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Tough Throws
by Dave
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
There is a TV commercial in which some kid throws a basketball onto the roof of his house, it bounces from there onto a basketball court far away, hits the macadam, and bounces up into the net. That's a tough shot - I would say it should be about a five pointer! The commercial reminds me of a game we used to play called H-O-R-S-E in which one contestant made a basket and all the guys behind him had to make exactly that shot or "get a letter." You would get a letter until you spelled horse at which point you were out of the competition.
If you were a poor basketball player, like I was, you had to come up with creative shots to have any chance of winning. For example, I once went into the bushes, found a beat up football with a leather strip hanging off it, and developed a shot to give me an edge. If I made my shot, the guys after me had to grab the football by the strip hanging off it, hold it with just two fingers, turn their back to the basket from a ridiculously far point, lift their right foot into the air like so, and throw the ball directly over their head without looking at the hoop. Also, hopefully, the shot had to be banked off the backboard!
No, I didn't make that shot. But I made many like it. And that was the only way I would ever win at horse.
So, why the talk about basketball and horse? Well, while creative shots, like mine, in basketball are inadvisable in an actual game, sometimes we have to make odd, difficult throws in a softball game to get an important out.
You know the plays that kill you in fastpitch. There is a grounder between 1B and 2B which is fielded cleanly but which is in the zone at which the fielder is uncertain whether to throw it overhand or toss it underhand. If she throws it overhand a little too hard and a little offline, the 1B will be handcuffed and miss it. If she underhands it, it has to be strong and she has not practiced tossing underhand very much. She quickly decides to throw it underhand and flips it towards first. You watch helplessly as the girl discovers she has a sort of riseball. The ball travels more up than out and gets to your 1B at the apex of its flight, just out of reach of her highest recorded leap. Error! Runner on first.
That's one kind of somewhat routine throw we don't often practice that results in failure to get an important out. Another is a ball into the hole between short and third with a runner moving to third, or perhaps a ball bunted back to the pitcher's right hand side with, again the ITB runner moving to third and an opportunity to end a threat. The SS or P fields the ball cleanly but she is in an awkward position. She either straightens up to make a clean throw that is too late, or she makes an awkward throw that gets by the 3B, allowing the runner to score.
There are all sorts of odd throws possible in softball which often result in bad plays. I just mentioned a couple of them to get you in the right frame of mind. If you think back over the years about blown plays which cost your team, most likely you can come up with dozens of them. I know I can. My guess is that everyone has seen many of the same type over and over again, plus a few nobody else can think of. These kinds of seemingly one-off plays are often the difference between winner and loser in semifinal and championship games and you can prepare your team to make them. You just have to think creatively, as if you were playing basketball horse, and have your players practice making the tough throws.
When we first teach 7, 8, 9 year-olds to throw, we put them in perfect position and teach just the basic, fundamental type of throw. We have them get into a scarecrow-like position, throw over the top, and hit a stationery target. It is an easy drill but one which must be done early on so players develop proper throwing technique without injuring their shoulders and elbows. This represents throwing 101.
Just about everybody does this kind of drill with young players and they should. Then we have them progress to fielding rolled balls, hopping into that perfect position and making the elongated throw to the target. That is 102.
Unfortunately, after that, most kids are left to their own devices until they reach high school at which point the high school coach teaches the outfielders to perform a crow-hop and the infielders to perform a few somewhat more creative throws. The really good players learn more than this at defensive clinics. But, for the most part, nobody gets all the skills they will need in tight games unless they goof around in the yard on their own.
At the typical softball practice, what we see is a bunch of girls standing 15 feet apart, tossing the ball back and forth via overhand wrist snaps. They then move to about 30 feet apart and toss back and forth. Then they move to about 60 feet apart and throw from the perfect position back and forth to each other. Sometimes, coaches have the team long toss from 80- or more feet apart but that's about it.
This goes on for about 15 minutes or so after which there is a round of grounders for the infielders and pop flies for the outfielders. Then we progress to running defensive plays - get the out at first, double play, throw to third, first and third situations, outfield cutoffs, bunts, etc. with a full defensive alignment. After that, perhaps some fielders get special drills or we do some kind of complex, but ordinary throwing drills. Then we go to hitting. Often we run some complex plays, like the kind which require the coach invoking a command from the dugout. But we never teach or drill the oddball throws.
Coaches can do more of a service for their teams by bringing in more creative throws to their drills. The kinds of oddball throws a player may find herself making without ever practicing include those which require underhand or backhand motions, ones in which there is a decision to make regarding whether to throw overhand or underhand, off balance throws, those from the ground, some with your back turned to the target, etc. I think we do have our middle infielders practice the obvious underhand tosses when we work double plays. But, for example, we don't work our corner infielders or pitchers enough on these and other oddball throws. We accidentally have outfielders practice making throws which begin with their backs turned to the target and we teach this to routine cutoffs like the middle infielders. But we leave out other players. We don't teach enough technique. And we don't have them work these kinds of throws enough to make them as routine as they should be.
For beginners, I think every kid who walks onto a softball field ought to practice underhand tosses. Sure the pitchers do their underhand wrist snaps and can make routine underhand throws since that is part of their trade, more or less. But all your infielders ought to be able to throw a ball accurately underhand. They should "go to the same school" as your pitchers by practicing wrist snaps from 15 feet and even perform underhand throws from further than that. The more they do of these, the better they will become at them and the more likely they will be to get routine outs from close distance to the target base.
To take it a step further, infielders ought to be able to lead a player covering a base, not merely be able to hit a stationery target. I hope that you work on this with overhand throws already, as when the 2B is covering second on a ball hit to 3B. If you don't, you should. The technique is similar with underhand throws. The throwing fielder must aim over the base - throw to the base not the player - and lead them to the target. Say the ball is hit to the 1B and she is tossing the ball to the 2B covering first. She wants the ball to get there right as the 2B does, and have it be on the infield side of the bag but not make the 2B stop or reach for it. Presumably, your SS already can perform this throw to the 2B covering second and, again, the technique is similar but you need to work it enough so that it is routine.
Similarly, the SS should be able to toss the ball to the 3B covering third and vice versa. Also, the 2B presumably can make the non-overhand throw to the SS covering second. These involve backhand throws in which the elbow leads, the ball is snapped from the elbow, and the body follows the path of the ball towards the target. Again, leading the player to the base is necessary som practicing this is pretty much mandatory.
When I think of the types of plays which good teams make, these often involve the SS moving to her right and getting the lead runner who was forced or mistakenly went to third. She doesn't have the time to stop, hop into position and make a perfect overhand throw. But she composes herself enough to get the ball out of her glove and shuffles the ball backhand to the 3B just as she gets to the bag to cover and gets the force or allows for a good tag play.
Another such play involves the pitcher fielding a slap hit grounder to her left. She is off balance but fields the ball cleanly as the runner blazes past her. She straightens up and makes a good throw but the runner is safe. If she had been able to make that backhand throw while still stumbling, she would have gotten her.
How about this one? The opponent has a fast runner on third and another runner on first with just one out. There's no way you can get the out at home on a routine grounder and you can't pull your infield in because the big, strong, but slow of foot, slugger is up. You don't want to give up a run but you really don't want a big inning to get started so you've got your middle infielders at normal depth and your corners in line with their bags. Your pitcher works outside and low with her drop or dropcurve and induces a routine grounder to the 2B. She fields it cleanly in that no woman-s land where she is not sure whether to throw it overhand or shuffle it to the SS. She wheels and throws over second but because she had to wheel into throwing position, she pulls the throw off the bag! The SS catches the throw but falls in the process of making the play. You get one out but the run scores and you've still got a runner on base with the team's other slugger coming to the plate. If, instead, she were a skilled backhand thrower, she might have led the SS over the bag with a sharp throw allowing her to get two and kill the threat. But you've got to teach that technique and practice a lot to get really good at it.
How about those squeeze plays in which the batter bunts the ball a little hard right at the pitcher who bends down to grab it and then needs to make the throw home in a real hurry? If she is a righty and has to go left to make the play (or a lefty who has to go right to field the ball), the throw is either going to be a late overhand one or a quick backhand shuffle.
In short, your infielders, including pitchers must practice their underhand throws as well as the backhand variety. They must learn to make these kinds of throws quickly and accurately. They must learn to lead other fielders to the bases. Practice this and they'll be good at it. Fail to practice it and, I guess you can wait to see the results.
Not for nothin' but, it may not be a bad idea to teach some of these techniques to your outfielders too. The play which sticks in my mind is one of those humpback liners directly over second. Our CF plays shallow. She came charging in and for a moment it looked like she'd make the catch. But she couldn't get there in time and had to short hop it while stumbling to stay on her feet. I suppose she could have dove but she didn't. The runner from first held up but then she was charging towards the bag. The CF still had the opportunity to get her but she was in between the overhand and underhand throw. She decided to underhand it but she was not a practiced underhand thrower and tossed the ball over the SS's head. The same thing once happened on a ball hit to left with runners on first and second. We could have had important outs but our outfielders are not skilled underhand throwers. You should rectify this by teaching technique and practicing it.
Moving back to young kids again, when we teach throwing and then insert the routine grounder, we have kids hop into good throwing posture, so-called scarecrow position, look over their front shoulder at the target, use their glove as a sort of gunsight, and then make the throw. Just about every good 10U rec player does this and looks good in the process. Their shoulders and elbows are protected by this practice and we should teach it that way, early on. It is slow but effective. But that's not the real world of fast, fastpitch softball.
In the real world, you don't have time for perfect throwing technique. In the real world, softball infielders pretty much throw with a similar technique as baseball catchers use. They pull the ball to their ear or near it, throw the elbow forward, and snap the throw. If they are good infielders, they pre-position their bodies so they have proper posture the way a good shortstop fields the ball while almost simultaneously in the process of turning her body to point the glove hand shoulder at her target. They do not field the ball, pull it to their waist, hop into scarecrow position and then throw from perfect position.
If you've ever been in a Howard Kobata clinic, this and other speed skills are the primary focus. Kobata wants infielders to use their body's momentum attained in the act of fielding the ball to add force to the throw without stopping and attaining perfect body position. This is achieved through working on proper footwork. Kobata's methods are very effective for teaching infielders to get outs quickly.
Kobata takes it a few steps further and works those throws in which the fielder is perhaps on the wrong foot or otherwise unable to attain proper posture. He has them throw balls with both the right and left foot forwards. Just as an NFL quarterback must learn to throw off both feet, if he is to be successful, a softball player must also learn to be accurate and reasonably strong when making throws with the off foot forwards. Infielders often have little time to make throws after making good plays on batted balls. They cannot afford to lose the tenth of a second or more required to gain their proper footing. They have to be able to make the difficult throws from awkward positions and be accurate with those throws.
The 2B who fields the soft grounder straight in front of her as she charges in is often past the point of being able to throw over the top, across her body and still hit the 1B covering the bag. She must practice those side-arm throws needed to make this play. The same is true for other infielders including the pitcher. Obviously, catchers need to be able to make throws from awkward positions. If they never practice these, they never get as good at them as they could be. Practice also teaches them which throws they can make and which ones always end up in the outfield.
The other kinds of difficult throws that are often blown are those in which either the player gets up off the ground or must make a throw to a target located directly in back of her. When players get off the ground, they usually do so in a hurry and they want to make the throw quickly. Back in the ole football days, we used to do a lot of drills which involved falling to the ground, getting back up again, and then running towards the play. I remember thinking they were stupid until one time I was pursuing a play and never saw my teammate on his hands and knees in front of me as I ran full speed. I tripped over him and then rolled naturally into a position from which I got up quickly, continued my pursuit, and eventually brought down the running back. You must practice going to the ground, getting back up again and then making a play.
Just to drive home my point, I suppose I never thought of going down and getting back up again as a "skill" until one day in an elimination game I had a player fall down. Her first reaction upon falling down was to sprawl out like a kid making an angel in the snow. When she started to move again, she realized that she was the only one close enough to make a play on the ball laying nearby. It seemed like it took an eternity for her to get up. By the time she reached the ball, she was completely discombobulated. She followed her awkward moment with a worse throw to an unseen, by me, target. It was a disaster!
Since that day, I have viewed getting up from a fall as a skill. I have watched countless players go to the ground and then take too long to get back up again. At one point I watched a very skilled SS go to the ground to field a ball and get back up again as if she were a big cat chasing dinner. She got the runner out at first as if she had never been on the ground. Sure, she was extremely athletic. But she obviously had performed the move before. She knew how to get up from the ground and make a play. It was not a skill she was born with. Softball players need to acquire this skill wherever they play.
I think we often have outfielders run to retrieve a ball which has struck the fence and bounced back towards or away from them. This is a common drill for the position. They are expected to grab the ball, turn 180 degrees around and hit the cutoff ... always. They practice this and across the broad spectrum of players, are, as a class, pretty good at it. The plays which stick in mind involving a throw directly in back of a player which are frequently blown are those in which an infielder has to go back, retrieve a ball and then make that same kind of throw.
Sometimes a pop-up is just out of reach behind of a middle infielder, or hit behind first or third, and results in an infielder having to sprint back to pick up a ball, turn around and unexpectedly make a throw to a base. This seems, on the surface, simple enough. You just have to run, pick up an unmoving ball and then make a throw. There's no need to drill or practice that! OK. So why are so many of these kinds of plays blown when the infielder makes a bad throw? [; You have to devise drills for infielders to retrieve balls on the ground and make throws accurately to all bases.
Part of me wants to write more about drills you could work into your practice to work on the skills we have discussed. Part of me recognizes that I have already written far too much for a single article. I'll meet you halfway and give you just a little of what you might consider doing in practice.
For starters, after your players have warmed up their arms and maybe done some long tossing, you could work in some simple underhand and/or backhand throwing drills. I suggest having them perform pitcher snaps back and forth for a couple minutes from about 15 feet. Then have them spend a few more minutes throwing underhand from 20 feet apart, then 30. I am not suggesting that they will throw underhand from 30 feet in games but I want them to practice throwing underhand from far apart to improve the skill.
I've "wasted" no more than five minutes of your valuable practice time so far. If you're game to "waste" a few more minutes, put your team in groups of three. Have one player feed balls to a fielder who then tosses underhand to a target player. This should be like my "five ball" drill in which players work on speed throwing but the target player need only be 20-30 feet away from the fielder. The feeder can throw the ball right at the waist of the fielder or she can roll a grounder to her. You rotate the players into each of the three positions: feeder, fielder and target. You can do multiple iterations if you like. But everybody goes at least once and you use 5 balls so they get 5 reps each.
In addition to normal underhand throwing, I suggest a similar regimen for backhand throwing. To save time, you could do regular underhand throwing at Monday's practice and backhand throwing at Wednesday's. After warm-up throwing have them do backhand snaps and then throws. Then maybe do the five ball drill.
In each of these types of instances, it is imperative that coaches observe and correct technique. Don't merely get into the rut of having the girls go out to the outfield and do warm-up throwing then underhand without any coach supervising. The idea is to improve the skill. Supervise and correct!
When you run your infield or full fielding practice, also don't get into ruts about allowing players to do whatever is easy. If a play truly calls for an underhand or backhand throw and the player instead chooses to make a slow, standard play, correct her. Use what happens when running defensive practice to teach when to use these techniques and insist that they do so.
Another kind of drill you can use to work on underhand throwing involves placing cones in a circle with a diameter of about 30 feet or so. Have player stand around this circle and make the particular kind of throws to each other randomly. To make it more interesting, put in a second, third, etc. ball and encourage them to move it quickly. You can have a predetermined order of girl A throwing to girl B but that should not be necessary. And to make it really interesting, have them run slowly around the circle while doing this!
With respect to the other kinds of tough throws I have discussed or those which you can come up with on your own, I think you can develop your own drills fairly easily. The trick is to identify a kind of throw which your team or half the members of your team seem to have trouble performing. Figure out the skill you want them to develop, teach the technique you'd like them to use, and then develop drills to work on the skill. It can seem silly at first. You can get input from the players themselves and let them develop their own drill. But you must teach and supervise the technique. Then you must insist they use it.
I believe that if yuou identify the kinds of plays which your players seem to struggle with or that good teams, but not yours, seem to be able to do routinely, you can identify the tough throws and other skills you want your kids to develop. That is at least part of the beauty of scrimmages and games. You get to see plays which involve things you never have worked on in practices. If the trouble plays recur with any regularlity over your coaching career, they probably involve skills you should work on. Best of luck with this important aspect of the game.Labels: coaching, defense, pre-season preparation, throwing
Permanent Link: Tough Throws
 
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