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Outfield Pop
by Dave
Thursday, May 21, 2009
I was watching a baseball game last night during which one of those outfielders with the "great arm" caught an easy flyball with less than 2 outs and runners on second and third. His crow hop was a perfect display of the mechanics baseball outfielders are taught. He threw the ball all the way to the plate, reaching the catcher with not a single hop. Of course, to get that trajectory right, he threw the ball at about a 35 degree upward angle. The ball reached its zenith at about ten feet or so over the cutoff's head and landed in the catcher's mitt as what might have been called a strike, had he been throwing a pitch. The runner was safe by about a tenth of a second or maybe two. Oh, and lest we forget, the runner from second advanced a base due to his quick thinking and observation of the release of the throw home. The "great arm" cost the team a run and another runner moving up a base. (We can discuss the wisdom of going halfway if you were the runner on second another time.)
I can't count the number of times I have seen some major league baseball rightfielder, known for his great arm, make a long, high throw to third after a basehit and thereby allow an aggressive batter-baserunner to continue on to second, leaving second and third rather than first and third. It is a bad play made by a person who valued his arm more than his team. He missed the cutoff because he was in love with his arm.
At your next softball practice, I'd like you to perform a test. Put an outfielder at normal depth and have her make ten throws home in the following fashion, 5 throws while attempting to reach the plate without a bounce and 5 while trying to bounce the ball just beyond the distance of the pitcher's plate. You may want to use cones so she can better judge the distance about 40 feet from home. You also want to make sure she has warmed up her arm properly, including some 100+ foot long toss.
You'll be needing a stopwatch because what we want to measure is essentially outfielder pop time. You will also want a clipboard, pad and pencil so you can write down the results of your test and show them to the outfielder afterwards. Have a coach roll or throw balls at the outfielder and have her make the throw home while attempting to reach the catcher on the fly. Record the "pop time" between the moment the ball touches the outfielder's glove to the moment it touches the catcher's glove. Now repeat this 5 times, writing down your results. Next have her repeat the same exercise while trying to bounce the ball approximately 30 to 40 feet from the plate on a low trajectory, hard throw. The ball should pass your SS's position about head high, never reaching a height in excess of ten feet at any point. Now, of course, write down the pop times for each of these reps.
I believe your findings will show either basically identical results for both kinds of throws or the bounced ones will have the shorter pop time. I do not believe the bounced throws will ever yield a larger amount of time, if this test is performed honestly. I suggest you repeat this test from all the normal outfield positions so you can really get a sense of whether the long, higher arching throw is actually better than the low hard one, even before any considerations for infielders performing cuts. We'd all like to have throws come in which are able to be cut but we don't need to go there. You can, of course, demand low throws from your outfielders but I think convincing them via timed examples may make a bigger, longer lasting impression.
A few years back, a friend's son was playing center for the local high school team. The father became upset because his son was continually criticized for making throws from center which bounced once or twice before reaching home. The kid had played years of travel ball and been conditioned to make low, hard throws and not attempt to reach every base on a fly. In order to reach the plate, he had to change the trajectory of his throws to about a 40 degree angle and this change eventually led to the kid hurting his arm and ending up as the team's starting first baseman. The arm injury does not concern me at the moment. I'm more interested in the proper way for an outfielder to make a throw home or, for that matter, any base when the throw is a relatively long one. I'm more interested in outfield pop time.
If you observe highly skilled outfielders in this game or in baseball, some will certainly make long, high throws under stressful game conditions. The vast majority, tthe very best, however, will make low, hard ones. Generally during cutoff drills, outfielders always make low throws because, well, that's kind of the idea. They need to at least hit the cutoff person during cutoff drills! The best outfielders will continue to make low throws in game situations. Those less disciplined kids, who have been told for a long time that they have a wonderful arm, will make those long loopy throws with lots of air (and hang time) under them.
When Howard Kobata teaches infield techniques, he emphasizes the speed of release over the strength of the throw. I'll paraphrase Howard here to give you an example of one of his prototypical admonitions. Howard will say in a loud accusatory voice, "I don't care how strong your arm is. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is how fast you get the ball to first."
Everything about Howard's approach involves basically shortening infielder pop time. I believe you should bring this into the outfield as well. The first traunch of the discussion is the low hard throw, the second involves questioning the traditional outfielder crow hop since everything in this game always begins with the feet.
If you watch baseball, obviously, an infielder has more time than their softball counterparts. We've gone over this before but I'll repeat it for the benefit of first time readers. It takes an average softball player (at HS and college levels) something like around 3 seconds to get between bases. Fast high schoolers are under 3. Fast college players are more like 2.8. The average time for a top level baseball player to run the 90 feet between bases is somewhere around 4 seconds. So in softball, you have at least 25% less time to throw a runner out. For this reason, Kobata's approach is to shorten the arm motion, focus on foot positioning and body posture, and attempt to make the fastest possible pop time.
I remember the first time I "got it" while watching a Kobata clinic. There was a girl in the clinic who had an incredibly strong arm. I can't judge relative speed on overhand throws but this girl's arm strength was that obvious.
Kobata ran a drill where girls went threw iterations of taking a throw and then making a return throw to a point about 60 feet away. Howard generally has girls do this two at a time. He has cultivated the skill of being able to throw two balls simulaneously to girls standing about 5 feet apart.
One girl was really quick but did not have the kind of arm you would call strong. Actually, it was slightly weak. As the kids went through the drill and mixed and matched, eventually the weak armed, quick girl was matched againt the strong armed one. Howard threw the balls which popped the girls' gloves simultaneously. Each caught it cleanly and went through their return throw motion. One ball struck the first baseman's mitt while the other wasn't yet quite halfway. There was a perceptible period of time as the stronger of the two throws finally reached its target. The weak armed girl had easily beaten her strong armed opponent. Howard stopped the girls and said, "see, you're Too SLOW" to the one with the great arm.
The girl didn't much like being called out by Kobata. Nobody ever really does. But the man is trying to make an impression. I'm not sure the strong armed girl got the message. But to the rest of us, I suspect it was patently obvious. And just in case we didn't get it, this same experience repeated itself over and over and over again. The quicker weaker infield throw won every time.
In the outfield, you don't get to make 60 foot throws very often. It is more realistic to think of outfield throwing as mostly ranging from 80 feet to 140 from point of release to ultimate target. There are, of course, sometimes shorter ones but those are mostly low stress throws like returning the ball after a lone basehit. The throws you want to work on are those on balls in the gap, against the fence, on high flies with runners tagging, or on balls hit in front of you and baserunners moving.
Obviously, if the ball is hit to the fence, you generally have to make a longer throw but there is usually an infielder out on the grass taking the cutoff. You want to make sure you hit the cutoff on the fly since a throw which hits the grass may or may not hop true. Lots of throws coming in to a cutoff huit the grass and bounce in odd ways, away from the cutoff. It is also going to be slowed down by friction. These throws typically range in distance to about 120 feet. Most outfielders will crow hop to make a strong throw and I can see the necessity of that since you want the ball to reach the cutoff in the air.
Likewise, balls in the alleys tend to require the longer variety of throws and while a full crowhop might not be necessitated to make a strong enough throw, it is often needed to properly align the fielder moving perpendicular to the cutoff. Again, a crowhop under these conditions is completely understandable and should be practiced. There are right times to use a crowhop. There are also wrong ones.
Where I guess I begin to have trouble occurs on balls either hit in front of the outfielder with runners in motion or those high flies with a runner on third who is tagging up to score. Generally, if you are at normal outfield depth, you are standing about 150-160 feet from home, leaving approximately 40-50 feet in back of you to the fence. You can play more shallow or, if the big hitters are up, further back. But in general, outfielders position themselves about 40-50 feet from the fence.
If the basehit in front of you is a smash, you may not have time to move forward very much, maybe just a few feet. If it is already on the ground and barely bleeds through the infield, I expect you will be in quite a ways, perhaps now 140-120 feet from home. The throw to a cutoff is about 75 to 55 feet. The throw all the way home is 140 to 120. But even with the longer variety of throw (140 feet maximum), there really is not a need to reach your target in the air. If you look back at the test discussed above, your throw really only has to be, at most 100 feet, just a little longer than a catcher's throw down to second. Its trajectory, therefore, should look like a catcher's throw - low and hard.
Perhaps just as important as the trajectory of the throw is the steps before ball release. If you take a full crowhop on these plays, because your coach demands it or in order to get enough mustard on the throw to reach home on the fly, you are, in the words of Kobata, "TOO SLOW!" You are too slow by as much as two tenths of a second or more.
Your throw may be admirable. It may look good to the casual observer. the crowd may oh and ah! But it is too slow. You give a good baserunner a tenth or two and she'll beat you. There is almost no way the strength of your throw will make up for the time wasted crowing.
How much more do you think a fielder gets on a throw from the crowhop vs. semi-flat footed? I've never seen a study but I don't imagine it could possibly be as much as 5 mph. My best guestimate would be one, two, maybe three additional miles per hour. If she can get 5 or as much as 10 mph (highly unlikely), doing this will still not make up for the two tenths she loses crowhopping. At 5 moph, over 100 feet, you pick up just about .7 tenths while at 10 mph, you pick up a second and a half. If you lose two tenths on setting up the crow hop and are magically able to gain 10 mph, you still lose overall. And if that throw is high-arcing to reach your bff, the catcher, you really lose.
I guess what I'm saying is, if we bring too much baseball to fastpitch softball, we end up being slower than we should want to be. To be sure, many coaches insist that their outfielders take a full crowhop even when they merely throw a pair of sunglasses to a teammate, when they are returning a wayward baseball from the adjacent boys game, or when they are clearing stones from the field. Some coaches want their outfielder to crow hop when they high five their buddies. I used to sit back and agree with the outfielders-always-crowhop mentality. But I think I'm beginning to see less of this with better teams.
One of the items which most impresses me with college softball has to be the level of outfield play. Not many outfield balls find the ground inb the games I have seen. The outfielders are much speedier than their high school counterparts. They also read the ball off the bat much better. More importantly, the speed with which they get the ball back into the infield is amazing. Sure, many do crowhop. But nearly as many remind one more of infielders from baseball than they do of the archetypical strong armed MLB rightfielder trying to reach third on a fly. Their steps are shorter, more abbreviated.
So, in conclusion, the only thing that matters in the infield is how quickly that ball reaches the base. The only thing that matters when a baserunner is stealing is the total time between pops. You can have the strongest arm ever recorded but if you don't get rid of the ball quickly, the runner's gonna beat you. That's as true of the outfield as it is of the infield. But don't trust my say so. Test it out and decide for yourself.
Now, onto a final, slightly related note. As far as drills for the outfield go, I guess I'm kind of unimaginative. I've got nothing much worthwhile for you. But at the D3 WCWS, I did happen to see one interesting drill set. The nice things about it are: 1) You can involve all 9 players simultaneously; 2) it is adaptable to whatever you want to do with it; and 3) you can run a complete set in under a minute.
The drill works like this:
1) 1B throws a ball into the corner or alley.
2) RF chases it down, turns and fires to the cutoff who throws to the designated base.
3) Ball is returned to the 2B or SS who then throws into one of the alleys.
4) CF chases it down, hits the cutoff who throws through to the designated base.
5) Ball goes to SS or 3B who throws into the alley or down the line.
6) LF chases it down and hits cutoff who throws to whatever base.
That's really it. Its beauty is its simplicity. And it is adaptable because you can throw to either side of the outfielders in succession, you can work on throws to cutoffs or through directly to bases, everyone on your team can be involved or fewer if you so choose, you can run through cycle after cycle or alter what you are doing by merely calling out to your players. It is simple yet somehow elegant because it allows you to get as many or as few reps in as you like. I watched a team run through their pre-game 10 minutes worth of drilling and when the announcer called out one minute remaining, they were still able to get their outfield cutoff drilling in while not offending the clock or higher authorities.Labels: defense, outfield
Permanent Link: Outfield Pop
 
Important Non? Issue
by Dave
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
There has never been an incidence of doping within the world of international softball since testing of athletes began. Still, doping is something we should all be cognizant of and maintain our guard against. The May 18, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated magazine contains the sensationalistic cover article discussing hitting superstar Manny Ramirez's fall from grace via a positive test for banned performance enhancing drugs (PED's). If you're a baseball fan, you'd probably be interested in reading the article. But regardless of your interest in Manny, baseball, or the controversy surrounding PED's, there is another article, far longer, less sensational, much more in depth, and of far greater importance to any athlete. It is called "Supplements - the $20 billion Obsession" and subtitled "What You Don't Know Might Kill You."
Thankfully, this article is available online here online at SportsIllustrated.com. I implore you to set aside time to read the whole thing and understand some of the more relevant points for the amateur athlete.
A few years back, I posted something to a forum suggesting that we need to be on guard against steroids and other PED's even within the world of youth sports, even with respect to female athletes. What I got back were a few positive reactions and a large number of sarcastic comments suggesting that girls don't do roids and my post was full of hot air.
OK. I'll accept that most girls are slightly less likely than their male counterparts to desire large bulky muscles and, therefore, to see steroids as any sort of wholly grail. But I guarantee you there is a girl out there someplace having trouble getting the ball out of the infield who trains with weights and might consider taking some sort of supplement to quicken her muscles' recovery time, allowing her to train more frequently, and gain strength more quickly. The thought of this conjures up images of Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa cracking and pouring eggs into a cup and then drinking the disgusting brew down in a single gulp. Or how about those extra large sizes of tylenol and the like on sale cheap at your local warehouse store or Wal-Mart? What about the girl who pitched 3 yesterday and expects to pitch at least two today? Or maybe the HS girls who went out on the town last night after the big victory and who just realized they have another big game today?
The fact is, we live in a society of 20 minute abs, 5 hour energy drinks, analgesics used to the point of significant health effect, not to mention attention deficit disorder drugs used by undiagnosed college students to get through exams. Supplements are everywhere in our society. They exist wherever athletics exist too. They spring forth from workout facilities throughout the country where all sorts of kids and adults looking to get an edge work there muscles to ridiculous points of soreness.
When we eat a cup full of eggs, obviously we are after nutrition to naturally heal and strengthen the body. We increasingly utilize protein drinks for the same purpose and because they are made more palatable than say raw eggs, not to mention avoiding the risks of food poisoning. Many people grab bottles of vitamin B rich 5 hour energy from convenience stores on bad days during which they need a little boost. In short, we are supplement crazy and that's not a particularly new thing. back in the 1970s, my swimming teammates and I took enormous doses of vitamin C to guard against colds, infections, whatever. Today we have that mentality and more. We drink sports drinks. We seek to learn more about nutrition to properly supplement our diets to quicken recovery or speed our muscular development. TV's "Biggest Loser" is an immensely popular show which profits from the "obesity epidemic" paranoia which grips the country. And everywhere we see fitness and training, we see something else. We see the supplement marketplace.
The SI article discussing this points out a few facts anyone interested in athletics or fitness who would even consider altering their diet for training purposes should know. It points to President Bill Clinton's signing into law a change to the US FDA responsibilities in the 90s. That law took supplements outside the ranks of either food or drugs and made them essentially an unregulated commodity. As SI points out, all those items on the shelves of GNC, other large nutrition retailers, as well as 7-11 and many other stores whichpurport to aid the athlete or nutrition hound, may contain things we didn't know about.
I'm going to leave this as is because I don't want to attempt to paraphrase the article. I really want you to read it. I feel it is THAT important. So once again, just to make it easy for you, here is the link:
SportsIllustrated.com
Please read it before you do anything else softball or sports related today.Labels: coaching, parenting, Training
Permanent Link: Important Non? Issue
An Apology
by Dave
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I need to write a public apology to one reader who wrote in to ask what she thought was a simple question. I over-reacted partly because I harbor some ill feelings on the subject and partly because I am ill with something that has kept me bed-ridden for a few days, missing one of my kids' middle school games, a game in which our high school defeated a top 20 (nationally ranked) high school, the D3 Women's College World Series, not to mention days of work. I did catch a little of the opening round of the D3 WCWS though since then I have been stuck in bed with what my doctor called a "Horrendous Bronchitis" which I still think is the flu.
(I told the doctor that I had a high fever, sweats, chills, and aches all over my body. A few minutes later, when I inquired about the possibility of a flu test, he told me there is a shortage of test kits and doctors have been encouraged to only use them when they highly suspect someone has the flu. I asked him what conditions would cause him to highly suspect someone has the flu. He said high fever, sweats, chills and body aches.)
In any event, the reader innocently inquired about why she had been prevented from operating a cowbell or airhorn at her granddaughter's KY high school games. My knee-jerk reaction was kind of over the top, even creepy. She must have thought me the biggest lunatic to ever have walked the Earth. Perhaps she is right!
In any event, here is the substance of the question, my approximate response (toned down and altered in substance for readability) and the way I think the issue should be viewed:
The question was, "We were recently told that ... cowbells nor other noisemakers can be used at the KY High School Fast Pitch Games. If this is true, I'd like to know why? Almost everyone enjoyed the horns and cowbells, including the players. The players were so happy, and proud when the horns were blown for them. They said it made them feel more confident and gave recognition that they had made a good play, or had a good at-bat. They miss the horns and cowbells and so do we. Why would the KY Girls High School Softball rules, rule these out?"
I really do not have an answer as I am not all that familiar with KY HS rules or HS rules generally per se, at least not the intricacies which differentiate them from NCAA, ASA, etc. I am more comfortable with the general concepts similar to all bodies' rules which make them similar. As such, I have no idea whether artificial noisemakers are prohibited from all high school games generally, or only in select states which have chosen to ban them. Alternatively, it is conceivable that a single umpire doesn't like them and prohibits their use. I do know that the NCAA expressly prohibits the use of "artificial noisemakers, air horns and electronic amplifiers."
In any event, I am familiar with the concept under which anyone, absent a specific rule, would still feel justified in banning them and I have to say I fall on that side of the discussion rather than the side which notes "almost everyone enjoyed" them. Personally, I think at most half of those in attendance or participating in the game enjoyed them. The other side experienced revulsion in equal measure.
As I said, I have some emotional responses to this very issue. We play against a travel team which rings a cowbell excessively. I think initially, it was cute.
A kid got a hit, ring, ring. OK, no harm done.
A kid stole a base, scored a run, made a nice play, ring, ring, ring. OK, it must make the player proud(?) or something like that, although, if she isn't already proud of her steal, defensive prowess, etc., there might be a bit of a problem here. If a kid can't get something out of the game itself and needs to have the world stand still while the tintinnabulation, the gush of euphony, that so voluminously and musically wells, in a happy Runic rhyme, well then, perhaps softball is the wrong kind of game for the kid.
After a few ringy-dingies, the bell began to irritate rather than please.
Runner on first, pitch in the dirt gets by the catcher, bell sounds wildly while the runner heads to second and the catcher, still unable to find the ball, unable to hear the pitcher yelling "left, left, left," finally locates the ball as the runner slides into third.
Then there's the grounder to third with runner on first, third baseman makes a good throw to second but the 2B is slow to cover and the ball sails into right center as we see the RF is late to back up and the ball rolls to the fence. That lovely cowbell rings incessantly, what a world of merriment its melody foretells, keeping time, time, time as the runner from first, then rounds third and the batter-baserunner rounds second, heads for third. It continues to ring out its delight as the throw in from the outfield sails over the infielder's head and eludes any other player, the batter rounds third and makes it home without so much as a slide.
Then there's the routine grounder which the fielder misses and which precipitates the rhyming and the chiming of the bells.
Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
I bet that ringing made the batter feel really special since she can now be proud of reaching base even when all she did was hit a routine grounder. How does it make the fielder feel? How does it make the 11 year old first year travel player who was inserted at 2B for the first time and missed her first chance to make a simple play? Is she proud? Or does she feel as if the entire world is now familiar with her inadequacy?
I'm going to stop at this point because this is where I got really nasty about the use of artificial noisemakers at softball games. I suggested that any team which uses such becomes marked by its opponent. Parents on that team may begin to wonder why it seems that every other team aside from their own is so nasty and unpleasant. They may be surprised when efforts are expended to learn the identity of the ringer and the number of the player who is related to the ringer. They may be surprised when another sort of music is played, chin music.
That's right boys and girls, when you obnoxiously use some sort of artificial noisemaker in this kind of a setting, everyone in attendance does not love and adore your musical sounds. At most, the votes of confidence amount to right about half. The other half despise your innocent cowbell. They'd like to ring something of yours but it isn't the bell. And the other team will likely mark you for its most spirited efforts from that time forward.
Now, to the way in which I think any sort of artificial noisemakers, etc. ought to be viewed under a more strict interpretation of the rules. Obvi0ously the NCAA has a specific prohibition. I'm not sure about the NFHS. I don;t recall whether ASA or other youth bodies have such. I only know that we have heard some bells wrung in youth travel (ASA, NSA, FAST, PONY) and never have seen an umpire act to put a stop to it. But that's beside the point because, all these bodies have specific prohibuitions against making any attempt to deliberately distract your opposition. This is manfiested, for example, in rules against anything verbal done deliberately to confuse the defense.
When, in MLB, A-Rod ran out at 2-out pop fly, ran behind the third baseman who called for it, and said something, it really doesn't matter what he said. The fact that he said anything should have been enough to require a call of interference from the umpire. You're not allowed to do that.
Then again, A-Rod never has seemed to have a firm grip upon the nuances of the rules of the game. I was at Yankee stadium when he infamously tried to knock the ball out of a player's hands during an ALCS game. At the time, I, being a rabid Yankee fan who was in full froth, was pretty sure it was a legitimate play. I couldn't see what had happened because I was on the other side of the field but I was sure the ump had blown the call until the next day when I saw the replay. It isn't legitimate. The ump made the right call. You can no more do this than you, as a batter or baserunner, can run into the outfield and do circles around a fielder on a high fly, position a fielder right in front of the plate by the opposite batter's box on an obvious bunt situation, run around the outfield like a lunatic to distract the batter like Jimmy Piersall did to Ted Williams, or for that matter, ring a cowbell while the ball is in play.
I can imagine that an extremely reserved and disciplined person could theoretically restrain themselves enough to only ring their cowbell after the ball is dead. That one person on the planet, however, does not usually attend youth or high school softball games due to their other responsibilities such as conducting religious services for the other folks in his monastery. Now that I've said that, I do have to note that in the many, many sporting events I have observed over the years, members of the clergy do tend to be among the more "spirited" fans I have seen. I'm not sure a religious person would be the right candidate for significant restraint at a sporting event. Perhaps there does not exist a single humnan being who, while rooting for one side in a contest, can be trusted to restrain themselves so much. That has probably been the experience of a number of sports organizing bodies including the NCAA. And, if KY high school softball rulemakers, or the NFHS itself have decided to ban these at all games, I guess I can see their logic.
OK, so that's my rant. I am genuinely sorry to have been so abusive to the person who wrote me. I'm a little grouchy these past several days. I would have liked to have seen Jessica Rhoads of Messiah College pitch another game. She's really good. I would have liked to see my kids play school ball though the game I missed turned out to be uncompetitive and there's a few more still left. I would have liked to watch our local high school in all its glory but there are games still ahead including rematches with nationally ranked teams, assuming they remain so after losses. I apologize for being abusive. But noisemakers are not harmless or fun for all. Your exhuberance in proclaiming them loved by all, combined with a coughing and sneezing fit, made me react harshly. Please accept my apology.Labels: interference, rules
Permanent Link: An Apology
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