" a scrimmage. The reason I emphasize this is because I have heard people exclaim "Oh, that team is no good. We played them in a game a few weeks ago and beat the living daylights out of them." There never serems to be the understanding that the other team considered the thing a scrimmage, a glorified practice, and did things it would never consider doing in a game. As a coach, I have had my teams play many scrimmages in which we were up or down by 10 runs and I had a baserunner who is not known to be a good base stealer try to steal when the next three or four hitters are among our best. I figure the kid needs to improve her skillset and learn to steal a little better. And she won't get the chance to steal once tournament season starts.
It is also possible that during the course of a scrimmage I might have my big bopper bunt with runners on second and third and us trailing by a single run. I might also have a kid bunt with bases loaded and our slowest runner standing on third. It is entirely possible that three or more consecutive batters might be given the bunt sign, even while they have two strikes on them in order to get them to put one down. I view all scrimmages as practices and I conduct my players that way. For this reason, I find myself dazed and confused (as opposed to shocked and awed) when we scrimmage against one of those teams which seems to always play to win regardless of the arrangement.
Understand that some scrimmages are played to a win-lose conclusion and in many cases that is the idea behind the scrimmage. I remember being a fan at a high school scrimmage which ended 7 innings in a tie with another game scheduled to start immediately afterwards where they put runners on second to play ITB (international tie breaker) extra-innings and determine a winner. I was confused by this but that was the arrangement under which the scrimmages were played.
Regarding the use of ITB and other situations in a scrimmage, it is not unusual for coaches to agree to certain situations before the game starts. I haven't seen it but I would not be shocked if a scrimmage were to consist of every inning starting with a runner placed on second. Similarly, it wouldn't surprise me if teams agreed to play the first couple of innings like usual, begin the fourth and fifth with the bases loaded, and thereafter to play with the ITB. That's kind of the beauty of a true scrimmage. There are no limits to what you can do. Batters could come up for their at-bats with the count 2-1 or some such.
Another thing you frequently see at scrimmages is a batter walked or hit by pitch and the coach refuses to let her take her base. If needs be, a runner could sub for her on base but the batter takes another at-bat. It is also not unusual, assuming a team has a kid designated to run the bases, to have one kid go out and run for multiple base runners during a single inning. They are not cheating by having their fastest kid run for players when that's not allowed. It is a scrimmage and they are trying to get the kid as many on-base situations as possible. Sometimes, after a baserunner has successfully been sacrificed over to second, the coach will ask that she be allowed to return to first, again for the purpose of gaining experience. The possibilities are endless. The key to understanding is to know that most scrimmages are conducted for the purpose of getting teams and players ready for the real deal. This is not the real deal and there are no bragging rights conferred. To act otherwise is to demonstrate the quality of being "bush league" (amateurish).
Beyond practice and scrimmage are, quite obviously, games. But there are many different types of games. I don't wish to explore high school, middle school, or rec ball any further. At this point I'm really exploring the world of travel.
Within travel ball, particularly early in the season, we have lots of what are called friendlies in which play is not brought to a head by some sort of championship or trophy. Many times these are conducted under a competitive sanctioning body's rules (like ASA, NSA, PONY) and are played just like any tournament game. There could be "MVP" awards (which I don't wish to get into), mercy run-rules (in which one team leading another by say 12 after 3 innings, 10 after 4, 8 after 5, etc.) is declared the winner, and other things you usualloy see in regular tournament games. Most often there are drop-dead times. But most of the time friendlies are not played until a winner is established.
Friendlies are not scrimmages in the sense that you do not see the kinds of odd ball things like batters not allowed to take a base on balls or runners placed on at the beginning of innings during games. They are played under normal game rules.
Friendlies are usually competitive games in which the teams are trying to win. They are a slice above your prototypical scrimmage. One of the principal objectives of teams playing a friendly is to get teams ready to play tournaments. Along those lines, teams are playing using their normal batting order, bunting runners up, stealing, etc. in order to score runs and try to win the thing. We wanrt the girls to get the feel of a real game and we tell them that before we play. But coaches are, or should be, looking to gain more than game experience during a friendly. Coaches should strive to teach. They should be trying out different things. They might come in with a game plan which is intended to work certain aspects of their players or team as a whole.
For example, it is not uncommon to see some pitcher pitching a perfect game or no hitter, or to have a highly contentious game going on, and then see a coach pull the pitcher who has been shutting down the opposition in favor of the team's third or fourth pitcher just to see how she handles coming in in the middle of a game. It isn't unusual for a team to try a delayed steal, even of home, when they are leading by 8 runs and the other team has not had so much as a baserunner yet. They aren't being overly aggressive, at least not most of the time. Sometimes they just want the kid trying the delayed steal to work on that skill. A team might try something overly aggressive like a suicide squeeze when they are down by 6 runs in the last inning and there are two outs with the bases loaded. That would be a little odd but you can and do see all kinds of things in friendlies you don't see, say, in elimination games.
A friendly, while usually not particularly friendly, is a venue in which players, coaches and teams can try things out to improve their games. They are preparation for the real deal. Sometimes bragging rights can go along with the results of a friendly but, once again, this is somewhat amateurish. I say this because I was talking with someone a few weeks ago, after a friendly, and I asked him how his team did. He declared, with obvious pride, that they had won all their games. I didn't bother to tell the fellow that one of the games they won and about which he was most proud, involved a team which, in an elimination situation most likely would have smoked his team and that the pitcher they faced was that team's number 3. I figured it was better not to emphasize the term "friendly" or otherwise enlighten him. He would have left the conversation merely considering me to be a jerk. And he wouldn't have gotten the point.
The next rung on our game ladder is what I hear called a round-robin ("RR"). That kind of play is usually a one-day tournament which is played to a championship although typically there is no trophy involved. Depending on the number of teams, a RR involves winners of first games playing against other winners, losers playing against losers, and then, after round two is played, the same sort of thing. Eventually, the two teams which have won all their games face each other in a championship game. This is often great fun and a great way to prepare girls for what a Sunday might be like. I don't want to get ahead of myself but what I mean is playing in a RR is like a situation in which you win or go home.
Of course, one of the beauties of a RR you don't go home but rather continue to play regardkless of whether you win or not. You might get three, four, or more games in during a single day. This can be exhausting and that's part of the purpose. If you are a parent along the sidelines, know that playing three or more games in a day is tough stuff. By the third game, girls are pretty well exhausted and their minds can wander at the wrong time. If you want kids to be prepared for real tournaments, however, they simply must get used to playing a lot of games. And the single day RR is the best way I know to do that.
Another great aspect of a RR is it really does not matter what the caliber of teams involved in it is. If you win, you get to play another team that has won. If you lose, you get to play against a team which has lost. &n bsp; So, as you move through the day, it becomes more and more likely that you will face a team against which you are well matched. This can be as valuable for very talented teams as it can be for lesser ones. Eventually, there probably is a team which has lost every game and they can leave to go home and lick their wounds. Similarly there is a team which has won every game and leaves knowing they are champion. But in terms of actual experience in more tightly contested games, generally most teams get something sloce to this because of the way the day is organized. It is tremendous preparation for the real deal.
Now, we move from the worlds of scrimmages, friendlies and round robins into the real tournament world. When I use the term "tournament," generally I mean a competition in which a champion is determined after a first "seeding" round followed by an elimination round, and leading up to a championship game.
Some tournaments are conducted on a single day and I'll mention them briefly but most are two or more day affairs. A seeding round involves teams playing to compile records and then ranked from best to worst. Usually this is done via a sequence of ranking criteria like 1) record, 2) head to head, 3) runs scored against, 4) runs scored by, and coin toss or some random way of ranking teams that are otherwise tied in the seedings.
Usually seeding round games are of shorter duration, involving strict drop dead time limits, sometimes as short as one hour. Ties are considered in a team's record and there is no reason for the seeding round games to come to a win-loss result. Of course a win is better than a tie but a team needs to keep the time limit, current score, etc. in mind during the round. Drop dead rules can cause the team leading the game to record a loss or tie if, for example, the score has to revert back to the last completed inning. Before yuou participate in a tournnament, you should fully understand how seeding is done, any time restrictions, and how the thing flows. You don't want to cost your team by not knowing the rules. Ignorance of the rules is no excuse. And there is no negotiation of one's seding after the fact. Of course, tournament directors do sometimes make seeding mistakes so you want to understand your seeding and make sure it has been compiled accurately.
Next comes the championship or elimination round in which winners move on and losers leave the competition. In one dayers, the seeding round is often done after a break for, say, lunch during which the tournament director compiles the results of the round and then produces a schedule for the next round. This is a very hard day, particularly for teams which make it all the way to the championship. Teams could play five total games, perhaps more, in a single day. It is great preparation and a wonderful way to play a lot of ball in one sitting. It is also a situation that is prone to director errors in seeding since there are significant time constraints and when people are under pressure, they make mistakes. During any tournament, and particularly in one dayers, it would be best if someone were keeping an eye on the seedings and informing the coaches of how things are progressing.
Because seeding can be critical to how a team progresses through the elimination round, coaches often try to manage their teams with at least one eye on that. For example, sometimes teams will really run up or keep down a score in order to preserve a top seeding. It is not at all unusual for one team to be ahead 30 nothing in the top of the third inning and try to squeeze across one more run. There could be an argument between one coach and the ump or the other coach over whether a runner crossed home before a tag was applied even though the score is 15-0 and the other team hasn't had a runner beyond first yet. A team might be leading by enough to gain a mercy run rule win after the current inning and then when you have a runner on third and your batter bunts, play against allowing the run to score rather than getting the out. These sorts of things are not demonstrative of bad sportsmanship. The parents and coaches on the losing side should not get their noses out of joint because the killers over there are trying to pummel us into the ground. They are trying to protect their seeding. That's it. End of story.
Generally a tournament ends with some sort of trophy to the winners and runners up. of course the physical object is junk but that doesn't really matter. The trophy is symbolic of a job well done. We put all that time in during the winter, we play some scrimmages, we do a few friendlies, etc. all with an eye towards competing for some junk that is put together with screws and glue and will fall apart not that long after the thing is over. The real value is in accomplishing the mission and knowing that hard work paid off.
As a sidebar to the tournament discussion, a select few tournaments provide for what are called A and B "flights." The first round is played and teams are seeded. The bottom half of the seeding moves into a "B bracket" and the top half the "A." The As play to a championship and the Bs have their own. The two sides never meet in the final round. This kind of tournament can be among the best. Highly competive teams can play against other competitive teams all the way to an ultimate winner. Lesser teams, including town rec all-stars or quasi-travel teams can play to their own championship. Having had kids involved with both A and B championships at the same tournament in different years, I can tell you that while it is obvious to anyone when you win the Bs that there are a bunch of teams better than you, it still feels good to win something. I know that when we finished second in the A flight one year, we knew we were better than a rival team that won the Bs but we also slapped them on the back and knew they felt good about winning what they won.
One of the criticisms of the particular tournament I have in mind is that run-of-the-mill travel clubs go into it, play themselves into the B bracket deliberately, and then beat up on town all-star teams. That may indeed happen every now and again. But I went to the particular tournament yet a third time with a run-of-the-mill travel team, we played our way into the B bracket, but we got smoked right out of there in the first round by an all-star team that played at a level well above us. I don't think many travel teams win their way through the B flight unless they just happen to have played very badly one day and very well the next. I don't think anyone does this deliberately.
At this point, I want to add a word or two about a particular type of "tournament" which is called a "showcase." Showcase tournaments, as their name implies, exists for the sole purpose of "showcasing" talent. That is, their mission is to put 18 and under players in front of college coaches, preferably college coaches of their choosing. Some of these are played to a championship. Many are not. In showcases, winning is not paramount though demonstrating how one handles tough and or winning and loosing game situations may very well be. But when a showcase is played to some sort of championship, that championship is not really a valuable commodity.
To explain this a bit, college-aspiring softball players whould make efforts to contact coaches of institutions in which they are interested, before the tournament so as to try to get in front of them. [; This subject is too complicated to insert here but the point is, you don't merely want to play in front of anny old college coach. The idea is to play in front of a college coach from the institutions you aspire to. That's simple enough, I think.
Further, teams playing these games ought not to seek victory at the cost of showcasing kids. I have heard an example of a game in which one particular kid asked to play a little more at a particular position because the college coach of her choosing had promised to be in attendance. Her request was met with one of those "I decide who plays, who plays where, and who plays how long and I do this based on what is good for the team" comments. That is all well and good but it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the purpose of the showcase. &nnbsp; It also shows a disregard for the players on the team, especially if the kid playing second base or whatever for the majority of innings could not care less what the college coaches nearby think of her play and would be happy to trade time in this game for time in that one. This is also not exactly a game changing exchange which favors the continued viability of the showcase team or which will endear the coach to future prospective roster members, let alone current ones.
A showcase tournament exists to showcase talent, not to produce championships. Showcase teams exist to showcase their players' talents, not to win in order to establish reputation. A team which routinely pushes aside requests like this is looking for trouble. If I'm looking for a showcase team for my kid, I'm not going to consider a team on which requests for a little more playing time at a position are pushed aside without even considering the players situation. That's bad ball. That's bush league. That's just stupid!
Finally, with respect to showcase ball, I have heard a few too many comments which indicate some people just don't get it. Sure it may be important to be involved with a showcase team with reputation in order to "get noticed." But looking for a team which wins a lot or coaching a team in order to win regardless of what that might mean demonstrates a misunderstanding of what college athletic recruiting is all about. Many times I have heard folks bragging about how their team won some third rate showcase tournament title or espousing the notion that if a player wants to get noticed, they should play for such and such team since they always win. That's absurd. When you look for a team to showcase you, you should know and like the coaching staff; you should look for a coach who knows the college coaches and is a great schmoozer; find a team which places people at the schools you are interested in and feel you have a reasonable shot at making; and find a good fit for your goals. If you think this is about winning the tournament title, good luck and enjoy your trophy. Put it right next to all the trophies you have won at "B" tournaments through the years. Now back to your regularly scheduled rpogram of youth travel tournaments.
In travel ball, ultimately the winning of tournaments is the goal. But there is something more important than the mere winning of run-of-the-mill tournaments. That is qualifying for, competing at, and making a good showing at something a bit grander than your typical tournament. This bring us to the type of tournament typically referred to as qualifiers (or national quualifiers).
A qualifier is just like any other tournament. It could be a one dayer but most often is conducted, weather permitting, over two or more days. Winning a qualifier, as you might expect, qualifies a team for some higher tournament, perhaps a national championship under one organizaing body or another. These are the real, real deal!
Qualifiers generally involve a ferocious level of play as a team tries to gain attendance at its ultimate goal tournament. Girls put it all on the line, lay out for foul pops, try to intimidate opponents, and generally go all out to win at qualifiers. After seeding rounds and the first few elimination games, things get extremely heated. If you are not used to this level of emotions, it can be off-putting. You may walk away saying to yourself, there is something wrong with those people, perhaps all of society. They act as if winning is more important than anything else. Their lives might be coming apart at the seams and they are out here seeking blood from a bunch of 12, 14, 16 year old girls. "Did you hear what they guy said when the first baseman went for the foul pop? He yelled 'I got it, I got it.' That's really nasty. That girl might have been hurt." While it is true that there is no room for a parent yelling "I got" at any youth game whatsoever, you will see things at qualifiers you will not see anywhere else, particularly as first round evolves into second, as quarter-finals become semi-finals. It can get tense.
As I said, winning a qualifier gets you a berth at some higher tournament, perhjaps a national. Depending on the sanctioning body, there can be other ways to gain a berth but I don't wish to go into this right now. Also, sometimes the team which wins a qualifier has already qualified or is disinterested in attending the particular sanctioning body's national. Maybe when they signed up for tournaments, they aimed to attend NSA nationals but were willing to go to FAST or PONY, if they didn't qualify for NSAs. They won their NSA berth week ago and they don't want the FAST berth they just won. Or maybe the team wanted to go to PONY nationals so badly that they signed up for qualifiers and they have already won two of them. When these circumstances occur, often the runner-uop earns the berth. And sometimes the runner up has also already qualified and made plans to go wherever. Soemtimes the third, fourth or whatever place team gains the berth, depending on the rules under which the thing is played. A few years ago, we earned a berth to attend a national tournament after finishing third and going home with our tails between our legs. Then we learned we won the berth! Sometimers it pays to hang around and learn what the outcome is!!
Our final consideration of types of games involves the national tournament and in order to discuss these, I need to add a word about the sanctioning bodies under which they are played. I think there are some misconceptions out there regarding which is best and other issues like that.
First, national tournaments are many and varied. You wouldn't think that would be the case but there are several different sanctioning bodies and, in this sport, there is not necessarily a clear hierarchy the way there is in other sports. I know in basketball the one top dog is AAU. I understand that in soccer there is one top dog but the name escapes me at the moment. In softball, arguably, the top dog is and should be ASA. But, as usual, on a softball diamond, it is not quite as clear as that.
At the 23U level, I believe ASA is by far the biggest and most important. On the other hand, I do not believe that many in the sport particularly care much about 23U ball. There are far fewer teams at 23U than other age levels excluding maybe 8U and 10U - those may be a lot larger than 23U, I really just don't know. It is not my understanding that a large portion of the top college players play at 23U once they are done or work at it hard the way a 17 year old Gold player might. It ios my understanding that good lower level college teams are often a lot better than the standard issue 23U team. Nuff said?
At the 18U level, I do not believe there is any question that ASA Gold level is by far the best level. I know other bodies sanction nationals at 18U but it is my understanding that the best level of play is entirely ASA Gold. Now there are really three types of Gold tournaments. There are Gold tournaments which are really showcases (see above), those that are merely run-of-the-mill, and qualifiers. Qualifiers and the actual championship are the real, real, real deal. And to my knowledge no level of tournament competes with these.
At 16U, I do believe that most likely ASA is the top. 16U nationals is where college coaches go to watch potential prospects. These games, though I have never been to ASA nat.s, are said to be among the fiercest played. It is my understanding that other sanctioning bodies put on some very good competition but I do not think that comes close to competing with ASA. But below 16U, the waters get murkier and murkier.
I don;t know that I can easily distinguish between FAST and NSA at the 14U level. I can tell you that, over the years, what I have noticed is NSA tends to draw from a more wide geographical dispersion than FAST. FAST is definitely oriented towards Florida teams at all age levels. You could write this off easily except for one thing, Flortida teams tend to be extremely good. Years ago, maybe they were not up to snuff with the west coast teams but that's no longer the case. And travelling to Florida to play only or mostly Florida teams at FAST nationals is not a way to go to a lesser nationals and pick up some easy bling. FAST natiuonals are pretty brutal. Also, I have heard from participants that there can be some home cooking prepared by the umpires. I don't know if the same can be said of NSA but I do know they get good teams from all over the country at the 14U level.
At 12U, the water is extremely murky though it is quite possible that ASA is the top. The trouble is some very good teams go to 12U nationals at Pony, NSA, FAST and, obviously, ASA. Often times, over the past several years, teams which competed well at Pony nat.s or other sanctioning bodies also competed well at ASA or NSA. I think I've written before in these pages that during one year I remember one team which had finished behind several others went on to take second at NSAs while the several others got smoked at Ponys. I know of a team which went to FAST and got really crushed after having beaten several teams which did well at other bodies' nat.s. At 12U, it is a mixed bag and the mix is changing all the time. Most recently, if you asked me to speculate, I guess I'd have to say that NSA is quite possibly the top dog at this level.
I'm really not sure what the mix at 10U is, and I'm not all that sure that anyone should care. before you send me nasty-grams, let me say that, yes, 10U does matter. But 12U matters more since A) the girls are far more mature, B) they pitch the real ball at the real distance (at least until you get to levels which pitch from 43 feet), C) and this is the softball crossroads at which girls decide if they reallt want to play this sport or focus on basketball or soccer instead. There is nothing magic about the 12U age group per se. But I don't know too many 9 or 10 year olds who have already reached their adult height or have any sense of how they are going to deal with life when the kid they were always more athletic than all of a sudden grows 8 inches, puts on 50 pounds of muscle and is doing very well at her velocity training three times a week year round.
Perhaps more importantly than the age and maturity involved in national play, a very good 16U or 18U team might be willing to take the space shuttle to the moon (yes I know it doesn't go there) in order to play against the best possible teams. The parents of a very good 14U team are probably less likely to travel from Oregon to Virginia. An economically troubled gaggle of families with outstanding 12U kids from Detroit might choose to forego the flight to California this year in favor of someplace they can drive to. And so it goes. There is no way any particular sanctioning body at any particular age level can plan a national tournament so as to be certain that they are drawing the best possible competition. And, as a result, there is no guaranteed top dog after you move down from 16U ball to lower age groups. The one thing I can tell you is that there are far more sanctioning bodies than I have mentioned. But the majority of those do not draw in teams the caliber which can be found at ASA, NSA, FAST, and perhaps PONY. I will add only that while the classic cricitism of FAST is it is more than half Florida teams, the same kind of thing is said about PONY which draws majority from a few select states and those states are not classic softball powerhouses.Labels: parents, players, teams, Travel vs. Recreational, Tryouts, Youth recreational softball, youth tournament teams
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