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Get Dirty, Revisited
by Dave
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
I feel foolish today. I never really would have given my topic of the day a second thought if I had not finally understood something I should have noted quite a while ago. Several months ago, I wrote something for all the girls heading to tryouts and those playing in front of college coaches. That piece talked about getting dirty, you know, diving to the ground while going after balls. The advice is sound. You should get dirty on the softball field if you want folks to take notice. But, as in most things of importance, merely suggesting to players that they get dirty is not nearly enough. I'm not sure why I hadn't realized this before. Today it is patently obvious.
Decades ago, I was a pee wee football player finding my way through calisthenics and drills meant to toughen us up and make us ready for game contact. We would run in place for 15 minutes and every few seconds the coach would blow his whistle. When we heard the whistle, we were required to hit the deck, get up as fast as we could, and then start running again. Honestly, this was not one of the harder parts of practice. I considered it a joke, a break. I could have done this all day. I was used to hitting the deck. I liked it. It was easy. I think the coaches thought they were torturing us. They weren't, at least as far as I was concerned. It seemed stupid.
As an adult softball player, one of my less intelligent moments came on a line drive. I was milling about near third base when this guy hit a shot. I had no time to think. I just dove and caught it. As I got up, everyone was laughing at me. I was kind of embarrassed. We were playing on blacktop so I got pretty badly cut up. I ran to the dugout and used my drinking water to clean out the cuts before running back out to my station. This was blacktop in Manhattan. It was filthy and I wanted to make sure I didn't get any infected cuts. All sorts of folks frequented this field and who knew how many times some homeless guy, like the ones who lined the field to watch, might have spit or worse right where I had ripped open skin.
As I said, my cohorts made fun of me for diving for a ball at a meaningless softball gathering. Many of the women (it was coed and half of these had been college players), felt I should not play due to the obvious injuries. They felt I should go get first aid and call it a day. I didn't because I wanted to play and because I was used to ripping myself up like that. So, after this batting practice was over and the coach asked if I could play, of course, I said yes.
I have never given much thought to diving or not. You really can't. If you have time enough to contemplate a dive, then you should probably move into a better position to make a catch and the dive becomes a moot point. Diving is reaction. It is not a decision. It is a conditioned response. My childhood in sports had conditioned me to dive if a dive can make the difference between something getting past me or making the catch. Yes, that's true even during batting practice. Actually to be quite honest, I would dive and ask questions later if I was playing whiffle ball with a kindergarten class, on broken glass. I just can't help it. But apparently, not everyone reacts that way and I suppose that is the subject of the day.
If you grew up watching baseball the way I did, one of the more memorable commonplace plays, involved Brooks Robinson, perhaps the greatest third baseman ever to play the game, diving on balls hit to his right. I used to have a poster in my room of Brooks completely air-born on a ball obviously bounced foul. I was no Baltimore Orioles fan but Brooks' dive was something everyone who appreciates the game can agree was truly remarkable.
Brooks was undoubtedly by far the best third baseman I ever saw. There certainly are many other very good ones. I can name probably a dozen but I want to note one who was also not on a team I cheered for at the time. Craig Nettles almost rivaled Brooks Robinson's movement to his right via his own technique to his left. He would almost always go air-born on balls hit that way which were otherwise out of his reach, even when he had almost no chance of making the play.
Many moons ago, I was coaching a 12U travel team. I had a very young girl on the team who loved to "get dirty." I practiced these girls pretty hard but as I began to wrap up practices, there was always this one kid standing last in line. I would hit her the last groundball of the day while looking to wrap up and put away the equipment. But each time, right after the last grounder, this girl would say, "Coach Dave, can you hit me some balls I can dive for?" Practice after practice, I would accommodate this kid by hitting 10 or more she could dive for. I never gave it very much thought. My biggest fears were 1) she would get hurt or 2) she would dive for some ball she should have played "normally."
Some time after this encounter, I observed one of the best shortstops I have ever seen on a softball diamond. She was just about 13 and playing for one of the top few teams in the country. Normally at games like this, I would spend a lot of time watching pitchers and hitters but this kid caught my attention while she was in the field. I watched her as the pitcher went into her windmill. She got into a great ready position and crept forward as the ball was released. When a batter hit a hard grounder up the middle, past the pitcher, this kid would go to ground to stop the ball, get up quickly and gracefully, and then make a good quick release throw to her first baseman, easily nailing the runner. Nothing got past her.
When I saw this kid in action, I thought what she had was mostly mental. She was a hustler. She dove for everything. That's attitude. You can't teach that!
This past year, while in California, I was watching a fairly closely contested showcase game. The defensive team was up by a couple when this girl hit a long fly to center. The CF ran hard back to the fence and without hesitating dove to try to catch it. The fence did not give very much as she went over it, got the ball into her glove, and struck the ground very hard. The ball was jarred loose and the batter began her HR trot as coaches ran out to check on the girl. She was injured pretty badly. She had a separated shoulder and perhaps some other less serious injuries. An ambulance was called. I understand they gave her morphine for some very severe pain which caused her to go into shock. You can't teach that sort of desire and I suppose perhaps you shouldn't.
I say you can't really teach desire but you can teach players how to go to ground. I guess it never occurred to me that "getting dirty" is as much a fundamental skill as anything else. It can and should be taught.
The other night we had an indoor practice. I always look for something we haven't done or that needs tuning because our girls just don't do it right. I decided that in order to spice up our backhand drilling (see last week's piece), I would get some mats out and have the girls go to ground while performing the backhand play. As I waited for my charges to come over to me, I envisioned throwing balls slightly out of reach, each of them merely diving onto the semi-soft mat to make the play, and then each getting up to make a throw. It would be a simple drill but one which they needed to do.
My one lament with this team has been that nobody is sufficiently constituted to dive after balls. These are not some rec or JV players. Most of these girls are real athletes, playing multiple sports on the varsity level or just shy of it. These girls are almost all fast, pretty good on fundamentals, have played several years of travel softball, and are generally hard as nails. For instance, we had one girl run into another on a foul pop last year and both went down hard. Neither kid would come out of the game. And, as it turned out, one had played with a concussion from the collision. When these girls get together, they do not play dolls. They generally have mock fist fights or otherwise roughhouse like a gaggle of boys. They are girls to be sure but they are not meek nor mild. But none dives, at least not often, after balls!
So there I was with my silly little drill and each kid took their turn trying to dive after the throw I made. I was actually shocked by their dismal performance. None of them knows how to dive. I needed to teach them how to dive!!!!
So the question becomes, what is a normal skill progression to teach girls how to dive after balls. The answer is ... Let's start at the start.
I would say that before one learns to walk, the usual advice is to learn to crawl. That's probably bad advice since crawling has nothing to do with walking. And crawling ruins those cute little expensive outfits we wasted our money on for our infants. Falling forward, however, has much to do with diving. So if I were trying to teach girls to dive after balls, I would start with a simple exercise of falling forwards.
Place a mat in front of a kid. Have her get into ready position, without a glove on, and then allow herself to fall forwards to ground. The object here is not to fall to one's knees which is exactly what they'll do the first time. You want them to fall into a push-up position with hands spread slightly wider than when they would do a push-up and legs straightened. It is sort of a belly-flop. You are going to need to have them perform several reps of this seemingly wasteful exercise until they can do it properly, without landing on their knees first.
Once you have done that a sufficient number of times, place the player on one side of the mat and have them dive sideways into the same position while facing you. If you are going to dive on your backhand side, you need to have your head turned towards your glove hand side. Do this enough until they can accomplish it correctly and then once more to reinforce. Now do it the other way, to the forehand side while, again, facing the theoretical direction from which the ball is coming.
Once these three types of falls have been practiced, have them put on their gloves and do them again. Players need to learn to go to ground with one hand inside a glove. Each will probably struggle with this a bit. You have to land on the pinky side of your glove when doing the forehand side dive and the thumb side of your glove when doing the backhand. Girls need practice at this. If they don't practice it, injuries will occur.
Once your group has accomplished the task well enough that you are confident they will be able to advance, it is time to work an actual ball into the drill. Again while facing you, each girl will, in turn, assume a good ready position and then dive for the ball as you throw it. The easiest way to start this out is with a ball bounced or rolled. Later, you can work in throws or line-drives.
Keep in mind that you must watch the way they dive very closely and correct errors. You want to teach them how to dive properly and then condition in the response with frequent drilling. That means this is not some drill you do once and then never engage in again. It is indoor season and, provided you have a reasonably soft mat, you can do this at every practice or every other one for 5-10 minutes, once you have taught the skill. After initial work, you won't have to have them dive without their gloves or the ball. That stuff was to get them used to the notion of diving and to keep them off their knees. So this can become a routine and quick part of every defensive practice sequence.
The mere diving and stopping or catching a ball is just the first part of the skill. After the ball is in the glove, a player has to get up and make a throw. It really makes no difference how good of a play you make if you get nobody out. And this takes practice. At first, some girls will get to their knees to make a somewhat weak throw. Others will gather themselves slowly, get up and throw as if they have all the time in the world. The difficult things to teach them are to dive, get the ball, get up quickly and then make a quick release throw to target.
We have done the dive and get the ball parts. Now let's finish the play. Some coaches well tell you to keep the ball in your glove and to get used to doing a push-up while holding the ball tightly inside the glove. Some coaches will tell you to take the ball out of the glove while down and push off the ground using your empty mitt and while pushing the ball into the ground with your throwing hand. I don't really have an opinion. I know how I do it but there's no point in explaining that. I suggest that you just merely have them get up and see what works for them to get up quickly and make a throw. And at some point, I suggest putting a stop watch to the drill. This may encourage them to find the fastest way possible.
When you get up off the ground, I believe it is best to have your hands close together and get up while twisting into the proper throwing direction. I don;t seem to be able to put this into words so experiment. The general idea is that a player is going to dive to either her forehand or backhand side and then have to make a play to one of the bases. So, retrieving a ball and then getting up to make a throw can involve several possibilities and all should be practiced, depending on a kid's likely positions. each kind of play and throw to each of the various bases requires some thought. Your SS needs to work throws not only to first and second but also to third - that's not a bad place to remain on the knees - and, of course, to home. You can figure out the rest.
Once you get back outdoors, you should not assume that you have covered this ground sufficiently. In case you didn't notice, the fields you play on have no mats to soften the blow for a diving player. They need to get acclimated to the sometimes harder ground. You should have drills requiring your infielders to dive some on the dirt and for your outfielders to hit the somewhat softer grass. These drills should become as easy and boring as my football drills were. Gradually, over time, your team will become hardened and begin to routinely dive for balls they might otherwise not make a play on.
The funny thing is the girls will probably begin to enjoy these drills. When I ran diving drills the other day, we came to the end of practice and everyone huddled around my station. More than one asked, "coach, can I jump in here and go again?" Just as was the case with my diving youngster a few years back, I ended up being the last coach to wrap up because everyone liked the drill and wanted to go again. Y They actually like diving. It's cool! And they can see themselves making these kinds of plays because, well, they always had the desire. I didn't have to teach them that. They just never really gave it much thought but they did not know how to dive. I felt foolish when I realized that.Labels: coaching, defense, indoor, mental toughness, pre-season preparation
 
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