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Calling Out All Crowhoppers!
by Dave
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
There is a definite change in the air and I'm not talking about the weather. Umpires are actually calling illegal pitches this year. And they're doing it a lot. I'm not sure precisely why - probably an instruction from the NCAA or some such - but high school and youth umps are following suit. The issue and the new found frequent rate of calls brings up a number of questions that may have some folks fairly confused. I'd like to discuss some of these to help clarify things a bit.
I was going to list out issues and questions numerically but there are so many cross-related items that I find I must write this in my usual rambling way. I'm gonna throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks.
The first item on the agenda is: why am I writing this now? I am writing about illegal pitches because I have seen and heard more calls and more comments by umpires and coaches in the first few weeks of this year than I have in the several full years prior. I watched my first college game on TV a few weeks back and witnessed multiple illegal pitch calls against both pitchers of two top teams. Obviously the umps are calling it at the collegiate level. This may be an early season emphasis on pitching rules or it may continue throughout the season as the ruling bodies actually get serious about it.
I do believe that the illegal pitch call must start at the top and emanate downwards through youth play. If the college umps are not calling egregious infractions, why the heck should an ump at a 10U game care particularly much? I have seen much ado about illegal pitches at the high school level and so I assume that every umpire is hot on the trail. I expect to see more calls in travel ball this year than ever before. Therefore, we must all be concerned with it until that supposition is proven wrong.
So what is an illegal pitch? Aside from a pitcher going to her mouth while on the rubber, bringing her hands together twice, not bringing her hands together at all, etc., there are really three sorts of illegal pitches, one called a "crow hop" another a "leap." The third kind involves a pitcher stepping outside the pitching lane but I'm not going to get into that today.
The distinction between crow hopping and leaping is really only important in as much as it elaborates upon the overall rules. That is, an illegal pitch, whether crow hop or leap, is still an illegal pitch. But nobody seems to grasp the difference between the two and this leads to something of a misunderstanding.
The basic rules of windmill pitching require the pitcher to maintain contact with the pitcher's plate (rubber) until she releases the ball from her hand. Obviously, very few pitchers are actually in contact with the rubber when they release the pitch. That is because it is not physically possible to push off well and throw using your legs while maintaining contact. Therefore, the rules logically say that if the pitcher drags her push off (pivot) foot along the ground, she is deemed to have maintained contact with the rubber. In short, you don't have to maintain contact with the rubber until you let the ball go. You must be in contact initially and then drag away, not lose touch with the ground, before releasing the ball.
The infraction known as a "leap" involves the pitcher losing contact with the ground with her pivot foot. The pitcher pushes off, becomes air-born with both feet off the ground and then throws. It is not imperative that both feet be off the ground for a "leaping" infraction. All that must happen is for the foot pushing off the rubber to lose contact with it and the ground. You do not cure leaping by having a pitcher land with the other foot before losing contact with the pivot foot. Generally, "leapers" become completely air-born, if but only briefly.
The "crow hop" is related to the leap but, in this case, the would-be "leaper" lands her pivot foot anew before releasing the ball. She obtains what is called a "new point of impetus" before she completes her windmill. This has the effect of putting her much closer to home than she would otherwise be. That is, a pitcher throwing from 43 feet might leap to a new point of impetus several feet in front of the rubber and, in effect, be pitching from 40 feet or closer rather than the rulebook distance of 43.
Why do pitchers crow hop? Some folks claim that they do this in order to throw harder because throwing with a crow hop is faster than throwing legally. I very much doubt this is true. The fact is a proper pitching motion is more efficient than an improper one. The crow hop is not a faster method. It does shorten the distance and thereby make it seem as if the pitcher is throwing harder but it does not make her faster. I say this because I've heard claims that it actually adds mph on the radar gun. There's just no way that is true. Those who make the claim are just not thinking the thing through.
Still, a crow hop does provide an advantage to the pitch because it brings her closer to the batter and shortens the time, however slightly, that the batter has to decide and swing. It provides an unfair advantage, one contemplated by the rule makers and is specifically prohibited. The leap is also prohibited but I doubt it gives any real advantage to the pitcher.
When an illegal pitch is called, the batter gets a ball and any runners on base are moved forward one base. Some folks confuse this with a balk in baseball because that is close to what results with a baseball balk. But the two are really completely unrelated. A baseball balk has nothing to do with a pitcher getting an unfair advantage over a batter. Rather it is the baserunner(s) over whom an unfair advantage has been obtained. Obviously baserunning rules in the two sports are very different. Since there is no leading before the pitch in fastpitch softball, the baseball balk is completely irrelevant to softball.
There are generally two types of baseball balks, a procedural balk and a punitive balk. The punitive balk happens when there are runners on base. A delayed dead ball is theoretically called and runners advance a base. I say "theoretically" because in practice, everything stops on a balk call. There's no delay about it though that is what the rules call for.
When there are no runners on base, the only sort of balk that can happen is a procedural one. Because the balk rule specifically contemplates baserunners being deceived, there is no penalty unless the umpires believe the pitcher was doing something illegal in order to fool the batter in which case they may award a ball. When a softball illegal pitch is called, the batter is always awarded a ball and any baserunners awarded the next base. There is no distinction between a procedural or punitive illegal pitch.
Baseball pitchers do not crow hop because this provides a disadvantage to them. Every baseball pitcher knows that they need to keep their pivot foot on the rubber as they push off and come forward to the release point. There is nothing to be gained from bringing the pivot foot forward on the mound, obtaining a new point of impetus and then throwing because they lose some of the downward trajectory advantage they have and because they cannot get as strong a push off. This brings up a point relevant to windmill pitching but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Baseball pitchers' pivot feet frequently do not drag away from the rubber, however, because, I suppose, the mechanics of baseball pitching are different - they are overhand. Any overhand throw ends with either a foot dragging or not. It is about 50/50. There doesn't seem to be much particular reason to do either. Neither is markedly more powerful than the other - it is more a question of style or habit. Some pitchers do drag, some do not. It depends on the style of pitching they are performing. Some pitchers have their pivot foot fly away after push off and before release. Some pitchers drag. But it ain't covered in the baseball rulebook and absolutely nobody cares.
Regardless of what is covered in the baseball rulebook and regardless of whether baseball pitchers do or do not crow hop or leap, the fact is these are both illegal in windmill pitching. So, why do girls do it? There are several reasons but, again, I do not believe anyone is trying to learn to do it in order to gain an advantage.
Windmill pitchers, unlike their brothers in baseball, must train by performing actual pitches throughout much of the year. In youth and high school ball, many baseball pitchers take much more of the year off than windmillers do. The windmill is just that much harder. But in most places, one cannot practice pitching outside on an actual pitching surface.
Most pitchers do their "winter work" on a flat surface, without a rubber, or on some type of artificial surface with a rubber but no actual dirt around it. The gymnasium floor is often a place where pitchers work. It is very difficult to drag away from a point of impetus (rubber or not) on gym floor surfaces because they are made for NOT SLIPPING.
If you get yourself one of those mats with a rubber on it, you can drag away more easily than on a gym floor but it is still far more difficult than real dirt. So, regardless of where they perform their winter workouts, many softball pitcher's get out of the habit of dragging away.
Sometimes, they actually develop crow hops while throwing on these indoor surfaces. I'm not sure why this is but perhaps it could have something to do with trying to develop more speed. Again, the crow hop is not a faster method of pitching but when a girl is pitching on a difficult surface to push and drag, she may do things in order to gain leverage so as tyo throw hard and not put too much stress on her shoulder. Since she doesn't lose anything in the gym because she has no rubber, perhaps she can be prone to crow hopping. I really do not know but I have seen many gymnasium pitchers who were legal outside develop crow hops during the winter.
A larger reason why pitchers develop crow hops has to do with the windmill learning process. The motion is, in my humble opinion, one of the most complicated moves in all of athletics. There is so much to learn separately with the upper and lower body, not to mention the core muscles, that it has to be taught in pieces. A girl learns to snap the ball out of her hand, then bring her arm down and snap, and then a full rotation followed by a snap. After the basic arm rotation is taught, then and only then, the twisting of the core is taught. Only after these two pieces are learned fairly well is she taught about pushing off. Thereafter, drills and warm up routines are established which break the motion down into pieces and ultimately bring them together. It is very complicated and many girls struggle along the way.
I have watched several girls who have been trained to pitch for several years have difficulty maintaining a reasonable circle throughout their rotation. I have seen many who do not fully open and thereby reduce the quality and length of their circle from which much of the power is gained. I have seen many other girls who, despite fully opening and maintaining pretty good arm circles, have difficulty with the end of the motion or simply get into the habit of forgetting to snap the ball. It is not easy.
In order to fix broken parts, many coaches go back to the drawing board and build up from the bottom again. Then, after the broken piece is mended, girls sometimes have trouble bringing the thing back together again. Or, and this is really frustrating, the girl fixes the broken piece and then something else is out of alignment. Windmill pitching can very much be "Humpty-Dumpty."
Sometimes girls learn to pitch while making the mistake of crow hopping or leaping and these aren't fixed by their coaches for a couple reasons. First of all, if a coach is working on 50 different little pieces that need tweaking, probably the last thing he or she is concerned with is a tiny leap. Secondly, because the leap is very hard to fix on a poor surface for pitching, why bother? Heck, she'll fix that when she gets back outside and we have so much else to do!
Another reason why pitching coaches do not or have not in the past bothered to fix little leaps and hops is because nobody has been calling them for years. There has been a lot of talk about the subject but nobody has done anything about it for a long time. Now, all of a sudden, the talk has caught the attention of the governing bodies and they are trying to fix what they allowed to break in the first place. So, at the last Olympics, illegal pitches were actually called. Also, last year the NCAA got slightly tougher on pitchers' feet. Then the high school umps applied it a bit more than they had in the past. This year seems to be the water shed. Umps are calling it left and right.
Why was the illegal pitch almost never called before last year and this one? I can't really say for sure but I assume that 1) nobody saw a real advantage gained by pitchers and 2) the rule has one major defect.
In baseball, as I said, the pitcher who commits a balk is trying to get, or in effect getting, an advantage over the baserunner. In softball, that's not the case. In baseball, the rules very sanely say, if you're trying to get an illegal advantage over the baserunner, then not only will we not allow it but we will give the baserunner an advantage by moving him up one base very time you do it.
In softball, where the pitcher is trying to get, or in effect deemed to be getting, an advantage over the batter. We sanely penalize her by awarding a ball. But, we then turnaround and also award baserunners a free advance to the next base. We penalize the pitcher once by awarding a ball to the batter and that should be about right. That should be it.
Umpires are often gifted with a good amount of common game sense, whether they know the rulebook precisely as written or not. Many I have encountered over the years have taken time to explain not only to pitchers but also to coaches precisely what it is they think she is doing wrong. I have even seen umps take the additional step of explaining the problem to parents of pitchers between innings. They seldom make the illegal pitch call, or have historically done it seldom, because it changes the game, slows it down and basically destroys much of the good.
If you walk up to a random field and observe a pitcher at 10U through 18U, chances are probably 50/50 or better that you will see a pitcher make at least one illegal pitch during any inning. Most likely, if you stay for both innings, you will see both pitchers make multiple illegal pitches. Can you imagine going to a softball game, expecting it to be a low scoring, hour and a half affair but when you get there, the first pitch is called illegal, then the second, and so on? That nice pure game will end up taking more than the 4 hours many baseball games take. The score will be something like 50-49. And both pitcher will have thrown no hitters! VERY BORING!
Many umps recognize this and call illegal pitches infrequently unless the game is an important one. The last thing they want to do is make the game a huge bore for all involved.
Another reason umps have often ignored illegal pitches is because when you take some 11, 12, 16 year-old pitcher and tell her to change her motion in the middle of a game, two things can happen. One is she is going to throw so badly that the ball is going to be hit all over the place. It is not because she has lost that wonderful advantage she illegally gained over the prior hitters. It is because she is now out of sync and unable to pitch the way she has thrown the last forty thousand practice pitches. -; She doesn't know what to do.
More importantly, when a pitcher changes her motion in the second inning of some game and then continues to throw another 100 pitches in a failed attempt to correct the mistake she has been making without correction over the past 3 or 5 years, she is going to put far too much stress on her shoulder, her back or some part of her body. She is going to end up injured. And that is a really bad outcome of trying to correct something like this during a game.
Do you think I am overstating reality by claiming that most pitchers throw illegally and can be called multiple times each inning? Take a look at the top names in our game and show me five pitcher who do not throw illegally! Jennie Finch? Sorry, almost every pitch she throws involves a slight step forward off the rubber onto the ground in front of it. Monica Abbott? Cat? Ditto, ditto. Keep going. I guarantee you that almost every pitcher in the top 50 or even 150 in the world, some of the greatest pitchers of all time, has some sort of routine flaw with her feet that should, if the letter of the rules are followed, result in a call at least some of the time.
Now, there are crow hops and there are crow hops. There are leaps and there are leaps. Jennie Finch gains nothing worth noting with her "step" which is technically a crow hop. I'm not sure that any of the top pitchers really do gain from their hops or leaps. It is just hard to be athletic with one very important foot nailed to the ground.
Further, even the game surface is somewhat imperfect. Have you ever taken a good look at the dirt in the circle during a tournament game when 5 games have already been played on this field and the only repair work is by some guy like me who is absolutely clueless and even if he had a clue, doesn't have the proper materials or equipment to fix holes in the surface?
I have watched games on occasion where a pitcher was called for leaping because she lost contact with the ground after push off. But the area in front of the rubber had a one foot drop and it is getting worse each and every pitch! That is certainly not true of international or NCAA level games but in everything from high school on down, there are some pretty bad field conditions. And even with state of the art equipment and materials applied by a real ground crew, during play, there are going to be holes dug.
How about this resolution to the illegal pitch? Let's get a guy with clay at the ready and a tamper to pat down each application. Now let's call him in after each inning to fix the surface? No, that's not fair, he should come in every half inning. And if the area gets beat up during a half inning, the plate ump can call him in to fix it. This will really make the game fun and quick!
As I said, there are girls who hop quite egregiously. And there are girls who leap very badly regardless of field conditions. These problems need to be fixed. A pitcher with a 3 foot crow hop should not be allowed to continue doing it year after year. I'm not really sure about the leap since I don't think it really provides anything positive and really results from bad timing and coordination or lousy field conditions.
A likely rebuttal to my diatribe today is probably going to be something like the rules are the rules and they should be applied evenly, period. To that, I will say that, technically, if you apply the rules perfectly, no player on the defensive team, nor her parents in the stands for that matter, is allowed to distract an offensive or defensive player in any way, shape or manner. That being the case, and the rules are the rules, you must remain quiet in the stands in those tense moments that determine the outcome of the game. Probably it would be best if players only spoke when the ball is in the circle and the pitcher is not on the rubber lest they distract anyone. So no chatter of any kind is allowed. All those catchers taught to block the plate while the throw is still incoming, that is obstruction. Any contact made between an incoming runner and the catcher has to be either interference or obstruction and because these players are really not supposed to come into contact at all, someone should be ejected from the game on almost every close play at the plate I have seen.
The point is rules can be taken to extremes. Obviously there is need for most rules. They ought to be applied and applied evenly. , But rules change or are clarified every year because they are, by nature, imperfect. -; before we go from a speed of -0- to one of 120 mph, we ought to at least consider the bigger picture (I almost wrote pitcher).
Personally, I think some degree of latitude should be given to the finch's of the world. I think there should be room for a "crow hop" on one or two inches which really would be limited to a mere slipping and sliding of the pivot foot from the rubber to a point right in front of it. I also think a degree of rationality should be applied to the leap rule. I saw a pitcher against who illegal pitches were called the other night on my Tivo. The broadcasters noted that she had lost touch with the ground by a few inches on each delivery. I replayed one over and over until I saw it. She did leave the ground though you'd have to have very good eyes to notice it. The funny thing was that she left the ground on those pitches on which illegal was called almost as often as she did when it wasn't called!
We might also want to at least look over at our brethren on the baseball diamond and make note of their balk rule, just as a reference point. if the attempted illegal advantage is over the runners, they should get the benefit of any penalty. If it isn't, they shouldn't. The windmill pitch is a theoretical attempt to gain on the batter, not the runners. The penalty should be a ball. Why should the runners advance????
Finally, I seriously doubt that many folks out there, be they umps, coaches or whatever, have a good understanding of pitching rules. One umpire recently said to a pitcher throwing warm-ups that she was crow hopping. She wasn't. She was leaping. And, by the way, you are allowed to do that during your warm-ups! A coach once recently was heard telling a pitcher that she was crow hopping, she wasn't. She was leaping but that was because the field was in such terrible condition that had she dragged, she would have ripped her toe nails off inside her shoes.
I know rules are often hard to understand and harder to apply fairly. But to the guy coaching first base who screamed balk as my then 9 year old was about to release the ball approximately 100 times during a nothing tournament game several years ago, read my lips. THERE IS NO BALK IN GIRLS FASTPITCH SOFTBALL. Also, to the same fellow, your daughter is an egregious crow hopper! For the rest of you, please consider the words of ten year MLB umpire, Ron Luciano, as he addressed the issue of baseball's balk. he said, "I never called a balk in my life. I didn't understand the rule."Labels: pitching, rules
Permanent Link: Calling Out All Crowhoppers!
 
"Winning Is A Habit" and "Leadership"
by Dave
Monday, April 05, 2010
We love our slogans. Much wisdom can sometimes be imparted through their use. But other times such catch phrases and proverbs can be misinterpreted and at these times, their use and overuse can be rather confusing or downright dangerous.
I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to using slogans to make points in reference to just about anything and everything. It is what it is. I am trying to stop but, you know, routine will set you free unless your routine includes bad habits. Bad habits die hard. I'm an old dog and it is difficult for me to learn new tricks. I get upset when I find myself overusing catch phrases, but there's no point crying over spilled milk. Well, enough of that. It's time for me to explain where I want to take this. I've got to fish or cut bait, put up or shut up. So here's what I want to discuss today, warts and all.
I am not a fan of certain very popular phrases. I love Vince Lombardi and everything about his approach to coaching athletics but I'm afraid "perfect practice makes perfect" is somewhat misunderstood, misinterpreted, or misapplied. Another of my least favorite phrases, one often overused in softball, is "winning is a habit." One reason I don't like it is because it is used wrong but another is because the phrase is an oversimplification. The phrase itself is weak and potentially dangerous.
I understand what "perfect practice makes perfect" means. It can used in reference to something as small as a mechanical skill. If you want to perform a mechanical movement in sport, you've got to do in right and then repeat it many times (thousands) until you always do it right and never do it wrong. If you make a mistake, you have to correct it and then repeat, repeat, repeat. if you make a mistake and then make it again, there is a good chance it will become habit and you will prevent yourself from ever doing it right. That is one microscopic meaning of the phrase.
On a larger macro view of the phrase, it is probably easiest to first examine it within the context of Lombardi's sport. He coached football, in case yesterday was your first one on the planet. Football is a complicated sport, far more complicated than many fans and non-fans imagine.
I remember getting into arguments with my mother about sports. She participated in synchronized swimming and preferred ballroom dancing and figure skating to the "barbaric" sport of football. I told her these other things were not really sports at all which, of course, angered her. I explained further that football is every bit as complicated as ballroom dancing or figure skating but it involved 11 players trying to dance while 11 others tried to prevent them from dancing their routines. She scoffed at that but my father always understood.
My father saw how football involved complicated combinations of steps. He understood that on a simple "trap" play, if everyone was not in the right place at the right time, the thing would not only fail but also be a complete travesty. For example, as a right offensive guard, I had to practice my pulling steps on my own and make sure they were in performed perfect timing. If I was too slow, the running back would beat me to the line, run into me, or trip over my feet as I made my block. If the center did not get off the line quickly, I would trip over his feet. If the left offensive guard and tackle performed their blocks poorly, I would run into them. If the right tackle did not seal off the back side, his man would follow me and tackle the running back behind the line of scrimmage. If the other running backs and receivers did not do what they were supposed to do, the deception of the play would fail. And if the QB did not get the ball to the runner at precisely the right moment, well, the whole choreographed play would collapse. Everyone had a job to do and they had to do it absolutely right if the thing was to have a chance to succeed.
When a football team practices the simple trap play without a defense involved, it must be done right many times or it will never be run right with a defense. Next up, it runs this play with a defense, though not a highly motivated one in practice. If it is not run properly like that, it won't be run well when their is a defense looking to stop it in a game. It must be practiced perfectly. Perfect practice makes perfect. I get it.
The trouble with the phrase is many times, things are not practiced perfectly yet they work out in games. That is because athletes do more learning when they make mistakes than when they succeed. Take a look at any competitive situation including fastpitch softball.
If a player gets a hit every time she bats, she never really learns to deal with adversity. She never learns to deal with the pitcher who gets everyone out. When these two come together for the first time, somebody is gonna fail. When the team that always hits faces the pitcher who always wins, they may struggle or the pitcher may. Then somebody is going to have to make adjustments and perhaps the other is going to fail the second time around. Then the somebody who failed in round two is going to have to make adjustments and so on.
This is the primary motivation for trying to play top competition when crafting a season's schedule. We see this in almost every sport. The top teams, at the end of the day, are often those which scheduled heavy competition in order to season the team. The teams which falter down the stretch are almost as often those which may have won every game but were never really tested, never had to overcome adversity and make adjustments to meet the competition. But I'm getting ahead of myself because this feeds into the "winning is a habit" issue I want to adress next and I'm not finished with perfect practice yet.
If a player always seems to make the right play, more often than not it is because she has never really had to make a close call, she's never been pushed to the point of being forced into a bad decision. We learn from mistakes. We learn from losing. If you always make the right decision, if you always win, chances are pretty good that this has less to do with the wonder of you and more to do with having it too easy.
So it is with practice in any sport. If our theoretical football offense always runs the trap perfectly, then it is time for the coach to try to throw a wrench into things. They need to fail in order to get better. If a softball defense always makes the play during practice, practice is not hard enough. Maybe the balls have not been hit hard enough. Perhaps, if baserunners are involved in the practice work, they are not aggressive enough. If everything goes perfectly, not a whole lot has been gained.
I watched a televised college game between two very good teams recently. The game I saw was the third of three, the teams having split the first two. &nb sp; I am pretty sure that both teams have had some "perfect practices" and were well prepared to play the game of softball. But one team dealt with adversity better than the other. Team one went up by a few runs early. But team 2 came back gradually and eventually tied it. Team one seemed to come apart at times, making fielding errors and some poor choices. Team two played solidly all the way through, even when they were down by several runs. They made good and smart plays on defense. When they made something less than a stellar play, they shook it off immediately and tightened up the D on the next play. They won the game despite most likely not being the "better" team in terms of talent or having less perfect practices. It isn't always a matter of doing everything right which turns a team into a winner. Most often it is the bounce back capability, the dealing with adversity, the practice at being less than perfect, which turns teams into winners.
This brings us to the phrase "winning is a habit." I'm really not sure what that is supposed to mean. A habit is something we do without thinking too much about it. I get up, let the dogs out, make the coffee and drink a cup. I know I will do this tomorrow, the next day, and the next. I will get up at about the same time every day regardless of whether it is a weekend or weekday. I know exactly what my steps will be. I know exactly what order of steps I will take preparing the coffee. It is such an ingrained habit that if I do something unusual in this first routine of the day, I might just as well go back to bed because the rest of the day is not going to be any better.
We establish habits and then forget about them because we want to be freed by routine. We want to free our brains to think about the important things about the day. I do a great deal of thinking when I take a shower. I often come up with resolutions to problems, new drills to run in practice, or even the subject matter for a new piece to write. I can do this because I can take my shower with my brain switched to off. If I leave my brain in the bed and jump into the shower, I know I am going to get wet in a particular order, grad the bar of soap, rinse off, go for the shampoo, etc. There have been times when I have been so involved with some thought that I have had to stop and wonder whether I washed my hair or not. Then I realize that, of course, I have even though I wasn't aware of it. It is pretty strange but that is what habits are about. You do them without needing to think at all.
With mechanical skills like fielding a grounder, making a pitch, or even covering a base, we do not need to think very much. We see a pitcher go into her windup and we automatically feel the need to get into a ready position and look to the point of contact with the bat. One of the things I struggle with when watching a game is the overwhelming urge to drop to my knees when I see a pitch going in very low (that's from my catching days). When I stand at the outfield fence, I sometimes find myself taking steps when the batter makes contact with the ball. I can't help myself. These things became habit long ago.
Habit is a strange thing in this game. of you do not get habits built into your brain, you will have trouble. When kids field a grounder badly, it is hard for them to learn to do it right. I had a SS once who always fielded the ball to the outside of her left leg. She never got herself to the position of having it come between her legs to any degree. She also typically one handed it. This made her slower to deliver the ball to first. It was fine when she was young and playing rec ball but when she moved to travel and gradually aged up, she became ineffective. She frequently missed relatively easy plays either because she misjudged the hop due to fielding it to her left leg or she was unable to throw the fast runner out because her delivery to first was slow due to the added steps of recovering her body position, getting the ball into her throwing hand, and then making the throw from a proper position. This caused her to be a less than adequate SS despite having superior general athleticism.
There is another girl I know (really probably several of them) who likes to play 3B. When she (they) field bunts, they attempt to field the ball like the SS above, always off the left leg and one handed. Once the ball is picked clean from the ground, there is the pull up of the glove to the upper body so the ball can be removed by the throwing hand. Then there are two or more steps as she lines herself up to throw. And finally there is the throw. This is very slow, particularly once you get gifted athletes running the bases against you. But the method of the 3B(s) and the SS are habit and it is very hard to break.
Last night I watched a game I had TVoed between two top NCAA D1 teams. There were some illegal pitches called due to leaping. Jessica Mendoza noted that the pitcher probably had pitched with the mechanical flaw of leaping since she was 9 or 10. That is probably true an an apt comment made by a former outfielder - though Mendoza was also once a catcher. Mendoza commented that it is sad when these girls have to focus on basic mechanics when they pitch an important game. If I'm not mistaken she also commented that it is hard to watch girls trying to break themselves of a bad habit or illegal pitch mechanic. That it is!
Mechanical skills need to absolutely be habit. An infielder must not be worried that this time she may field a ball wrong because her mechanics need to be corrected when she is in a tight, important game. A batter does not need to think when she is up at the plate. She must do rather than think about doing.
I sometimes believe that not enough parents and even coaches fully understand this minor concept. The father or mother yelling "don't .." or "do ..." while their kid is at the plate is asking for trouble. If I hitch or drop my hands, the time to work on that is at home, at the tee, at lessons, or at practice, not at the plate. One great batting coach was overheard talking to a girl at an important showcase game. He told her he wanted her to think of only one thing at the plate. That thing was "applesauce." It is an interesting comment but its meaning is "you've done the work to get better already. Game time is not when you need to be thinking about mechanics which have become habit. Game time is the time to let it loose and just do, particularly when you are at the plate."
Proper mechanics must be habit. If a team has proper mechanics with respect to all its skills and those mechanics have become habit, it should win more than it loses. Perfect practice has made "perfect" and winning will probably often result from the habits formed in perfect practice. But that isn't really the meaning of "winning is a habit."
On another level, there is another misunderstanding of "winning is a habit." All the time I see parents working very hard to get their daughters onto the best possible team. You should try to get your daughter on the "best possible team" but I think perhaps I define the "best possible team" a little differently than some of the people I know.
Lots of parents get upset when their kid is on a team which "habitually" loses its first or second game on Sunday. Then maybe they win one or two and get to the championship but lose that game. The parents think, and often express, that they would like to get their daughter onto a team which wins. They want to instill the habit of winning in their kid because they feel this will make her a better ballplayer and/or person in the long run.
I remember a kid who was a pitcher for one of these teams that usually won. She was a pitcher. The team usually won two games on Sunday and at least played for the championship. This kid was the third pitcher for her team. She was a Saturday only pitcher! She never threw in elimination rounds. The team traveled to some championship tournament where they played several games over 5 days. She pitched two innings that week. The team did not finish high up, despite being in the habit of winning. But more importantly, despite the kid learning the "habit of winning," she never quite got the feeling of participating in those wins since she rode the pine most of the time.
Another kid was a gifted fielder and showed a fair amount of promise as a pitcher. Her father was extremely impatient with any team's losing. He wanted his kid to be on the best possible team and he found one the year after I knew him. His daughter was the 12th kid on the roster. She played but infrequently. He was such a braggart that he always threw how the team was doing at you. He wanted you to know that they played this tourney or that. He needed you to know that nobody really gave them much of a game at the tournaments. But it occurred to me that in these conversations, he never really mentioned his daughter. So I went to watch them. She played two innings, out of position, and struggled at the plate. She still plays for the team and they are still quite good. She starts for them now. There were some good lessons learned as she made her way into the line up. She has benefited from some very good coaching. But she has not learned "the habit of winning" because there is no such thing.
If you need to get your kid on a winning team, enjoy yourself. It may be really good for her. But it will not be good for her because the team wins and because she learns the experience (or habit) of winning. The team to get your kid on is the one with the best possible coaching regardless of team record. The team to get your kid on is the one that plays a very hard schedule, regardless of how well they do with that schedule. The team to get your kid on is the one where the girls work the hardest and support each other the most when they lose rather than being the best of friends when they win.
There was an interesting post on a softball blog I read earlier today. The gist of the article was rec ball is good for travel players due to several reasons including they learn how to be leaders on their presumably weaker rec teams. I disagree with the premises and conclusion of the article for a number of reasons, not the least of which is one does not necessarily learn leadership skills from being one of the best or the best player on a team. This can facilitate learning one sort of leadership but it does not teach the full spectrum.
I used to get confused when coaches in college softball proclaimed that one of the elements they seek in recruits is leadership. What confused me was not the proclamation but rather the term "leadership." I knew what it meant but I suppose I had forgotten the practical realities of leadership on a ball field. There are a lot of different kinds of leaders and I think I somehow forgot that and focused only on one kind.
Within thew universe of good, effective leaders, there are very quiet ones and there are loud ones. There are those who lead by barking orders and those who lead by example. There are those who have a vision or agenda and those who react well to adversity though they have no overall plan. There are those who lead best when their group or team is doing the right things and they give their co-workers or teammates the latitude of empowerment - they let people be to do what they know how to do. There are also those who deal best when the situation is a complete mess and everything is likely to fall apart unless someone takes charge and plots a course for each individual and then makes sure the steps of the project are followed through upon. There are leaders who need to be hands on. And there are leaders who delegate everything, trust their cohorts, and take more of a top-sided approach. Every successful team has a leader but each leader of a successful team is not cut from the same cloth.
In fastpitch softball and its kindred sports, leadership is not that which falls upon the best player(s). The guy or gal who leads the league in RBI, homeruns, ERA etc. is not always the most important leader on a team. At times, it can be the substitute player or the one riding the pine who does their job gracefully, who works her tail off despite never having a realistic shot of being a starter, who encourages others, by voice or example, to work hard at their craft and improve their game.
It is not just the best and worst who can be leaders. It is also everyone in between. A player could be the fifth best offensive player, the ninth or second best defensive one, or anything at all. The leader is the kid who comes into the mound when the pitcher is struggling and makes her better. The leader is the one who despite having all the skill in the world busts her tail in practice in an effort to get better. The leader is the kid who has no shot at making the starting rotation and who never complains but dives for balls when one need not dive. The leader is the one who remains calm in an ITB game after somebody makes an error which puts girls on first and third with no outs. The leader is the who runs all out after tapping the ball back to the pitcher on one hop with her team winning 8-0 in the top of the fifth because she never wants anyone to not run it out.
We really need nine leaders on any softball field if our teams are to be successful. That is why the college coaches look for leadership skills. But we also need a full spectrum of leaders on our teams. We need some who do it with their mouths, some who practice like demons, some who do not get upset after whiffing, some who stay strong after making an error, some who encourage others to stay strong after they make an error. As I say, there are all types of leaders.
I think we make a mistake by not recognizing the various kinds of leaders. I once had a girl on a team I coached whose parents undoubtedly encouraged her to be a leader, a specific kind of leader. She was not a particularly good player. She made some horrendous fundamental mistakes. She didn't practice hard. She was not coachable. Her temperament was not well suited either to the game itself nor to the make up of her team. What she ended up doing was becoming very bossy. She told the girls what they should do. She became quite a bully. And her play was never one of the bright spots on the team.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that this kid's parents felt strongly that she had become a leader. They did not see her flaws. They did not understand the idea that she had become a bully and was not working hard enough at her own skills to be in any position to tell others what to do. She was not well respected by her teammates. She came to be rather strongly disliked by them. What became habit for this kid was a lot of negative stuff. After the season was over, her parents sought to get her on the best possible team, a winning one. They continue to reap what they sow!
It is my opinion that winning in softball is the result of girls trying with all their might to practice as perfectly as they can and then doing the other important things involved in winning. It is up to the coaches to try to build into their games all the best mechanics possible and then to make those fundamentals as habitual as they can become. Then the coach needs to make sure that the team is learning to play together, that they are a true team - you know without the letter "I" in it. They need to play hard competition and do so gracefully even when losing games, while picking each other up, encouraging each other to shake off bad plays, living the example to each other of working hard regardless of what one's skill level is, and just generally doing all the things we think of associated with winning teams.
A team is a conglomeration of people who fit together well, work hard to accomplish a common goal, are led well by all involved, and continue to make progress until that goal is achieved. It is not a group that always wins and thereby becomes "in the habit" of winning. It is not a group which has one person who tells everyone what to do. It is not a group in which the best player is designated royalty and must be named captain, thereafter leading the group to victory.
In a game in which mistakes are common and the most important learning comes from making mistakes and then correcting them, "perfect practice" is just too vague of a term. Winning is far too complicated to be defined as a "habit." There are all kinds of leaders in softball and we need at least nine of them - probably better to have 12, assuming our roster is 12. If you doubt all this, consider that in a championship, frequently, both teams are 100% winners, at least in that tournament. Somebody in the "habit of winning" is going to lose. Perfect practice or no, everybody makes a less than perfect maneuver when faced with a very aggressive opponent or a tough situation. Better to practice the imperfect than face it for the first time in ITB of the last game. The loudest, most abrasive, bossiest is frequently not the favorite kind of leader.
Well, I've opened up a can of worms with this. I'm ready to take my medicine from those of you who think winning is a habit, etc. l; #We do need catch phrases and slogans. But before you use them, figure out what they really mean. Then please apply them properly. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.Labels: attitude, mental toughness, parenting, work ethic, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: "Winning Is A Habit" and "Leadership"
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