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Scrimmage (def.)
by Dave
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Jeff wrote in to ask, "Have you written an article on the 'Reasons for Scrimmaging' or something like that. nbsp; I have several parents who think the sole purpose of a scrimmage is to win. I have tried to explain that I use them as a controlled game environment, so that I can see the girls perform certain skills under game situations. I coach both High School and Travel softball."
Jeff's question should not be of sufficient interest to justify much elaboration. The concept of a scrimmage is simple enough. I wouldn't suspect that anyone would any trouble whatsoever getting their arms around it. But, alas, apparently too few people get the idea.
First let's define the term:
Scrimmage (def.)
n. = "A practice session or informal game, as between two units of the same team."
v. = "engage in a rehearsal" / "practice playing"
So a scrimmage is essentially a practice, a rehearsal, a chance to do what you have been practicing in a game-like setting. It is not a contest which figures into standings for a league or otherwise should matter in a competitive sense. In other words, the goals of a team, its coaches, the players and their parents, generally do not include winning as they normally would. Other items are of much greater importance. And winning the thing usually does not even factor into the equation, especially when it cuts into other, more important goals. Some few times, coaches might make winning an important part of a scrimmage, especially towards the beginning of a season. But most of the time, it is an agent of preparation.
If you are familiar with major league baseball, you should know what spring training games are and understand the references to "grapefruit league" and/or "cactus league." These are somewhat comical references to pre-season games (ie. scrimmages). When athletes, like professional baseball players achieve a certain level of conditioning and skill expertise, they need less of what we think of as ordinary practice. They gain more from playing in game-like conditions than they do from repetitive drill sessions. They still spend time working on skills by performing those boring drills but they need live situations to work out the bugs. They need dress rehearsals to perfect their skills.
The same is true of athletes in most other competitive team sports like football, soccer, and, yes, softball. When the USA Olympic softball team wanted to get ready for the real games, they engaged in numerous prep games (scrimmages) against college teams. Some of those games were complete blowouts, a few were hotly contested, and one even went against Team USA. The idea was to have batters face live pitching and conduct offensive and defensive plays in real situations. Certainly Team USA wanted to win every game because they were playing against teams obviously inferior to themselves. It would have been embarrassing to lose. But I guarantee you that coaches did not always play the best possible player at each position. They also did not chose to use certain pitchers because they felt that this or that one would shut down their opponent for the day while sitting this pitcher because she might be vulnerable. These were practices, though practices meant to hone the competitive edge of the team's players.
Not only highly trained, world class athletes need scrimmages. 10U players can benefit quite a bit from them too. Just about every level of competitive softball team plays some sort of scrimmage at some time or another. You really need to scrimmage in order to properly prep kids. You can put out your infield and put the other half of the team in helmets so they can run the bases but the infield drills you'll run will still not be the same as a scrimmage game. In a scrimmage game, you never know when somebody is going to hit a ball into play, a baserunner is going to try to advance, or somebody is going to make a bad play or overthrow. These things will certainly happen in the real games and the best way to prep the kids for those is to scrimmage, at least a few times, before the real stuff starts.
So the concept of the scrimmage is pretty easy to understand. But that is just one part of Jeff's question / comment. The other part involves explaining to the parents of scrimmage participants that winning is not part of the equation. From my perspective, it really goes on to levels beyond just the parents. Many times I have seen scrimmage participants (coaches, etc.) just not understand what it is we are trying to do out here today. I have witnessed much of the same kinds of reactions to scrimmages that Jeff is bringing up. I have also witnessed things well beyond those parental disappointment reactions.
At one point several years ago, I was looking for a fall league with which to prepare a very inexperienced group. The director of one league advertised his league as a great place for teams moving up in age group. My team was majority moving up with a few second years sprinkled in plus many kids who had never played travel ball before. After corresponding with the league director, I decided to join. Many of the teams were exactly as advertised. But the director himself had a team in the league and they were moving up and out of our age division the following spring. He had basically organized the thing so his kids could beat up on some easy competition. In one game, he brought in a 13 year old to face several 10 year olds. It was ridiculous. Long afterwards, in another correspondence, I told this fellow what I thought of him. I told him that if I had my 13 year old on his team and he pitched her against a bunch of little kids, she would not be returning to his team ever again. I told him that he was foolish not to play up in the fall and that he had developed quite a reputation among the coaches he had encouraged to join his league. The team's best players began to drop off the squad fairly quickly after that fall season. Within one year, the team folded. There's more to the story than my experiences but they all flow from the very same vein.
In another setting, a year later, we found a scrimmage partner and agreed to do a double header. In our first game, I think I pitched our number 3 and 4 pitchers. The other team pitched a girl who was ostensibly their number one but she got hurt and was removed from the scrimmage. At this point, you might have expected to see the number 2 pitcher brought in but instead, the coach had found himself a guest player who was a lights out pitcher. Understand that this kid was not trying out for the team. She played for another travel team, one age group up, but she was still eligible for this age group and was looking for opportunities to play games beyond her regular team's 8 tournament schedule. She would pitch for our scrimmage partner during two or three regular tournaments later that season. But he brought this kid to the scrimmage just in case he saw an opportunity to win a game! And that he did. They beat us pretty easily, especially after the lights out pitcher was brought in. Then she had to leave in a rush so she could go play with her real team.
During the next game of our scrimmage, I pitched our number 2 and 1 pitchers. I still went 3 deep at positions while our opponent played his first choice at every position for the whole game. But he had to use his number two pitcher who we smashed around pretty good. The other team could not hit our 2 and 1 pitchers. I think we were up 10-0 aftert two or three innings. While our opponent had been very animated during the first game, they began to fade pretty quickly when it was apparent we were going to win the second one. After something like four innings, the other coach approached me and said, "let's call it a day. Our parents weren't told this was going to be a double header and the kids are done."
I have to admit that I was really pissed. I had wanted my kids to see what playing two long games in one day would be like. I was looking to season them. I did not care even a little whether we won both or one of these games. I wanted a four hour scrimmage. This guy was looking to book wins not losses. As soon as it was clear he couldn't book a win, he wanted to go home.
In yet another setting, several years later, a travel team one of my kids was on booked a scrimmage with a team from not too far away. We had four pitchers who needed work and we asked them to play 8 innings so each could get two. They agreed. The team had found its 12 roster members but no position in the field was yet set. We wanted to look at several kids behind the plate, three at SS, a couple in CF, etc. We intended to use this scrimmage as a sort of second tryout in which one or two girls would thereafter be considered primary at one or two positions. Winning was not on our priority list.
Early on, the game was tightly contested in terms of score. But that did not impact where we played which kid. We continued through a pre-set rotation. They pulled one pitcher after we scored and threw the kid who shut us down best longer than their other pitchers. The score was tied in the last inning. It was apparent they were out to win this thing. They threw their best pitcher and played all their best players at their primary positions. We had our fourth pitcher in for her second inning. She was throwing to our fourth catcher.
A girl walked. They bunted her over as the number 3 third baseman fumbled the play. The girl on second stole third and our catcher threw the ball into the outfield allowing the runner to score. Their players ran onto the field screaming and cheering, then ran off the field and packed their bags. We had expected to continue playing. We wanted our number four pitcher to finish her two innings. But they had won and were celebrating! We never scrimmaged them again but we did beat them in a real tournament.
Interestingly, at least to me, all of these teams I reference as bad scrimmage partners possess the same understanding of what a scrimmage is about and they also share something else in common. After we met those teams, we followed what they did in their regular seasons. They all tended to play dumbed down tournaments. They chose to compete in B play when A tournaments were available. They did not aspire to play against the best competition they could find. Instead, they were trophy hunters. They played any tournament they could find in which they had a realistic shot at winning. And they did not get better because they almost always played inferior teams.
When it came time to figure some bigger tournament to attend, these teams often eschewed the tougher ones and went someplace where they would never be beaten badly. We went to the tournaments where we knew we would find better teams including the final one at the end of the year. And our girls benefitted hugely from the experience. We got better.
I have previously spent some time discussing the different sorts of play a travel team gets involved with. I don't recall whether I covered the concept of scrimmage in those discussions but if I were to draw up a hierarchy of games one might play, at the bottom would be scrimmages, next up would be "friendlies, then regular run-of-the-mill tournaments in which no berth to some larger tournament is involved, then qualifiers, followed by a "nationals" or other large regional tournament as the final competition of the year. In my softball world view, all of these sorts of competition must revolve around a central axis of team goals. If you plan on attending some sort of larger, more important tournament, that must be the axis. For example, if you are travelling to ASA, NSA, PONY, FAST, or some such nationals, everything you do for that entire year must be geared towards that goal. All other play is about preparing for the goal.
Generally, most travel teams I have been involved with will play some scrimmages, enter a couple friendlies, play a few run-of-the-mill tournaments, and then play lots of qualifiers. For most of the years I have been involved, we plan to attend something big at the end of the year. I am often disappointed when parents or assistant coaches approach after a friendly and offer up "constructive criticism" regarding decisions during the game. They are disappointed that we didn't win this or that game. And when I explain the difference between a friendly and a qualifier, they mostly don't seem to get it. Why did I have our number three catcher in there in the last two innings when we could have won that game? Because she needed time to work on her skills. It is really that simple. Friendlies are essentially scrimmages but at a higher level. The team needs all these experiences to improve and sometimes winning is not part of it.
Similarly, high school teams know full well what the important parts of a season are. Depending on the level of the team, perhaps the conference tournament is the most important aspect of the season. Perhaps it is county or state competition. Regardless, everything a team does is about the one or several goals they have established for the year. This is critical because it instructs the coaches and players how to approach all the various parts of the season.
Early on, a high school coach may have a very good idea about who his ace pitcher and starting players at each spot are. Perhaps there are a couple slots involving two or more girls and the coach is trying to make up his or her mind about who will stay with varsity and who will be better served by moving down to JV and playing all the time. Scrimmages play a central part of making these decisions. Often the second pitching slot at varisty is hotly contested. So if a team plays a scrimmage, you never know who might find herself in the circle at key times. It may be the likely JV kid. It may even be the freshman who is fourth in the pecking order. That's what scrimmages are for!
Even in regular season games, coaches often do things that seem counter intuitive in order to accomplish some important goal in the larger scheme of things. Say a team has a record of 12-2 and they are already qualified to compete in the county or state tournament. If the season starts to get too compressed, if there are two games scheduled one Saturday, if the coach merely wants the opponent not to bat against their ace, he or she may pull the girl from JV to pitch a game against a rival which would ordinarily seem to be an important one to win. This sort of thing happens all the time.
I remember one year in which rival A played games against rival B two times during the regular season. Rival A pitched their ace in both regular season games. Rival B pitched their number 2. Rival A won both. Then, in the championship tournament games, the teams faced each other two more times, once in the county and once in state competition. In those games, Rival B pulled out their ace and beat Rival A both times. Rival B also hit rival A's ace because they had seen her just enough to catch up with a couple pitches. Rival A felt its season was a failure. Rival B felt her team had conquered the world by basically giving up two games during the regular season so as to hide the ace pitcher. She was very pleased with her decision!
I feel I am rambling too long again. I hope you are getting what I am trying to say. Scrimmages are a controlled, competitive P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E. They are not one of several equally important games. They are added to the schedule for a purpose, to assist a team in its preparation for the important games. Winning is most commonly not one of the objectives when one engages in a scrimmage. The same is true for other types of competition but, most importantly, if you don't get the concept of scrimmage, maybe you need to think a bit harder. If after serious contemplation, you see all games, scrimmages, tournaments, etc. as about equal, perhaps the world of competitive team sports is not for you. I'm not trying to talk down to anyone. But it is apparent that you just don't get it. Trophies are for for people who like to dust worthless articles. Scrimmages are for teams who want to get better. Goals drive our actions. Winning is not always everything. In the end it is but how do you get to that end?Labels: pre-season preparation
 
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