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That Time Of Year
by Dave
Friday, June 05, 2009
It's that time of year again. What time of year? The time of year when school ball ends and recreational programs shutter their snack bars, collect up equipment and plan family vacations. Softball is over! Really? No, not really!
Before I get into details, let me explain why, on June 5, I start out proclaiming the "end of softball season." Every year, right about now, I start getting an endless stream of e-mail from folks whose kids play exclusively rec. Their season is done and they are sad. They are sad because they want more. Their daughters discovered a love for the game this past spring and right when they hit their stride, the rec season was over.
These parents turn to their daughters and tell them, "Its OK. We'll get you into fall softball. It'll only be a few months without the game." Then they look around and start asking questions to see if they can locate a fall ball league. If they are unlucky, they won't find any. If they are lucky, their town, or the next one over, will have something. They'll sign up, practice some during the summer with dad hitting grounders and playing catch with the kid. Then they'll go to fall ball and discover it isn't as fun as spring ball was.
I remember the first time we did exactly what I'm describing. At the time, I think I had a 10 and a 9 year old. We signed up for fall ball one town over from us since our league offered nothing beyond spring. We signed our kids up and then whenever I could, I went out in the yard or drove out to the fields to practice by ourselves. Then fall ball finally got going after a long boring summer. We were assigned to a team and then learned that the entire league was a combined 10U and 12U, there were just four teams, and the whole thing was a bust of boring walk filled games without any pitching and with few decent hits.
It was at this time we simultaneously entered travel ball but that's another story. The point is, right after spring ball is over, kids and parents are almost always left wanting more until they find a little more and realize it is quite a bit less. So at this point, I find I must delve into the issue of travel ball more deeply.
There are many towns across the fruited plain which have quite a bit more than what I describe as the typical rec experience. Most towns are involved with Little League, Babe Ruth or some such. Right now those organizations are putting together their annual tournaments. This consists locally of some sort of selection process for the "all-star" team. Let's face it, however, that many towns' "all-star" selection process is that thing under which coaches' daughters are deemed to be the best players regardless of any actual talent, training or commitment. I recall looking through player evaluations for some all-star team I was involved with and the only thing I could think of when I saw the ratings next to players' names was "you have got to be kidding me."
The typical all-star experience involves a team of would-be superstar coaches' daughters whose skills are wanting. They begin practicing in earnest as soon as school lets out, perhaps play some scrimmages, and then participate in whichever tournament their league is involved with. They play 2, 4, or 7 games and that's it.
If the coaches are really ambitious and disappointed by only having 2 games with which to stretch their team, they look around and try to get involved in some tournaments, assuming their players all want this, they can get into a tourney, and there is money for such. Then they go to these tourneys and get smoked. They wonder where the softball genetic engineering lab or fundamental skill factory is located where these players come from.
Some few rec programs are very advanced and knowledgeable. They have well developed travel programs under which they pick their teams back when rec drafts are done. They may practice indoors during the late winter months. They may plan a full slate of tournaments. They may participate in ASA B stuff. They may very well be better than local travel teams. But unfortunately such programs are few and far between.
Typically girls softball is feast or famine. There's the rec program which ends about now, maybe puts together an all-star program, and then plays a couple games. That's all you get until the next player evaluation day at the local school in January/February. Aside from this, the only option is travel/club.
The typical club team conducts tryouts in late August. They pick their team and begin practicing regularly right before school starts. Then they organize a series of scrimmages, perhaps play a tournament or three, and maybe participate in some travel ball league. After this, many teams have a break of a couple weeks to a couple months. Some teams don't take much of a break after the end of October when fall ball is usually done. Some give the kids a month off and then get into the gym or other facility for practices a couple times per week. Still others give everyone off until the winter holidays are done. Then everyone works until school ball begins.
Where I'm at, school ball begins sometime around the beginning of March. We have high school ball which involves kids at 14U and up. We also have fairly extensive middle school ball which means even many of the 12Us are tied up. In some places, there is no middle school ball which means only the 14s have anything really competitive to do in March so 12U travel teams do more. Teams which have a lot of school ball players will usually suspend practices for a while, getting together maybe only on Sundays during March, April and May. Some keep right on going regardless of whether they are thick with school ball players or not. In any event, when there is substantial participation in school ball, it is difficult to field 9 players much of the time so teams usually limit play to Sunday triple-header friendlies. Then, when school ball is over, the tournament season goes full force.
A full all out travel season usually consists of two-day tournaments every weekend from late May through June and July with perhaps a fairly long trip coming in at the end of July or beginning of August. Some travel teams will get involved with a league which plays during the week, especially after school is out. Some will conduct scrimmages on weeknights. Still others will prefer to practice intensely during the week to prepare for tournaments on the weekend. But the overall experience is full-immersion softball.
The options are really rec spritz or travel ana-baptism for most of us. Yes you few out there with full immersion rec all-star programs are the lucky ones, especially early on before your daughters have decided to become softball nuns or monks. You get more than the rest of us without having to go full bore. For the rest of us, it is either underwhelming, disappointing rec ball, perhaps underwhelming, disappointing rec all-stars or full immersion travel.
I remember when I knew rec ball was longer a viable option. We were playing all-stars and I looked out at the field, then at some parents, back to the field, and I realized this was not what my kids meant when they said they wanted more. There was a girl playing third base who had been rated a 6 on a scale of 1 to 5 but she could barely reach the pitcher, let alone first base. The first time a team bunted on us, somebody screamed. Later with a runner on third, our pitcher walked a batter and the girl ran to first, then proceeded to second. Some parent began yelling "you can't do that." I knew not only that the team was in trouble but also that we, as a family, needed to run as fast and as far away as possible.
If you watch poor all-star play, you can easily see the folks you will see years later in travel. They are the ones who get it. They have sad looks on their faces as their daughters get upset about how badly their team is playing. They like the kids on their teams but they wish the girls would practice a little more and they wonder if they live in an inferior town since the other towns are so much better.
That's an experience at a pretty young age. That's also one in a town which, believe it or not, is really not particularly bad in the sport. Our all-star teams do better than many towns. Lots of our girls move over into travel. Our high school team is very good. But our rec league is something of a disappointment and there doesn't really seem to be anyway of improving it at this point.
I recall many years ago being misled when it came to travel vs. rec. Lots of people were willing to hand out free advice. Most of it was wrong. I believe I've told you most of those stories. And the bottom line is, at least where I'm at, rec players with very few exceptions don't start on our HS varsity team. Everyone who starts varsity has at least a couple years of some sort of travel experience. We have a number of Gold players. The kids who didn't play travel by the 12U ages, 14U at the absolute latest, usually sit the bench, play JV and then quit, or simply don' go out for the sport in HS despite professing love of the game at the age of 10, 11, or 12.
Back when my kids played rec, I was told girls who really stand out in rec, I mean REALLY stand out, get asked to join travel teams. That's not the case at all. Then I was told that the route to really making the high school team good was to keep all the girls together in the rec league and have them play all-stars together for years and years. That's not how it works. Heck, out of any given group of HS freshman, the HS coach is going to pick one or two for varsity, a couple for JV, and the rest will play together on the freshman team. So there's no point in "keeping the girls together" since the HS coach will rip them apart anyway.
Another sage bit of incorrect advice I received involved the issue of pitching. This was long before I became more sophisticated. I was told that the critical issue in girls softball was control. It didn't much matter if a 10U pitcher windmilled or not, threw hard or not, just so long as she threw strikes. That's complete nonsense. Yes a kid needs to throw strikes or the walks will kill you. But once you get past the most rudimentary level of play, if a pitcher throws 25 mph lollipops via some modified or sling-shot style of pitching, your opponents will tee off on you, strikes or no strikes.
I contemplated the sage advice while watchiong a team with a modified pitcher get their heads handed to them. I knew there had to be more which the fellow who gave me the advice was missing. I learned the right answers from a pitching coach. I resolved to share that information with whomever would listen and have done so via this blog and other avenues.
The truth is, the progression of pitching is: 1) mechanics, 2) speed, 3) some level of control gained through voluminous repetition while continuing to throw hard, 4) real location - throwing off the plate or on the corners at will with fast pitches, 4A) change of speed, 4B) pitches that move, 5) command over some of your pitches, 6) craftiness of changing speeds and movement while pitching to locations, and 7) deconstructing popular types of hitting mechanics to break down hitters. There may be more but the point is, nowhere in there is room for "just throw strikes."
I want to emphasize this because I have seen more mechanical breakdowns occur due to the desire to throw strikes in order to please anxious parents or rec/all-star coaches. I've written whole diatribes about this but it never fails to amaze me when I see the youngish pitcher bending at the waist or throwing with bent arm, all in the name of just throwing strikes. That's what the sage, incorrect advice I received long ago yields, ex-pitchers.
But travel ball is tough. It's a grind. You have to get your kids to do their homework during the week, even if it's not due until next Thursday. You have to work skills on your own. At some point, you probably need professional coaching. Your "spare time" is shot. Its exp-ensive, time-consuming, a total grind.
Recently, we left our house at 5:45 AM on a Saturday and arrived back at home about 10:00 Sunday evening. We hustled off to work and school Monday morning, got our errands done, to the extent possible, during the week, had the kids doing homework between chores, and then got back into the car at 6:00 AM the following Saturday. I'm not sure if that was feast or famine but it definitely wears on a person whether they play the game or merely watch.
So this is the time of year during which I am reminded of my rec experiences. This is the time of year I am reminded of why we chose to go the travel/club route. This is the time of year when all the disappointed rec parents begin writing to me to see if I have any advice for them to get a little more softball for their kids. The answer is, I can't get you a little more softball. I can only make a suggestion which will get you a lot more softball. Take a look at travel ball. There does not seem to be any decent middle ground.Labels: Travel vs. Recreational
Permanent Link: That Time Of Year
 
Business
by Dave
Thursday, June 04, 2009
It is make it or break it time for the women's National Pro Fastpitch league. The season opened last night with games streamed live on MLB.com. Read about that here:
"National Pro Fastpitch league set to start"
You can see the schedule and watch games from here:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/mediacenter/npf.jsp
There is a game to watch just about any given night from now until the middle of August. These are apparently free. It's an interesting concept but I really don't see how this is going to make a huge difference to the success of the league.
I wish I knew absolutely what would be needed to make NPF successful. I say that not as a person wishing to profit from professional softball but rather as one who wishes it was widely available the same way baseball is. We tune into baseball almost every night out of habit. If there were something else to watch, I suspect we might watch something else. But let's face it, TV pickings are pretty slim these days.
Still the NPF seems to lack that special something that would make it compelling. Some believe the issue is talent which is resolved this year with many of the Olympians and top ex-college players now in the league. But I do not believe that is the issue. When I first saw an NPF game, I was impressed with the talent despite the fact that name players were not necessarily involved with the league. But I didn't know any better. I was impressed with the talent despite some of the country's top talent not being in the league.
So I do not think women's softball missed a potential huge success in years past because they didn't draw top talent. It has to be something else.
I'm not entirely sure anybody is making money at anything these days. I work with a guy who is involved in the music industry. He plays and produces for his own record label. His group had the number 1 reggae album on the Billboard music charts for 6 weeks and then dropped down to number 3 this week. The band is travelling the world right now promoting the album and playing before large crowds though he cannot because he has an infant daughter. He has played before crowds as large as 50,000 on 4 continents. He needed to take some time off the other day on order to do some national TV show. This is the guy's second successful album. But he has to work with me to pay the bills. He'd like to purchase a small home in which he and his wife can bring up their daughter. But he can't get a mortgage because he doesn't make enough money!
The dearth of worthwhile TV and film ventures shows that nobody is experiencing particularly much success at anything in the entertainment business these days. I received a phone call from a TV producer a few weeks back which pertained to one of my web sites. The producer is starting up a show on ABC and she wanted my site's help with some of the content. My partners and I agreed to help in whatever way we could. Our compensation for such help was exactly zero. The only thing we would get in return was basically promotion of our site, from which we make very little despite its relative high popularity.
That's not particularly relevant to girls softball in general or professional softball in particular, but the point is, it's tough to make a living out there. I'm not sure any new venture is going to be successful no matter how good the product it has to offer is. There just has to be an angle.
So I'm wondering what angle NPF can find to make its product compelling. There are a number of, shall we say, structural infirmities NPF experiences which keep attendance at games down. For one thing, most games are played at the height of tournament season. We would love to go watch some professional games but we're on the road most of the time. We play all day Saturday and then as long as possible Sunday, while never knowing if we'll be on the road towards home at 9:30 am or pm. Then its back to the grind Monday through Friday with another tourney next weekend. We just don't have the time nor will to get into the car and drive the hour and a half to the closest NPF venue to go catch a game.
For another structural problem, games are typically very low scoring which does not appeal to the general public. This year's college game definitely seemed to have more run production than in years past and I expect that made the games more interesting to outsiders. Purists are just as intrigued by 1-0, extra inning games as the average person is by 10-9 slugfests. But folks who are not rabid softball fans fall asleep through multiple side-strike-outs. Having top pitching talent in the league is a means to accomplish the ends of having even more frequent low scoring affairs. That can't be good for commercial success.
Finally, while the league tries to get the word out about their games, I do not feel as if anyone outside the softball community really knows about NPF. NPF was mentioned during numerous telecasts of the WCWS games which draws a more general audience but it wasn't shoved into our face with a snazzy, flashy commercial assault. Instead we were force fed commercials for five hour energy, take-classes-in-your-pajamas spots, NCAA athletes are going pro in lots of things besides sports, or whatever ESPN could sell in packages. We weren't attacked with NPF commercials. And that's probably because the league couldn't afford to do that.
If I were a business person trying to craft a successful strategy for professional softball, I think I would look to a couple items. First of all, while there is some question about the commercial success of the WNBA, there is no denying that their attendance far surpasses our sport. I would try to emulate whatever I thought they were doing right to draw spectators. If you get a fan out to the park, the probability that they'll tune in to a telecast goes way up in a hurry.
The WNBA runs at a time when men's basketball is pretty much in hibernation. That could be one factor for success. NPF deliberately begins its schedule right after the WCWS. That's pretty smart since not only do they not have the college game to compete with, they also take advantage of the immediate drop off in softball games viewable on TV. Oh, but wait a minute, NPF games aren't on TV, they're on the web.
I dunno about you but we have a place we go at night after dinner. It has comfortable chairs and a TV. Our computer screens are someplace else. I expect that one day in the not too distant future, our TV will interact with our computers. But today it doesn't, at least not really. We go sit and watch TV and if we want to use computers and the internet, we have to get up and go over there. That would break down our normal routine.
Secondly, I do not think the internet is the potential money maker everyone supposes it could be. Streaming games is no substitute for broadcasting on TV. You've got to work towards television and stay away from the internet unless you have a money making model there. I may be missing something but I don't see where the cash flow is going to come from on the MLB webcasts.
Third, the most successful softball broadcasts seem to be the WCWS, the Olympics and the World Cup. The WCWS has special appeal because folks like to cheer on their old school; they dislike that conference; or they just get attached to certain teams while watching games on the various cable networks during January - April. When May comes around and moves towards the WCWS, everything sort of builds to a climax. We care who wins the WCWS.
With respect to both the Olympics and the World Cup, its always us against them. People find it relatively easy to cheer fdor their own country, that is, they cheer for the US against whomever, regardless of who those ladies are on their team. Then they get to know the players on their country's team and then they really start caring. I'm not sure you can say that about the NPF.
I would like all the real softball fans to stand up and step away from the crowd. OK, now just you fans, quickly, without any thought at all, take the following multiple-choice quiz and write down your answers on a piece of paper as quickly as possible:
1) How many teams are in the NPF? 8 / 4 / 2 / 5
2) On which team does Michele Smith play? New York / Los Angeles / Miami / None
3) Which softball sanctioning body sponsors a team in the NPF? ASA / ISA / NSA / USSSA / ISA / None
4) If you went to a typical game on an average night, how many other fans would you expect to be there? 200 / 500 / 1,000 / 2,000 / 7,000
5) How long does the typical game last? 1 hour / 1.5 hours / 2 hours / 2.5 hours / more than 2.5 hours
OK so that's kind of a fundamental quiz focusing on the types of knowledge any baseball or basketball fan would know. If you asked the same sort of questions about MLB, most likely several million people could answer with approximately the correct answers. Yet I doubt if even just a few thousand softball fans were chosen at random, as many as half could get half the answers correct.
I can't say that I knew before today how few teams there were in the league. The first time I went to watch an NPF game several years ago, I had heard about some gal named Michele Smith and I expected that she was really something to see. I expected to see her play for the local NPF team. She didn't.
Right now I have no idea which teams include Cat Osterman, Jennie Finch, Monica Abbott, etc. I could go cheat and look through the article and perhaps others to learn the answer but my softball-only playing daughter can tell you who Manny Ramirez plays for, how many games he has been suspended, who his team's manager is, that the Dodgers have the best record in baseball right now, that the team used to be based in the New York area, etc. AND, please understand that we don't watch National league games in our household.
If I went to watch an NPF game and saw a team sp0onsored by USSSA, I would assume the game was an exhibition. I wouldn't think it was an official league game. But USSSA is sponsoring a Florida team this year in NPF. That's like Little League sponsoring the Montreal Expos. Nuff said.
I went to watch a game several years ago which had I think almopst 2,000 fans in attendance. That's not too shaby. But it does not compare to the 8,000 folks at the low class A minor league baseball games we go to. The worst crowd I have ever seen at a minor league baseball game was probably 4,000 on a rainy cold night, at an unaffiliated team, etc., etc. The 2,000 at the NPF game was probably one of their top crowds for the year. I know they couldn't have exceeded that by much because there was no place to put any more people. Another game I went to had closer to 400 fans. I've been to many high school games with bigger crowds than that.
I happen to be a fan of college basketball. I don't like the pro game at all. But aside from the style of the game and the attitude of the players, the one thing I know I can count on with college hoops is the games are always going to be about 2 hours from start to finish. Baseball is always a crap shoot. I grew up in the era of 2 hour plus MLB games. Sure, many went longer. But it would have been strange to see anything go 3 hours or longer. On one night, we almost decided to go to an NPF game. We were a little miffed that we couldn't get it together in time to go. But you know what? That game went something like 22 innings and lasted well into the night. We would have had to leave early. Ordinarily, I would think that's a good thing, a great value for the entertainment dollar. But this game had very, very few baserunners. It was a pitcher's duel. If I'm not mistaken, both starters lasted most of the game. The majority of outs did not involve a ball hit into play. The win was determined by an error. Even the biggest purest would say that was a bore, a long bore. That game wore on for well over 4 hours.
I really wish the NPF well. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this sport cannot really grow up without a professional league. I would really like to have some sort of outlet for watching fastpitch softball, preferably in person but I would take TV. My internet device does not interface with my TV. We sit in front of the TV at night. I want to watch great players but not just great strike-out pitchers nmowing them down, one after the other. I want to be compelled to watch professional softball games. I want there to be large crowds, 5,000+, at these games with everyone whipped into a frenzy. I want to care about the outcome of these games. If it would take shameless promotion, I would accept that. If it involved antagonists from Japan, Canada or wherever, that might make it more interesting. If the league's schedule did not conflict with my kids' tournament schedules, that would be best.
I want the NPF to succeed. But I really do not think they are right now. And if they don;t succeeed right now, I expect they'll be gone at the end of the year.Labels: NPF
Permanent Link: Business
Hare Of The Tortoise Who Nipped Me
by Dave
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Softball is life. Girls fastpitch softball is a long-duration sport. There's plenty of quick twitching and sprinting but, as my wife frequently reminds me, softball is a marathon, not a sprint.
Jeff wrote in for advice about how to bring his daughters up in the sport. He was asking about how to teach an 8 year-old and her 5 year-old sister the strike zone - how to swing at mostly strikes. His older daughter is currently in a slowpitch-coach-pitched league but next year she'll enter 10U fastpitch, mostly-kid-pitched ball. She swings the bat pretty well but his concerns involve the transition from arc ball to flatter, faster pitches.
He is also concerned because his older daughter is not very discerning at the plate. She "refuses to lay off pitches at all." As he said, "for the life of me, I cannot remember how I learned the strike zone (when to swing and when to take) when I was a kid. He thinks perhaps there is a way to teach her the strike zone and he wonders if putting her into a pitching machine will help her to adjust to the faster, flatter pitching.
I told Jeff to relax. I'm not saying that he is unusually tense right now. I'm not saying that he should "take a pill and chill." I am saying that if he thinks he has serious questions now, just wait. I am saying that he is going to get very tense before much longer! So relax now or prepare to get ever more tense!
The basic advice I have for anyone who has a child, or several of them, just now beginning to play baseball or softball, is to relax and have fun. Don't sprint to the point where your kid is some sort of 10U wunderkind. Sprinting leaves you short of breath and in no condition to think clearly.
If your child is starting into softball, just make sure it is fun, tons of fun. Practice with her all the time, all the time she wants to practice. She will eventually come to the point at which she wants to grab you anytime you are available to go out into the yard and play catch. In the purest sense, that is really what baseball and softball are all about. They are about a kid wanting to get their parents' attention for a half hour game of catch.
Let me put it this way. I am almost 50. My father passed away over 3 decades ago. Right now I can picture him in his grass-stained, cruddy shorts, with nobby knees, squatting down to catch my pitching in the cul-de-sac. That didn't happen often. My dad was always working. The number of times he caught me is probably something I can count on my fingers without resorting to my toes. But I can clearly picture it in my mind.
The other day my oldest, my wife and I were at some fields where my youngest's team was practicing. We brought our equipment and my wife hit grounders to my oldest while I took throws and gave instruction to her at all the infield positions. This was a very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. And my wife and I will eventually recover from our injuries.
My fondest hope is that my daughters will grow up into the kind of parents who will want to spend great quality (as well as quantity) time with their kids. We will each pass the torch onto the next generation to really care about each other and have fun together.
I also hope my kids grow up to excel at the sport. But my reasons for wanting that have more to do with their development as people than they do anything to do with scholarships or getting their names in the paper during high school. I want them to look back at the time they spent in softball, the time they spent with us, and remember that they persevered and got better at a game they loved.
I completely get the line of thinking which Jeff exhibited via his questions. I just think that if you put fun first, the rest of it will fall into place. Yes, of course, there will be times when the lessons about hardwork and achieving your goals will be more important than "fun." But fun will never lose all its importance and before you can love something, you have to like it.
Right now, at 8, the like is more important than anything else.
As far as specific guidance for teaching the strike zone, I think I have some wisdom to share. First off, Jeff doesn't remember how he learned the strike zone. Neither do I. Do you?
My guess is none of us really remembers how we learned the strike zone because it didn't happen in a single moment of revelation. We learned the strike zone over a long period of experiences. We swung at a ball over our heads which we could not possibly hit. We were slightly embarrassed, more so when we heard the crowd laugh or act weird about our swing. Our parents complained to us. We failed, we learned, we got better.
To introduce the concept of a strike zone, I suggested to Jeff that he try to get his daughter out to watch some game involving older kids. Buy her an ice cream. Sit and watch at least a half hour of some game. Be by yourselves, together. Then when some kid takes an outside pitch, poke your daughter. Tickle her. Then say, "hey, why didn't that girl swing at that pitch?" See how she responds. Most likely, she'll giggle and say, "because it wasn't a strike." Ask her to explain what she means. "What do you mean not a strike? What's a strike?" Let her do the teaching.
All you are doing with this is having a great time and getting her to think about the existence of a strike zone and what area constitutes it. Later, like four years later, you can get into all those other concepts like umpires strike zone, the "black," etc. For now, all we want to do is make sure she knows there is a strike zone and that you don't have to swing at pitches you cannot possibly make contact with. You need teach nothing more than that. The rest will come via experiences she has in the game. If she has questions or seems confused about the exact dimensions of the strike zone at some later date, she'll ask you or you can ask her and then teach her.
But, if instead, you write down the rules of the sport on index (flash) cards and you make her memorize the precise dimensions of the zone and then pass daily quizzes on the subject, if you get out and throw her a bunch of pitches and demand that she, rather than swinging at the ball, yell out "ball" or "strike" for hours on end, each and every day, well, great. You will produce a very weird kid who thinks softball is approximately the same thing as piano lessons. That's just what we need in this world.
Jeff noted that he purchased a hit-n-stik which has helped her learn to make consistent contact but worries that he should be using some other tools, devices and drills to improve her hitting.
I would continue to use the hit-n-stik and also get yourself a tee and a net to hit into. I wouldn't worry very much about the trajectory of the ball, either now or in the future. If she loves the game and has fun doing it, those things will come on their own. Just hit the stick, off the tee, and soft toss.
I believe that if you give your daughter a good, short stroke with which to hit, you hold the stick for her, you have her hit off the tee and via short toss, everything else will fall into place. She'll learn the zone and eventually become a selective hitter, etc. If she has fun playing ball, she'll want to figure out all these things and then you can teach her what she already has the desire to learn.
If you want to, you certainly can take her to hit the machines. Heck, that's fun! Why not do that? I would start at the slowest speeds available (25-35) and then move up when she seems to have mastered it. Then, if she fails at the higher speed, go back to the slower one. We don't need to challenge her at this point. We need her to have fun swinging the stick.
You don;t become a great game hitter by hitting off machines. The speed has nothing to do with it. You become a good hitter by having a good swing, building the strength in your arms, torso, legs, etc., and by having lots of game pitch experience.
It fascinates me when people get worked up either because their town or team doesn't have a pitching machine or when it does, their kid takes loads of batting practice, and then can't hit. You do not learn to hit purely off a machine. You have to face real pitching in game situations in order to perfect your hitting. And before you are ready to do that, you have to take lots of swings - stick, tee, soft toss, etc. There is nothing magical about a machine just because it throws about the same speed as a pitcher or because it can throw drops, curves, rises. No matter how good your machine is, it does not have all the quirks that a real pitcher and her windup offer. There is no way to mimick hitting off a real pitcher even with all the elaborate video equipment some places use. If there were, major leagyue baseball players would not rehab in the minors, our Olympic team wouldn't have played all those games before the real games began.
So hit off the machine if you want but don't do it to prep your 8 year-old daughter for flatter, faster pitching. Do it because it is fun.
Too often I think we forget a basic fact. That fact is human beings are made by evolution or our creator, by birth in any event, to have difficulty vectoring slow moving objects. If an object were to enter your field of vision, way off in the distance while moving very slowly, initially we would have trouble following it. If the object were to enter our field of vision while moving quickly, we would have no trouble. That's because human beings are made for the hunt, to be able to follow the fast stuff we want for dinner.
Think of it this way - if I ball up a paper towel and throw it to you, at first you perceive an object moving towards you at, you presume, a certain speed. You reach up your hand to catch it. But the paper towel opens and encounters friction with the air. It slows down. You can't catch it. By contrast, if I whip a ping pong ball at you when you can just barely see it out of the corner of your eye, you turn, perceive it and make the catch cleanly. The ball started fast and continues fast but you made the catch easily.
In baseball and softball, kids have a ton of trouble hitting those first few years because the ball is so slow. They actually do better when it starts coming faster. Even really good hitters have trouble with the slow stuff, with movement or not.
Several years ago there was a study about this. I think I referenced it at the time. But the scientists determined that humans had an optimum speed at which they easily vectored moving objects. 25 mph was too slow. 50 was easier.
So to all you parents whose kids are playing 6U, 8U, 10U rec or travel ball, if they aren't hitting very well, it is not time to take drastic measures or quit the sport altogether. Instead, pick up the fun quotient. practice but have fun doing it. Take lots of swings but don't get stressed out. If a kid has lots of fun swinging at balls, she'll figure it out. She'll learn the zone because she wants something to hit, because she knows she can't succeed swinging at balls out of the zone, and because she doesn't want to end her at-bats with called strike threes.
I've said this many times before and I'll say it many times more in the future. The softball scrap heaps are full of kids who were fantastic at 10 but who didn't get it, didn't have fun at the game. Their parents were sure they would be the next Jennie Finch because they were just so gifted naturally and because they could really hit the ball at 8, 9, 10. But the kid didn't like the game and learn to love it enough to want to go out there and face the 60 mph pitchers. Just keep on keeping on. Just have fun and everything else will fall into place.Labels: hitting, parenting
Permanent Link: Hare Of The Tortoise Who Nipped Me
Can't Fight City Hall Or Bad Calls
by Dave
Monday, June 01, 2009
I've seen some pretty bad calls lately. So have you. I guarantee it. But, as I constantly must remind myself, you can't fight them. Worse, by arguing them or mouthing off from the stands, you very well can make matters worse. I advise against arguing calls. I hope you hear me on this. I hope I can take my own advice!
Recently, one of my daughters played a tournament in which the championship game was played against the host team. For years I have sung the praises of the tournament's umpires. I felt they were consistent, fair, and generally as talented a crew as any I had ever seen operate under any organization's sanction. This tournament was, with a few exceptions, not any different. But, man oh man, when we got into the championship game against the host, everything went out the window.
Our pitcher had a pipe into which to pitch. Their pitcher had a dumpster. I was thankful it wasn't my daughter doing the pitching. And ... then ... our young, inexperienced pitcher started to lose her cool and in came my daughter. Oh, no!
My kid is very experienced and understands that umpires have different strike zones. She also understands that sometimes the umpires are very close to being against you and for your opponent. We played against a host team at Pony nationals several years ago. I wrote about that at the time. My kid had learned a big lesson back then. Too bad I'm not as good a student as she is!
So my daughter adapted to the pipe, our kids swung at anything close, hitting many, and we were able to pull out a win thanks to an error by one of their outfielders. There's an important lesson in this experience. You can expend a large amount of psychic energy to get angry at bad calls. Alternatively, you can keep your boil down to a simmer and just keep going. If the softball gods are on your side that day, you can overcome some pretty bad umpiring.
Importantly, if you allow your emtoions to get the btter of you, if you give yourself a handy excuse on which you can blame your future loss, tyhe chances of experiencing a loss go up dramatically. Take the WCWS now underway. Danielle Lawrie has quite a good drop curve. Thrown, as it is, around 70 mph, it is pretty much unhittable. An extremely disciplined crew might lay off that pitch. You're not going to hit the thing. You might just as well take it. But if it is being called for strikes, what the heck are you gonna do then?
The camera angle which ESPN uses for its broadcasts is sometimes that great view of the pitch over the shoulder of the umpire. While, geometrically speaking, there is some room for error in perception, I think you get a pretty good idea of where the pitch is. Lawrie threw several drop curves which I feel comfortable claiming would get the ring up, a good 90% of the time. But yesterday, she got not one of these. The umps were pinching her east to west. I'm pretty sure she was getting upset with the zone but she didn't let it show that much. And she found a way to get through while not costing her team a shot at the overall title. She struggled for sure but she didn't let it take her out of the game.
A local HS team purportedly faced a similar pinching. I saw a few of these pitches late in the game. I wouldn't ordinarily say that the ump's pinching was egregious per se. But I also happened to witness the strike zone when the other team's pitcher was chucking. She through several pitches which were between 2 and 4 inches further outside and up and out of the zone to boot that were called strikes. nbsp; There was definitely something going on here but I didn't see enough of it to be 100% sure.
Several weeks ago, we were watching one of several games out in the outfield by some stands that had been set up. One of the umps from an earlier game took up a seat by us. She's a nice lady who is very good about handing out advice for parents of softball players so we struck up several conversations while we watched a game. She made some important points about plate umps and making the adjustment to their zone rather than getting upset. She told of an acquaintance who has a very low zone, remarkably low. Another has a very high zone. Some are big east and west. Some like the inside corner but not the outside. Some umps are very large north and south but want to see the whole ball come over white. There are nearly as many strike zones as there are umpires.
And there is nothing you can do about it. You can't go into warm-ups, realize that your inside stuff is working best today, and then dial up the ump who gives the inside but not the outside. You have to fit into whatever you happen to get on the day where your XYZ pitch is moving the best.
This is the primary reason why I think pitchers should NOT really develop two or three pitches. We discussed this a few months ago but the leading wisdom suggest something left or down, something up or right, and something with a chnge of speed. I think you really need to have something up, down, right, and left, and, and, and something with a change of speed, or two somethings.
You never know what you are going to get. You may get a guy who normally has a very broad zone and today his feet are swollen, his shoes pinching him, maybe his blood pressure is up or he feels a little queasy. Maybe the plate ump wants to get back home to put medicine on his pet parakeet's beak. Maybe he or she really has absolutely nothing to do later and privately hopes this game goes 4 hours. Who can say what the mental or physicval state of the umpire is going to be? Who can say which ump will show up at the biggest game of your year. You've got to be ready regardless.
So tyhe first lesson today, boys and girls, is you cannot control the plate ump no matter how badly you would like to. Getting mad serves absolutely no purpose. OK? Do you have that, Dave?
There was a contentious game the other day at which there were any number of bad calls. I didn't see that much of it because I was at another game. I stopped by in the 8th or 9th inning. The fans for one side were getting pretty ugly. In the end, they felt that the game had been stolen from them. I can say neither that I agree nor disagree. I believe the game was badly called. I believe it is within the realm of possibility that the umpires harbored some resentment against the one team, or some sort of motivation to call against them. I really did not see enough to make an informed judgment ... until someone associated with the team uploaded a video of a few bad calls to the internet.
There were a host of calls which the one team objected to. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to really make judgments on most of these while watching the video. But one of the calls was absolutely horrendous. The issue of watching it in real time is not in any way relevant. It is not very much a matter of judgment or of positioning of the umpires. It was just a horrendous call, it was horrible. The ump who made the call had no business making any call. He demonstrated unfitness for duty - a complete lack of understanding of the rules - in making the call. It was just that bad. I defy anyone to watch the video and draft up a memo, under the rules, supporting the call. This guy was experienced though I think at this point, he should not be permitted to gain any future experience. I felt so strongly about this call that I took time out to write to the state athletic commission to have this guy's actions examined. I hope they pull his certification. I hope they prohibit him from ever calling a high school game again. And I was a disinterested party at that game.
It occurs to me that the call in question, while definitely a rally killer, really did not determine the outcome of that game. The team could have overcome it. They could have sc ored runs at other times, played a little better or smarter, or some hoe pulled this game out. They were evidently the better team. But I believe they lost that game because they allowed the ummps to take them off their game.
Conversely, I think Danielle Lawrie could have had a near meltdown, had she chosen to, given that the umps were pinching her. She's far too experienced - having been to the WCWS and Olympics before - to allow that to happen. Do you think she got mad when one of her drop curves really hit the zone and the ump called ball four? Of course she got mad. What else could she have done? But she didn't let it show and she didn't let it effect her subsequant performance.
There's a lesson in that. See if you can do anything with it.Labels: mental toughness, pitching, umpiring
Permanent Link: Can't Fight City Hall Or Bad Calls
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