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Humpty Dumpty
by Dave
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
When we teach complex skills like fielding the grounder and making a throw afterwards, we break it into little tiny, easily digestable pieces, especially when working with the very young. I have seen coaches from 8U through high school have their kids perform drills to emphasize the tiny pieces so as to either teach the inexperienced younger kids or attempt to cure mechanical flaws in older girls. These techniques are important and they do work. But, in a speed game, at some point, you've got to bring everything together in a fluid, quick motion.
When I teach throwing to 8 and 9 year olds, I often have them stand with their front shoulders pointing in my directions and their hands together at their waists. They then move up into the "scarecrow" position with the ball exposed to the sky, then step slightly towards the target while bring the throwing hand forward, etc. This is a multi-part action with all sorts of stopping points so a coach can judge whether each piece is done properly. But that process of stage one, two, etc. can have some serious detrimental results if we don't at some point unteach the stopping and lack of fluidity.
There is a high school coach nearby who at some point got sick of watching otherwise decent fielders blow grounders because they didn't watch the ball into their gloves. His resolution for this was to run a drill in which one girl rolled a grounder to another and the girl fielding the grounder would watch the ball into her glove to the point that her pony tail would flip over to the front side of her head. the ball was pulled to the waist and then the girl would pop into the throwing position. It should come as no surprise to anyone that if a girl were to do this and then follow it up with my throwing technique with all its pause points, that if a slapper were to hit a ball into play, she would make second base before the throw arrived at first trying to get her out!
I do think girls need to watch balls into their gloves, pay attention to their body posture while fielding grounders, and make good four seam throws to bases with their bodies properly aligned. But I'm just not willing to have girls continue in their softball careers while not getting anyone out! So, at some point, we must emphasize speed and quickness over technique.
I often tell the story of attending a clinic run by Howard Kobata in which two girls were participating in a catch and throw drill. One girl had a weaker arm. The other had an absolute canon. I would guess that the difference between the two girls' throwing speed was ten miles per hour or more. Kobata fired two balls simultaneously to the two girls standing pretty much side by side. Both balls were caught simultaneously. Both girls threw the ball accurately to their target. The girl with the weaker arm threw a weak throw. The girl with the strong arm fired a laser which was barely perceptible to the human eye. But you know what? The weak throw arrived a measurable time before the laser.
These girls ran through this drill several times. The laser thrower never beat the weak armed girl. Sometimes, the weak throw arrived quite a bit faster. It is difficult to judge time in such a setting but I would hazard a guess that on a few reps, the slower throw arrived at its target a full two tenths of a second, perhaps more, sooner than the hard chuck. Are you understanding? The canon-armed girl was going to get fewer kids out at first than the weak armed girl.
To drive home the fact even a little further, I attended one of those professional softball clinics at which Natasha Watley and Andrea Duran were playing the field. I had obviously seen both on TV but you don't really get much of a sense of the abilities of these two ladies on the tube. You really have to see them in person to appreciate their skills. One of the things which struck me was the speed of their throws. Both are very quick with their footwork and get rid of the ball extremely quickly. But in the throws I saw them make, neither had a particularly strong arm. I've certainly seen harder throws made at the college, Gold and high school levels. I may have seen harder throws at 16U and, in rare cases, perhaps even 14U. But in terms of infielder pop times - the time from the ball touching one glove to another, nothing I have ever seen came even close. When these girls field a grounder, you can blink and before your eyes are completely open, the ball is pounding the first baseman's glove.
The point is, what matters in softball is not so much the strength of one's arm but rather the total elapsed time from glove to glove. Having a good arm and sound mechanics matters. But nothing matters when the ball arrives too late and the kid who can get it to its target faster is better regardless of strength of arm. So that begs the question, how do we learn to be quicker?
The first stage of fixing anything, I suppose is awareness. We have instilled all these pause points in girls which cause these tiny hesitations and it is our job to fix them. When you're doing a skill like fielding a grounder and making a throw, you probably are not really aware of your minor hesitations. You do the skill as you were taughter and as you age up and become more athletic, the pause points become less perciptible. But they are still there. You don't necessarily feel your slowness. I think you have to see them first before you believe they are there.
If you can take a video which shows a girl herself while fielding an ordinary grounders and making a throw, that should help. &n bsp; In lieu of having video equipment handy, running a group drill which shows several girls being slower than they ought to be can also help. But sometimes that can be uncomfortable for all the girls in the drill.
You have to be careful to prepare the girls for what they are about to witness and make sure each and everyone gets about equal measure of criticism. Howard Kobata doesn't precisely practice this technique and I'm not about to criticize his methods. Just suffice it to say that people pay for Kobata's criticism and he gets to go home afterwards. You, as a coach or parent, have a more complicated environment in which you must continue to work with these players in other settings. So perhaps harsh criticism is not the technique you'll use. Still, your objective must be to demonstrate that they are not as fast as they could be.
Once a kid understands that she is slower than she can be, she is in the right mindset to fix some of the problems. Now it is time to conduct some drills to target speed. The first one I like to do involves three girls with five balls. So I call it the five ball drill. You could use three balls or you could use ten. But my experience is five quick reps is the right amount.
One girl feeds balls to the fielder. Another is positioned about 40-60 feet away. The feeder tosses balls to the fielder at about her waist who catches the ball and makes a throw in one fluid motion. The filder should take no steps before releasing the ball. She gets into a good ready position with her glove and throwing hand in front of her. The feeder tosses a ball, she catches and fires towards the target - but accuracy of the throw is not the objective early on. As soon as she makes the throw, the fielder gets back into ready position. As soon as the feeder sees the ball hit the receiver's glove, she tosses another. This should be a fairly hectic pace. And it continues for the five balls. After that, the three girls rotate positions and repeat the drill.
With only three girl needs to run the drill, you can split the team up into say four groups of three. if you have odd persons out, that's OK too. But the person who is not in the drill should pay close attention to what the filder is doing so she can become even more aware of pause points of others and hopefully herself. You can also modify this drill into a race among your various groups of players while awarding points to the winners and perhaps a reward or something along those lines.
I would add some variation on the basic drill of taking a ball at one's waist in order to make the drill more realistic. Have the second round of it involve a throw to the left or right and then switch to the other side. Balls could be rolled or bounced like grounders. They could be thrown over the head of the fielder to mimick a pop-up. You get the idea. This drill is a good start but their are plenty of others.
Another drill I do, this time for ordinary catching and throwing is to place two girls apart, facing each other, behind a line made by cones, about 60 feet apart. I put two sets of these girls alongside each other and make the rest of the team spread out along the outer edges so as to get a good view while not at risk of being struck by errant throws. The two girls in each team throw the ball back and forth a total of ten times. The winning team stays on the field while the losers join their teammates on the sidelines. A new team is brought out to compete. This drill can be a lot of fun and breaks up the monotony of ordinary practices.
One element you want to make sure you address whuile running this drill is sometimes a couple girls, maybe the best girls, will team up and stay out on the field a long time. Also, other girls will choose to stay with one particular person when their turn comes up. You really want to mix and match the girls so they get used to throwing with their entire team. So don;t leave one team out there for more than five iterations and make sure you pick the teams so you can mix it up more than would happen naturally. Also make sure you emphasize accuracy and quickness technique in this drill.
Two of the common plays which require quickness, aside from fielding a hit ball, are those in which 1) an infielder might be taking a cutoff throw, turning and firing to a base which is in back of her; 2) any fielder grabs a ball while facing in one direction and then must turn in a new direction to make the throw. For instance, a fielder might take a throw at first and then need to fire to second. Perhaps someone might get a throw in from the outfield for a tag play at third and then need to make another throw to another base afterwards.
In the case of repeated cutoff throws, what I like to do is line up the team in two or more lines extending from one baseline out to near the outfield fence, spaced about 50-60 feet apart. That means lines of about four people. The balls start at one end and are thrown to each succeeding player down the line and then back to the starting point. In this drill, coaches need to show proper technique for taking and making cutoff throws. The target for each throw should be at the head of to just past the glove side of the target fielder. The receiving fielder tries to make the catch in front of her face on her glove side while simultaneously turning and throwing to the next fielder. I don't suppose you need me to explain how to take a cutoff and make the follow-up throw. My point rather is to emphasize that this needs to be done as quickly as possible and proper technique, along with quickness, is the key to winning the race.
In terms of speeding up ordinary infield catching and throwing, there are several drills I like to run. The first involves placing a fielder at each of the bases. Balls are thrown in one of two direction around the bases. The easiest is to throw from home to third, then second, then first and back to home. This involves standing in a ready position next to the bag facing the direction from which the throw will be received with hands extended in front of each fielder. the throw is received and with no footwork at all, the fielder makes the throw to the next base. if a throw is offline, the fielder must move to the ball and catch it in front of her, then follow up with a throw involving no step. The ball goes around like that as many times as you like or for a set number of times and repeated reps. Then you switch in four new girls who do the same.
Next you change the direction of the ball on your next set of reps to go from home to first, second, third and back to home. This involves catching the ball and then making a pop (very slight leap) to the throwing direction. This is an important technique but I don't want to spend time on it since most know it anyways. The point is to make the pop and throw quickly and accurately, not necessarily as strongly as possible. After each of these, I add a couple of reps in which say the ball goes around one way once or twice and then back the other way.
After each type of these (one way, the other, both), I like to break out the stopwatch and time each rep. I might tell one "team" to go around twice or three times and clock it. Then the next "team" goes and we compare times. A couple iterations of this and I think the girls get competitive about their team's times. That usually shows up in improved times the second and third clocking.
In addition to this and the other drills, I also like to do something during ordinary infield practice. Most teams do something long these lines but I have suffered through enough practices in which no complex throwing takes place that I'll explain what I do. You set your infield out there with players at each position and run through your ordinary grounders, pop-ups, etc. and have the girls make their throws. I believe in fielders fielding as many balls as possible to improve technique. But after everyone has done their necessary reps, you begin calling out follow-up throws after the initial one.
Grounder to third, throw to first, back to home, then down to third (or second). You can instruct the girls to field a ball, throw to first, then to home and then back to where the fielder is covering before you hit a ball into play. As an alternative, if you have your wits about you, you can call the next base to throw to as the first or second throw is in the air. Say there is an ordinary grounder to third and she's going to first, you might start yelling "home, home, home" as the original throw is coming out of the third baseman's hand. Then as the fielder covering first releases the ball to home, you call out "two, two two." You can continue with this indefinitely or perhaps have them make three or four throws after each ball is hit into play. A variation on this is to have each grounder followed by around the horn in one direction or the other. variation is the key. You want the girls to make as many varied throws as possible.
Another good catch and throw drill involv es four players, each starting at one of the bases. The ball is thrown in one of the two directions around the bases. The girl at home runs to first after throwing the ball to first. The girl at first runs to cover home after throwing the ball to second. The girl at second runs to cover third after throwing the ball there. The girl at third runs to cover second after throwing the ball to home. That's one iteration. Then each girl continues catching and throwing to the next base while running back and forth from either first to home and back again, or second to third and back again. You can have the ball go the other direction if you like. You can switch the bases from and to each girl runs.
What generally happens in this drill when it is run right is girls have to make catches on the run, turn and throw, then run hard to get back to the base to cover. They get exhausted and compete to get into good position to make the catch and throw quickly.
As a final drill, I admit to stealing this one from Kobata as well as many good teams I have observed practicing. The drill is one I have heard called alternately "four corners" or "the star." It involves placing a fielder at each of the three bases and two at home. The first person at home gets the ball. She throws down to secxond and then runs towards that base. The girl at second throws to first and then runs there. The girl at first throws to third and follows her throw. The girl at third throws the ball back to home where the second girl is waiting and then runs there. The ball continues around the diamond indefinitely and as girls get tired - they do quickly - I replace one with somebody on the sidelines. Eventually the whole team gets involved in the drill with girls stepping out when they are winded and new ones taking their places. i try to not allow the girls to go into the drill in a particular order since, again, I want everyone to take and make throws from and to everyone else.
You can get a lot of complex throwing in with this drill in very little time. We have actually seen entire teams get winded and exhausted inside of ten minutes. If you are motivated to do so, you can use this drill as a sort of last game of the day preparation and have the girls continue as long as 20 minbutes to half an hour. But I've never gone quite that long.
I believe I have mentioned many of these drills before in writings. The difference is today I offer them within the context of a discussionb on speed and quickness. In this game, success and failure on defense are often measured by elapsed time from one glove to another, infield "pop time" if you will. We break Humpty Dumpty into a million little pieces to perfect techniques. But we must put Humpty Dumpty back together again in order to give girls the tool they need to succeed, quickness.Labels: defense, fielding, kobata, throwing
Permanent Link: Humpty Dumpty
 
The First? Fielder
by Dave
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Paul writes in to ask:My daughter, a pitcher, has some problems fielding her position defensively. She tends to have a panicked look when the ball is hit back to her and loses focus on what to do with it once in her glove. Part of this is fear of getting hit with an odd bounce and part is just lack of proper fielding technique. After that she needs to understand where her place is after a hit and she needs to move to a back up position. I don't want to teach her the wrong things but need to get her working on this.
Here is my response:
The very first thing I want to address to you is the "fear factor." Pitchers may develop a fear of balls being hit back at them, especially if they have a little scar shaped like laces on the ball or located where their broken nose or jaw was fixed. It's very tough to be so close to the gal with the stick in her hand. I strongly believe that every pitcher needs to be schooled on keeping the pitch away from the sweet spot on the bat, that is, to hit corners on every pitch. If you can paint corners, your fear of having a hotshot hit back at you should gradually diminish.
My personal belief is that in fastpitch softball, pitches should never be on the middle 8 inches of the plate. From 10 or 11 on, pitchers must be taught to work corners. Our game's ball is just too big and bright. 1 thorugh 9 of any team worth its salt can rip it when it is thrown down the midddle.
Some of us out here watch too much baseball on TV and fall in love with a 95 mph fastball thrown down the middle, challenging the hitter to catch up with it. That's baseball, not fastpitch softball. I am an advocate of teaching pitchers to throw hard before learning command. But even I have my limits. I don't particularly care whether your 11 year old can hit 55-60 on your coach's radar gun. If she throws that cheese down the middle, eventually she is going to find someone who can hit it and hit it hard. If the ball is in the center of the plate, chances are pretty good that the 60 mph pitch is going to come back at her at 94-98. And that may end your stud's pitching career regardless of how fast she can throw. Stay on the corners. It is extremely rare for a hitter to hit anything on the corners hard, straight back at the pitcher. That is the first thing you need to teach your pitcher in terms of defense.
(As an aside, to umpires who "require" the pitch right down the middle - who don't give corners, particularly when one team is beating another pretty badly, you must be ready to take personal responsibility for the broken noses, jaws and other body parts, the shortened careers, etc. which your approach has caused. I have seen so many umps change their zone or do other things to make the game move along or to provide the beaten down team with something, anything, to make them feel less bad. Just the other day, the field ump called our runner out when she was obviously safe in order to end the top of the first because we were up by 7 already. He pretty much admitted this to me. He noted to me that the other team was all 11s. So I told them we have 5x11s and 1x10 on the field with just 3 young 12s. I think he was a little surprised but not as surprised as he was when the other team scored 3 runs in the bottom half and then held us down in the top of the second before scoring again in their half. Umpires should never try to control games like that. That's what the time limit and run rules are for. And they shouldn't try to make pitchers throw down the middle unless they want somebody injured.)
A lot of how a pitcher does things defensively depends on her team's coaches and players. General fielding (balls back at her) is a matter of normal fielding mechanics, athleticism, repetition, and confidence. Let me try to develop this topic, give you some advice on what you can do, and try to list some of the issues which may vary from team to team and situation to situation.
A pitcher is in a difficult position defensively, standing about 35 feet from the plate after release. She needs to get immediately in some sort of defensive position after release. She needs to be in shape physically so that her reactions are good. And she needs to practice fielding mechanics the same way any other player does.
The first, most important step, is to get into a good ready position. That means low, balanced, and ready to move. In my opinion, she should not aspire to get quite as low with her glove as the third baseman whose glove should probably be just inches from the ground, if not actually touching it. There's not enough time for that anyway but it isn't necessarily the best defensive position for a pitcher. Most balls hit back at the pitcher are bouncing ones hit hard into the dirt. She should be low but not as low as 3B and her glove should be about knee high, in front of her, and open. Pitchers sometimes close their gloves hard or slap it into their thighs as they release the pitch. They need to be schooled to get it out in front, open and ready to make a play right after this.
Her knees need to be bent, feet even and about shoulder width apart. Her glove hand should be out in front of her. And her shoulders should be square with the plate. You can't do anything without a good ready position. You can't move equally well to either side if your feet aren't squared up. So your first goal should be to finish the pitch with a good ready position after release.
The second consideration is physical conditioning. If you want to react faster to balls hit back at you, being in the best physical shape is the pathway regardless of natural athletic ability. Kids who are in the best shape they can be will necessarily have shorter reaction times. A good off-season, or in, program of speed and agility is advisable for any softball player. The same is true of pitchers. While it is a given that everybody possesesses different athletic ability, engaging in a good speed/agility program can help anyone. It will also help a pitcher's pitching so I encourage you to pursue this.
Pitchers, like anyone else who walks onto a softball field need to be schooled in fielding mechanics. My guess is your daughter doesn't pitch every inning of every game she plays in. She could play many other positions. She should be schooled in fielding mechanics of all varities at this age in any event. If there are good fielding clinics near you, Kobata, etc., sign her up. Aside from this, I would hope your team's coaches work all the girls at fielding mechanics of all positions anyway. If they do not, you need to have her out fielding grounders, linedrives, etc. from all positions just for her own development. If you can get out once or twice a week to hit a half hour's worth of balls, that will definitely help her.
The next consideration is drills for fielding grounders from her position after release. Repetition is the key to sound fielding at any position and this does not exclude the pitcher. I recently saw a pretty good drill for doing this run at an OC Batbusters clinic. Basically, you put a girl at first, a catcher behind the plate, and the pitcher out in the circle. The pitcher pitches the ball like she would in a game and a coach immediately hits a grounder back at her. She fields it and throws to first. You can place fielders at each of the bases or have her throw home as you wish. Obviously the footwork on throws to each of the bases is different and should be practiced.
The coach should hit all sorts of balls to the pitcher. You want hard ones and soft ones, liners at her feet, bouncing balls to either side and so on. Coaches should do something like this in practice but if they don't, talk to them about a "drill I saw done" and describe this to them. You need to have other players to do this drill so it's best done at team practice.
Sometimes coaches will assemble an infield and hit balls to the various fielders including the girl standing around the pitcher's plate. This doesn't get the job done. Sometimes the coaches will have the pitcher mimick making a real pitch. This isn't enough either as she will go through the motion but make getting ready her primary goal. The pitcher needs to throw a pitch and then make a fielding play. And it is really so simple to do. There's no good reason not to spend 5-10 minutes on this at every or every other practice.
If you cannot convince your team to do my (really the OC Batbuster's) drill, I suggest modifying it at your local field. If you can't get somebody to catch or play the bases, use surrogates. A pop-up net will suffice for a catcher. Most fields have garbage cans standing around - move one over to cover first. And then hit away. This is certainly not optimal but do what you have to do to get this work in.
Additionally, there needs to be an understanding between the pitcher, the coaches, and all other infielders regarding what a pitcher's responsibility is on struck balls. My team uses a general rule of thumb which is a pitcher's responsibility for fielding a ball ends inside the circle. That is, she should not have to run outside the circle to field grounders and pop-ups. Bunts are the responsibility of the first and third basemen. There are obvious exceptions to this and the pitcher will end up fielding surprise drag bunts and other balls which do not fit neatly into my general rule of thumb - those will be practiced in the drill I discussed above.
In my experience, there's no need top tell a pitcher to go after balls. Usually she will naturally and reactively go after a lot of plays beyond her area of responsibility. But it is important to let her know that she has a team of four infielders behind her, excluding the catcher who generally will cover anything hit within a few feet of home, and she needs to develop judgment about what she can and cannot do better than the other fielders.
The corollary to this is, while a pitcher should not field a ball outside the circle, even if the ball is in the circle and another fielder can make the play, the pitcher needs to let them do that. This is really a pop-up rule. If a batter hits an infield pop-up with any real height to it, the pitcher should not usually make that play. If the ball is coming down in front of her, that is typically first or third's play. If the ball is coming down to her left at or beyond the circle, that's either 2B or SS's play. If the ball is right in the circle, the SS should take charge and call for it. In these cases, the pitcher should get out of the circle and away from the play, allowing her middle infielders to make it.
About a year ago I witnessed a play on which a pop-up was hit sky-high and came down about where the pitcher's plate is located. The pitcher stood there, hands high, watching the pop-up come down. I'm not sure whether I heard both the pitcher and SS call for it, or if nobody actually did. But in any event, the SS and P collided and the ball fell to the ground. By the way, the bases happened to be full and there were two outs at the time of the "major league pop-up." I don't recall how many runs scored but I think it was two. That left runners on second and third with still two outs. The next girl lined a single into the gap and both baserunners scored. That one simple play allowed four runs to score. And that was a Gold level game. The defensive team never recovered from those four runs.
I think sometimes we, as coaches, coach a little too much to the age group we have in front of us. In 10U ball, often the team has something like 3-5 good players, often including the girls who pitch. We encourage the pitcher to get to everything she can and make the play because it is a matter of winning and losing. At 12U, we should hope to have more than 3 players who can make routine plays every time but sometimes because of conditions beyond our control, we still encourage the pitcher to make every play she possibly can.
Even at 14U, I have heard coaches encourage pitchers to do similarly. I like to think of this as the "BNB principle" which is, the tendency to view the team like one would the Bad News Bears - a few good players who should be encouraged to jump in front of all those kids who "don't belong out there" and make every play they possibly can. But the question is, what does this practice do to the kid who continues to pitch into her later teens, perhaps even playing at the Gold level? What it does is set up the play on which an infield pop results in the pitcher running into another infielder, maybe getting hurt in the process, and allowing 4 runs that should never have seen the light of day to score.
So, in this discussion, what I'm saying to you is teach the pitcher to get out of the way on high pops, to field balls only within the circle, and let her infielders field the rest of them including ordinary bunts. That is true regardless of age level since every 10 year old is eventually going to be 18, God willing. She will naturely field some balls outside the circle anyway. She doesn't need to be told to do that. What she needs to hear is that her fielding responsibility should usually end at the pitcher's circle line. Teach good habits early. Don't subscribe to the BNB primciple.
With this in mind, I certainly recognize that not all teams' coaches will agree with me. And you do have to get along with your team's coaches. But there are limits to what you as the pitcher's parent should tolerate. One of my kid's teams follows the BNB principle due to a certain lack of talent on the roster. For example, we have a first baseman who cannot field a bunt. To me, a first baseman who cannot field a bunt is similar to a slap-hitter who tends to pop the ball up. I call that person by a particular name which is "bench player." A first baseman who cannot field a bunt is not a first baseman.
The first baseman also cannot field a pop-up more than 5 feet in front of her, no matter how high it is hit. She sees her role on the defensive side of the equation as one in which her job is to get to the bag and then catch the throw from infielders. Anything that is too far to her right is left for the 2B to field because she just has to get to the bag.
I'm not a coach on that team. Actually the father of 1B is a coach. And he encourages this errant approach because he is far too steeped in baseball. He doesn't know anything about the FP game. So he has schooled the girl that her primary responsibility is covering the bag. And the other coaches feel there is nothing they can do about this. So, instead of correcting the mistaken approach to playing the position, they tell the pitcher to get everything to her left. This includes all bunts, every soft grounder, and pop-ups. They don't worry about the P colliding with the first baseman since she will see the ball is more than five feet in front of her and retreat to cover the bag.
(As an aside, the 1B also believes any throw that is not perfectly thrown is not her responsibility. If she cannot catch it without moving her feet, it isn't her responsibility. I've never heard her corrected for not pursuing the ball first and the bag second. I just don't understand how any coach or parent can allow a first baseman to continue to play the game at that position with such a wrong understanding of what her responsibilities are. But they do and maybe you've seen similar circumstances too. But to me, a team which follows this approach is a team we won't be playing with any longer.)
As far as backing up bases, etc., this often really depends on your team's approach. Some teams use the pitcher as the primary cutoff between other fielders and home. Some teams teach their first baseman to perform this function. Obviously, if the pitcher is the primary cutoff, she is not responsible for backing up bases. Her work is to get lined up between the catcher and the outfielder or infield cutoff between her and the outfield. My personal preference is for the 1B to be primary cutoff and the pitcher to be a base backup. I think at higher levels this is usually the case. But I don't want to go any further into the topic because I have seen a fairly wide amount of variation and regardless of what I said about the BNB principle or the lack of talent at other positions, the pitcher should perform base back up responsibilities in conformity with her team's practices. I'm not willing to be taken to task on this issue as I was with the other one.
Base backup responsibilities are not something you can handle within a vacuum. You need to have this covered in practice. Yes, I have seen teams which never handle cutoffs or base backups in practice and then scream at the pitcher for being out of position on base backups. This is wrong and maybe there is nothing we can do about it other than to have a discussion with coaches that these things need to be handled in practice.
Aside from this, I think the bottom line is, if the pitcher has base backup responsibilities, the coaches do not handle this in practice regardless of how much you implore them to do so, and you are frustrated about what to tell your pitcher daughter, here are my suggestions:
If the backstop is not a college one where there is considerable distance between it and homeplate, there is no purpose to trying to backup the catcher on plays at the plate. If the play is at home and nowhere else, the best you can do is pick a point to retrieve errant throws. I believe that is a point along the third baseline in foul ground. The first baseman should cover the area in front of home along that baseline. And the 3B should be covering her bag since, if there may be a play at home, there may also be a play at third.
If the backup seems to be most important at third but the fence and out of play are say 15-20 feet from the bag, again, I suggest about the same position though closer to third than home. This way if the ball gets away from the 3B towards home, she can retrieve it quickly. If the ball goes out of control up the line towards the outfield, the LF should get after those. If the LF is making the throw to third, the pitcher would need to be in foul ground along the baseline anyways to back up the throw. Otherwise the LF should be crashing in and handle everything up the line. Some coaches would have the pitcher positioned right behind third to prevent the bad throw from going out of play. But if the pitcher is just 10-15 feet behind the 3B, there is little chance she'll be able to make a play on anything the 3B can't get. I believe along the line in foul ground is the place to be.
On all other plays, where the ball is going to 1B, 2B or just in to some infielder, the pitcher, and everyone else for that matter, need to be aware that the ball may get away and be prepared to retrieve it quickly in such eventuality. Just as I want the first baseman to be wide awake and aware that a throw in to second on a basehit with nobody on may go astray, I want the pitcher to be watching any throw in that might get away. Everyone should backup every throw just as the 2B must backup all throwbacks to the pitcher with a runner on. Outfielders make mistakes just like anyone else, even on easy, no action plays. Everyone needs to be awake on every pitch, every play, every throw in.
As far as learning the situation on which a pitcher needs to back up home, if appropriate, third, etc., given that she is not the primary infield cutoff, I'm not sure what to tell you. Basically, this is dictated by game and inning situation which I'll get to in a minute. More importantly, the coaches need to explain to their pitchers where they want them on certain situations or during the actual play. The best teams conduct drills with this in mind, remind pitchers before the play develops, and then instruct them during the play. This is just like having a baserunner on first with one or no outs and telling them to watch linedrives. You've taught them this in practice, you tell them the situation when they are on first, and then you scream "BACK" when there is an actual linedrive. The same should be done defensively.
When, say, a ball is hit to the outfield and gets past the fielder, coaches should be instructing, for example, the SS to go out and get the cutoff. They also should be judging where the play is going to develop based on where the ball is coming to a rest, the apparent speed of the baserunner(s), etc. In doing this, if they want the pitcher to, for example, back up third, they should yell this to her. What should never happen is a situation in which the coach wants the pitcher to back up third, he or she never says anything (either in practice or before or during the play), and then when the right backup has not taken place, the coach rants and raves at the pitcher for failing to backup. That does happen but it is wrong.
Finally, it is an absolute that every player on the field needs to know the game and inning situation on every pitch and have some idea of what they will do if a ball is hit their way. The CF needs to be aware that she cannot merely soft toss the ball in to the 2B after a hit when there is a runner on second. She needs to know that there may very well be a play at home. Similarly, with runners on first and second, a pitcher needs to know that if a grounder is hit back to her, she is going to third with her throw. I don't need to go over all the possible situations. You ought to be able to handle this in practice if you are a coach or jot it down on paper and go over it with your daughter if you are the pitcher's parent.
The bottom line is, before throwing every pitch, a pitcher needs to check off in her mind where she will go with the ball if X happens. Sometimes, it can be difficult to do this with young kids. It is difficult but it still needs to be done. It is an important part of any player's development. You cannot move up to the next level if you do not think this game through on every pitch. It is as important as getting into a ready position or learning good fielding mechanics. If you have to stop and think after you field the ball, you're dead at least 75% of the time.
In closing, teach your daughter to get in a ready position after release. Do this whether you are conducting pitching practice or running specific drills. Improve her athleticism by engaging in speed/agility drills or by signing up for clinics which do this. Anything that improves her physical condition will improve her ability as a ballplayer and pitcher. Teach her good general defensive skills. She needs this anyway. She may decide to quit pitching in future years but still want to play ball anyways. Good defensive skills are a necessity for every player who wants to keep playing. Conduct drills specific to the pitcher position. I gave you one. Maybe you'll find others in your travels. But do something. Try to convince your team's coaches to conduct pitcher-specific fielding drills. If you are unsuccessful, conduct some on your own. The drills must involve throwing a real pitch and then fielding a ball and making a throw to a base. Teach your pitchers, whether you are a team coach or just a mild mannered parent, what the limits of their responsibilities are - in the process also teach the other fielders to take charge in the right circumstances. Teach your pitchers to think through game and inning situations before making the pitch. If you find yourself on a team which follows the BNB principle, get away from them. You are doing your daughter a disservice if you stay. And eventually, through lots of repetition, discussion, and learning, you should develop your pitchers' defensive skills.
Follow-up:
Tom writes in to discuss something for the pitcher which I'll include here and in another place I mention defensive drills for pitchers:
"One of the more important drills that I've seen involve teaching pitchers to defend themselves from batted balls. A fielded ball can result in an out and a missed ball can take out your pitcher for the season. The most effective practice that I have discovered uses the lite-flite Jugs ball. They look like softballs and throw like softballs but don't break anything. When the pitcher is in her workout, the coach throws lit-flites back at her to defend as she pitches to the catcher, starting easy and moving to more difficult. We work with her trying to deflect the ball with her glove and not using her throwing throwing hand. Pitchers tend to try to catch with the bare hand which can cause a season ending injury) We work with her to get into a defensive position as soon as possible after delivering the pitch. Again this is practiced with the emphasis on safety and NOT on making a play. I can get the next out but I can't replace an injured pitcher easily. This changes her focus and quite frankly her overall fielding improves as her confidence increases."Labels: coaching, defense, fielding, parenting, pitching
Permanent Link: The First? Fielder
Defensive Softball - Howard Kobata
by Dave
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Yesterday, within the context of a rotational vs. linear hitting analysis, I wrote a passing comment about another subject. I wrote, "Kobata fielding techniques are best, particularly for infielders - but that's a discussion for another day." A reader of the site wrote in to ask me about this. He said, "Kobata?? - I was wondering if you have any articles on Kobata fielding techniques? I'm not familiar with this and it sounds interesting."
I suppose it never occurred to me that many in this sport are still unfamiliar with defensive softball as taught by Howard Kobata. So today I'll touch on some information regarding this essential part of your softball knowledge base.
Howard Kobata resides in Southern California where he teaches defensive softball skills on a private and clinic basis. He was a baseball player who moved to SoCal from Hawaii and, like so many other top softball coaches, played fastpitch softball after his baseball playing days were over. He has built a career by studying, perfecting and teaching defensive softball.
Once his playing days were over, he coached girls fastpitch softball at a very high level, including many top 10 finishes at ASA nationals and one national title. He gives clinics locally and to organizations around the country. His skills are included in a package of videos which are available for purchase via the web.
I first encountered the name Kobata on several softball forums. Visitors inquiring about all sorts of topics were told to keep an eye out for Kobata fielding clinics in their areas. To the neophyte, this seemed like excessive hype but it was, for me, something to at least keep in the back of my mind. When clinics were held in my area, I figured I'd have my kid give one a shot but, to my surprise, I was told that girls attending these clinics should be at least 12, probably older, and be extremely serious about softball, not to mention currently playing at an advanced level. So I resigned myself to waiting a few more years.
While I waited for the day that I could see Kobata in action, I learned that he had produced a couple of defensive skills videos. I went online to see if I could find them, I discovered Howard's site SoftballSkills.com and surfed through it for a while. On the site I found his defensive softball series. Unfortunately I found they were only available in VHS and because we no longer owned a VCR, I wrote him to inquire about whether he was going to make these videos available in DVD format. Luckily he wrote me back to say he was planning on doing just that and I would have my videos in a few weeks. These are currently available in DVD format.
The videos are: Softball Skills - Series 1, Catching and Throwing; and Series 2, Fielding. Series 1 costs $30 plus shipping and handling. Series two is ten dollars more. But if you buy both, the price comes down to a total of $50 plus S/H and sales tax. It is well worth the expense.
I dare say that neither tape is exclusively concerned with just one aspect of softball defense. The two together form a nice cohesive whole and consist of an intensely packed series of skills and drills which totals to about an hour and twenty minutes. But it is a long hour and 20 minutes. You will have to go over and over each one of the segments to capture even close to a majority of the information provided. I doubt that all the hours I have devoted to this have yielded even a small percentage of what is there.
Howard Kobata suggests that you watch this series with your glove in hand so you can act out the things he's teaching you. I'll go a bit further than that. My approach to watching these videos is a study in itself. What I suggest you try to do is sit through one video played straight through in its entirety without trying to do anything more than just watching and listening. Then I suggest you get out your mitt and a pencil with some paper so you can dissect it properly. You will want to watch each segment several times, with frequent stops during each, and jot down your thoughts. That will take you a significant amount of time since you will be stopping the video to write down a lot of little tips and aspects of these drills and skills. Then you'll want to craft some drills for your team and give them a try. Then you'll need to come back to the videos and watch some more, jot some more and then give something else a try. This is certainly not a one-time deal where you sit and watch two videos over an hour and a half and then put them on your shelf to collect dust.
Kobata emphasizes sound defensive skills and how to best develop them through drilling and attention to the smallest of details like ready position, footwork, where in your stance you pick up the ball, how your body pivots around the fielded ball, and the best approach to making a throw. Some of it you will have heard from other coaches - in fact many of Howard's drills are in common usage. Some of it will strike you as obvious but something you hadn't thought of quite the same way Howard said it. Some of it will offend your sense of how to play the game - as you learned it twenty years ago ... in the hands of an unqualified coach. All of it is relevant to anyone attempting to do a good job of coaching a fastpitch team whether that team is an 8U rec program or an ASA gold team. It is also relevant for parents of girls who play the sport at all levels.
Howard does not necessarily agree with the assertion that his in-person clinics are not suitable for younger players. He says, "there is not much I can do if the player is still afraid of the ball and cannot learn to catch correctly." Also many of the clinics held by organizations located out of state are mixed age ones and "sometimes the weaker player has trouble keeping up with the others." My sense is the key pre-requisites for a Kobata clinic are motivation and no fear of the ball. Howard notes that when he works with teams, "not everyone really wants to be there and so attitude problems may arise." But he has worked with highly motivated 10U teams, eventually moving to fairly advanced skills.
Aside from the issue of whether or not Kobata clinics are right for younger kids, the skills taught on the videos are entirely appropriate. From your first catch with your 8 year old daughter to your last coaching assignment with the high school state championship team, there is something to be gleaned from the Kobata defensive skills video series. And, if you're but a mere parent, it doesn't really matter if you expect your kid to get a college scholarship or if your highest aspirations are your kid's simple enjoyment of the rec league for a few years. If you study this information, learn it and learn how to explain it to others, your kid will benefit. The true value of sport, in my humble opinion, is learning to do something difficult the right way. And this series will teach you to teach kids to do just that.
I don't know what else I can say about this series or Howard Kobata without gushing even more than I have. Let me add that Howard is totally devoted to the sport. He is not just in this to make a few bucks. He is a nice enough guy who bothers to take time out to respond to e-mailed questions. What comes through in his replies to questions is total, complete, 100% devotion to the sport and the skills he has developed.
I've seen a lot of cheesy videos and other products which have apparently been made to make money. They use famous people to endorse products. They presume to teach topics whose names are attractive to people involved in the sport. But very few effectively teach the subject matter. The kobata series was the most pleasant surprise I found in the many purchases I have made to date. I strongly urge you to pry the fifty bucks from your wallet and give them a try. if you are not pleased, I cannot offer you a refund - though maybe Howard would. But more importantly, if you are not completely impressed with this product I really would like to know why in detail. I do not expect I'll have any takers on that challenge.Labels: defense, fielding, kobata, video
Permanent Link: Defensive Softball - Howard Kobata
Surviving Your First Rec Season!
by Dave
Friday, February 16, 2007
So, you've signed up your sleepy 6, 7, 8 or 9 year old daughter for the recreational softball league. You and your daughter went to "tryouts" which were basically s skill assessment so the league can put together balanced teams. She was picked for a team and the coach called to tell you she was on his team and practices will start whenever weather permits. Your darling daughter is so excited about the prospect of playing softball, whatever softball is, that she is besides herself. These are great days - cherish them always. And begin taking some steps which will make the most of this first golden moment.
The first thing I'm going to tell you is to prepare to open your wallet. Young girls and boys like to get "stuff" which they can hold dear for their activities. You can open your wallet as much or as little as you like depending upon your means. But prepare to open it some.
The first thing you'll probably need are shoes. Try to get the best fitting pair of cleats you can. Comfortable shoes are important for a softball player's enjoyment of the game. Think about church for a moment. I don't know about you but my worst remembrances of church were the uncomfortable pair of shoes I was forced to wedge my feet into. Softball is more so since you have to stand in the field for interminable minutes and if your feet hurt, it makes a boring, uncomfortable experience even worse. If she absolutely will not wear cleats, that's OK. Sneakers will do in a pinch. One of my kids refused to wear cleats and it didn't affect her game at all.
Next, your daughter will need a fielding glove. Buy the best one you can afford. If she has a good glove, it can last for several years - so the cost is mitigated. Get one just bigger than you think she needs but not so heavy that she can't comfortably lift her hand while wearing it. Purchase some oil so you can soften it for her. I know lots of people like that stuff you use to coat the mitt before you cook it in the oven. I'm sure that's great but I prefer oil since putting a little oil on the glove periodically keeps it soft and in good shape. I disagree with the folks who claim the chief benefit of the oven softener is it doesn't add weight to the glove. Pick up a container of oil and explain to me how putting one fourth of it on the glove will add more than an ounce or two.
After you bring that glove home, explain to your daughter that before she can use it, you need to oil it and then it has to dry for a few days. She'll want to store it in her room or keep it in her bed. She's going to treasure that thing. Let her sit and watch you oil it. Get out some newspapers and paper towels. Sit down at the kitchen table with the mitt on top of the newspapers and slowly drip the oil onto various parts of the mitt. Work it all over the glove so that the color darkens a bit. Make sure not to ignore the laces. You'll have to drip a tiny spec of oil into all the little openings but you don't want to drench the darn thing because her hands will get greasy when she uses it.
Once you have oiled the mitt, scrunch it up and pound it as much as you can. These things are made to get beat up. The more abuse you can put on it, the softer it is going to be. I like to pound a ball into it a couple tens of thousands of times so it develops a good pocket and becomes very flexible. If there is somebody around who throws reasonably hard, I use the mitt first and catch for twenty or so minutes with that hard thrower so I can soften the thing properly.
You might also consider getting your daughter a bat. I'm not claiming that she needs to have her own bat but if she gets uses to swinging the same stick every time, she'll probably enjoy the experience more. You don't need to get an expensive bat unless your daughter is going to have her first experiences with an ASA "A" level 10U team. The idea is just to get her a stick which is small enough for her to swing comfortably. I'm not going to go into the specifics of how to but a bat here. Just get something light and don't spend a lot on it - you don't need to. And she's probably going to want something better at a later date. Stay way from "tee-ball bats" unless the league requires it. These don't take much abuse before they dent. Buy a fastpitch softball bat say about 26-28 inches long and weighing 14-18 ounces. Let your daughter know right away that she can let her friends use it if they ask. It's hers to do with as she pleases and since you didn't spend a lot of money, don't worry about somebody breaking it.
Next up, I strongly suggest you buy some balls and a batting tee. The size and type of balls varies by recreational league. Check with yours and see if you can get the same kind. Also buy a dozen or so whiffle balls (around 11 inches) for the batting tee and other kinds of batting practice. We'll get into that in a moment. And get a can of tennis balls while you are at it - I'll explain below.
If you cannot find out what kind of balls the league uses, do not despair. If the play is for age ten and under (an assumption for this particular article), get yourself 11 inch yellow "softee" softballs and maybe a regulation 11 inch regular softball or two. The league may use ten inch bouncy balls but there's really no harm in getting balls which are too big. Players generally do not injure their arms throwing with a ball that is oversized. In fact, arm-injury-recovering ball players often deliberately use heavier, bigger balls because they aid in recovery. For example, Chicago White Sox pitcher Jose Contreras often keeps 12 inch softballs in the bullpen to use when warming up precisely because they help avoid injury.
I advise you to get "softee" balls because they provide a way to have a catch without the pain usually associated with getting hit by a ball - an experience which can end a career before it gets going. Plan to play catch with your daughter as frequently as your busy schedule allows. These games of catch will provide all sorts of opportunities for you and your daughter to get to know one another better so enjoy them and make them as frequent as you can. To have a proper catch, there are two elements for your daughter. One is teaching her to throw properly. The other is the opposite side of the equation - catching.
Catching takes a lot of experiences. Be patient. Throw the ball to her softly and underhand at first. Teach her to at least hit the ball with her mitt - to protect herself using the glove. Actually I just realized I am ahead of myself. You don't need to use the soft balls or mitts to have a useful game of catch. Try having a bare-handed game of catch using the tennis balls first. And keep this in mind as your daughter begins to practice and play but still has trouble using the darned mitt. The best way to teach catching is to put down the mitts at least for awhile and just throw any old ball around. This enhances the hand-eye coordination needed. If the tennis balls give you trouble, use the whiffle balls. I can't give you a thesis on how to teach catching but suffice it to say from the knees up, fingers point up or to the sides and from the knees down, fingers point down. There isn't so much technique to learn at this stage as there is a need for lots of repetition. Make it easy for her at first and then ever so slightly more difficult. Build confidence first and ability second. And encourage two handed catching.
Throwing mechanics are more difficult to teach but require less discussion and more hands on than catching. I've done this before but I'll go into some details here to make it a little easier for you.
First the ball grip. The ball should be placed in front of her with the laces forming the letter C. She places her four fingers on top of the laces and the thumb underneath. There should be a small gap between the ball and the area between thumb and index finger. The ball should be held firmly but loosely. It should never be able to drop out of her hand but you should be able to remove it easily. Grip is essential so don't ignore this. You daughter should practice taking the ball out of her mitt while obtaining the proper grip. Look at first but then do it without looking.
Now, stand your daughter up sideways with the ball in her glove and her throwing hand gripping it. Have her pull her hands apart and make what is best described as a weak version of the sign an NFL official would make after a field goal. The elbows should be bent at 90 degree angles. If she looks at her glove hand, she is seeing the back of the mitt and if she looks beyond that, she should be looking at her throwing target. Her throwing hand should similarly have knuckles facing her face. The ball is pointing upwards slightly at say a 45 degree angle.
Now to make a throw, she should step with her glove side foot - just a little step - and as she drops her glove hand straight downwards, she rotates her shoulders towards the target while swinging her throwing shoulder with emphasis and snapping her elbow and wrist so that she ends up releasing the ball towards the target and pulls her throwing hand down towards her glove side knee - slightly across her body. At this point, one of the things to watch for is that she doesn't collapse her elbow into her side and push the ball with her hand. Keep her elbow as high as she can, ideally straight out (perpendicular) from her body.
(As an aside, a sure fir sign that a kid's parents are disinterested in her softball playing is an elbow that collapses during the throw. It shows that the parents didn't care enough to play catch with her.)
The wrist snap in kids is critical ... and rarely executed. One way you can work on this aspect of throwing is to have her rest on her knees on the soft ground or a spare base or some such, and just do snaps. Have her hold the ball in her hand as she would when making a throw but have her glove side hand cup her elbow out in front of her. Cock the wrist back so that it gets closer to her face. Then simply snap it forward and throw the ball. You catch about 10-15 feet away.
That pretty much covers what a beginner thrower should work on. A very easy way to have fun playing softball while working on throwing with a beginner without having to deal with the problems of catching a thrown ball is to emphasize ground balls. All you have to do is roll the ball to your daughter and have her throw it back. But while she is doing it, maybe we could just say a few words about fielding mechanics so she doesn't develop too many bad habits.
Teach your daughter a reasonable ready position. Ready position does not involve leaning on your hands which are resting on your knees. Keep feet more than shoulder distance apart and flex the knees while keeping the butt down. The throwing hand side foot is slightly back from the glove hand foot. The back should be rigidly up, not hunched. It won't be completely vertical but should not be hunched over. I think the best way to describe this is about 10 degrees off vertical. Weight should be on the balls of the feet and the toes. The heels can be touching the ground but do not need to be. When you are in good ready position, you are ready to come forwards. Now roll the ball slowly to your daughter in her ready position. Have her step with her glove side foot so as to keep the ball coming to a point between her feet. For a righty, this means, she steps past the end point of the ball with her left foot. Her right leg will become extended and her upper body will move closer to the ground. She opens her mitt to the direction of the ball and lets it roll into her glove while bringing her throwing hand in behind it and getting the throwing grip.
Next she hops from her current position, just a little, into that throwing position. Try it yourself several times before you teach it to her. Regarding the "hop into throwing position," keep in mind that when she is standing in ready position, her toes are pointing at you, her eventual throwing target. If you examine the throwing mechanics closely, you will notice that her back foot's instep was pointing at the throwing target. This is one of those transitions which is difficult to teach young girls. But it is absolutely critical that you do so.
I've seen this taught in a number of ways and all of them go in slow motion. Basically, have her retrieve the ground ball which results in her weight being on the glove hand side foot. Now she steps beyond that front foot in the awkward position of placing it down with the instep facing the throwing target. Next she steps forward with the throwing hand side foot and makes the throw in slow motion. Again, try it yourself first and then teach her. Do it slowly to get the basic mechanics down right. Then have her do it very slowly many times so she gets the logic of it. After a lot of trial, she can do it more quickly so it isn't in slow motion and eventually changes from a step to a hop.
More important than any of these fundamentals is this point. Motor memory takes a lot of repetition to set in. Do a lot of ground balls. Do a lot of catching practice. Provide your daughter the opportunity to throw as often as possible.
Most likely your daughter is unaccustomed to throwing things. It is critical for you to get her as much practice as possible so she learns to throw in a manner which won't damage her arm. The only thing worse than standing around in badly fitting cleats is nursing a sore arm during practice. Make a plan to play catch for at least 15 minutes 3 times a week. If you can go longer or more frequently, that's better. But do not make the mistake of throwing for a very long time once each week. Four days of 15-30 minutes is better than 1 day of two hours.
Batting practice is something every parent usually tries to do. But cut your ambition for these sessions and focus on making them fun. Use the whiffle balls and tennis balls so your batting practices are not abbreviated by stinging hands. You can do batting practice in your yard if you stick with the whiffle balls. Keep your pitching as accurate as possible by standing close to her. If you've got a batting tee, use that some. Keep it varied so she doesn't get bored.
I won't give you a step by step beginner batting guide here but the things you want to emphasize are balance in the stance, relaxed position, and taking as strong a swing as possible without moving the head all over the place. I suggest teaching her to stand with feet shoulder width apart with the bat resting on her back shoulder. Hands are knuckles out and up with the bat resting between the palms. Now lift the bat barrel so it is about 4-6 inches off the shoulder. The elbows should be pointing down at the ground - the back elbow should NOT be pointing backwards. Your daughter takes a small step of say 6 inches or less which is more for accomplishing a very slight weight shift backwards and timing than it is to accomplish forward momentum.
Indulge me by letting me reiterate a couple of points. First, the step forward (which is not necessary by the way) does not accomplish forward momentum except in over-40 beer leagues. I once had to disabuse my daughter's coach of that notion but we'll talk about coaches later. Any step should occur prior to the pitcher's release of the ball. Secondly, the back elbow does NOT point backwards. This is a technique taught by well-meaning fathers who "played ball" when they were kids and think they understand the game. Rather the two elbows should be approximately the same position which is most like the way you think the front arm should look. Elbows are pointing down and the arms are with an elbow bend which is around a 45 degree angle - half a right angle.
When you have your daughter actually swing the bat, don't worry so much about her bat speed. Instead focus on her keeping her head "quiet," still, unmoving. You cannot hit a speeding ball without vectoring it - seeing it from two points - the two eyes. If the two points from which you are vectoring are in motion, how are you supposed to accurately judge where the ball is going? Teach her not to swing so hard that her head moves. The power of the swing comes from the hips and shoulders and should not be accomplished by stepping hard or jerking the body so hard that you cause the head to jolt around. Go for smooth instead. If you get to games and just cannot stand the weakness of her swing, maybe her bat is too heavy or maybe she just needs to swing it more frequently. Please, please, please do not teach her a violent swing - you can't later undo the damage that does.
So that's it for basic throwing, catching, fielding and swinging. If there are any clinics in your area which are for the specific age of your kid, sign up for them. Go to everything your league sponsors. But if there is anything else, try that too. High schools and colleges often conduct softball clinics for very young girls. These are usually pretty cheap and your daughter will have a great time. Keep in mind that what I'm talking about here is basic, beginner clinics only. The time may come when you want something more sophisticated but we're talking about a first year player here.
Plan to attend as many games and practices as possible. If you can't make all the games, I have only one question for you - why not? You'd better give me a good answer or I'll be coming to get you. The bare minimum for parents of kids playing recreational sports is an honest attempt to make every game. I've coached long enough to see some parents who only come to a quarter of the team's games. That's inexcusable. Some of these games are on Saturday afternoons. Why exactly can you not make those?
If you set your expectations very low, you will thoroughly enjoy these games - they are remarkably funny and enjoyable. And don't pay any attention to the score. That way when your daughter asks you who won that game (trust me she won't know if you don't tell her), you'll be able to honestly look her in the face and say "I don't know - I think it was a tie." I have a friend who coached and told his 10 year old team every game was a tie until the last game when they won. Years later those kids tell me how unusual it was that they tied almost every game that year. One of these days I imagine they'll figure it out.
I would also advise you to be a presence at practices, if you can, especially the early ones. If the coach needs some assistance, she or he will probably ask you to help out. It doesn't matter whether you have any softball knowledge to share. At this point practice is not very sophisticated. You have all the knowledge you need if you've ever watched a single softball or baseball game. Actually, if you are reading this site and have gotten this far into this piece, you are probably more qualified than the coach! If you are phsyically capable of rolling a ball fifteen feet and walking 30 to retrieve the overthrown ball, you can help out.
If, on the other hand, your kid tells you she doesn't want you to stay at practices, just stay in the car. This is her thing after all. You don't have to be there per se, but don't leave. If you leave, you'll miss the only opportunity you have to watch her grow up without actually participating in the process. There are no other opportunities to be a fly on the wall of your child's life.
If you have a video recorder, plan to use it. Buy tons of spare tapes or disks, perhaps an extra battery. You will treasure these artifacts of your kid's childhood for decades. One of my daughters is becoming a big time pitcher. My most treasured possession is a tape of her first pitching outing a full two years before she had any lessons. It is so comical I can't begin to tell you. She blooped her first 12 pitches so far from the strike zone that both coaches had to retrieve them for the poor catcher. Now the bases were loaded with nobody out and the tension grew. Would she ever throw a strike? She threw four consecutive balls to the next hitter which invoked the coach pitch rule. The coach pitched a perfect strike and the hitter hit the ball straight to my kid who dutifully picked it up and threw it home in time to nail the runner. Then four more balls, coach pitch, grounder back to my kid, runner out at home. Two outs, bases still loaded, and I began to wonder if she would be able to maintain her perfect ERA without ever throwing a strike! Alas, she found the strike zone and the opponent found it too. They hit her hard and damaged the ERA severely but she recovered and never gave up the desire to pitch after that first outing!! She hates that tape. You couldn't buy it from me for ten million dollars.
Finally, a word about the type of coaching your daughter is going to encounter. Let's see. How to put this? Unless you are extraordinarily lucky, the level of coaching your kid is going to get will not be particularly good. Get used to it. You mostly don't get to choose coaches in rec league. And if you keep your eyes on your kid's enjoyment of the game rather than the level of coaching she gets, you'll be better off. Don't give the coach any grief or you'll develop a reputation. Just let your daughter find her way regardless of the coaching. There's an important lesson in that. You mostly can't decide who your teachers are going to be. Some are better than others. You have to learn to deal with it. The same is true of bosses and co-workers.
You may find coaches out there who teach your kid exactly the wrong thing to do with respect to almost every fundamental skill mentioned here. That's OK provided that you are practicing with her. The average rec team practices maybe once a week for an hour and a half. There are usually about 12 kids at these practices. So these unqualified coaches should only have about 7 or 8 minutes to devote to the destruction of your baby's budding softball career. You can undo that without much effort and without upsetting the local political apple cart. Be gentle. And enjoy the game. Enjoy the opportunity to spend a lot of good time with your daughter. Soon she'll be not so sweet 16 and won't want to spend any time at all with the likes of you.Labels: catching, fielding, parents, throwing, Youth recreational softball
Permanent Link: Surviving Your First Rec Season!
Indoor Workouts => Quality Over Quantity
by Dave
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
If you're anyplace where the temperature maxes out below 65 or 70 on the typical day, you're probably working out indoors these days. Indoor facilities are sometimes difficult to find and mostly expensive. Players need to work out during the cold months but you've just got to have the right kind of space. You've also got to make the best possible use of your expensive time. There are any number of things you can do indoors to work out your fastpitch team. The typical indoor workouts involve a lot of batting practice with machine tossed balls, or a few varieties of ground ball or throwing drills. The type of stuff you do indoors largely depends upon the type of space you have. But regardless of the dimensions of your available space, there are some things you ought to consider.
First of all, it is easy to forget the need to conduct speed and agility drills. If all you've got for your practices is a single batting tunnel, you can still do speed drills. Shut off the pitching machine and have your girls run sprints back and forth. 40 foot sprints are better than no sprints at all and if you can do 60, so much the better. Your typical batting tunnel provides sufficient space to run two players, side by side. Run them one way, two at a time and, assuming you have 12 or 14 girls, you can get through one rep fairly quickly. Then run them back. I think a minimum of 6 - 10 sprints should be sufficient.
Another drill you can do is a two-lap sprint. At one end of the tunnel, place some red cones and instruct your girls to touch them and then turn and come back at full speed. You want to get your girls huffing and puffing a little so keep them moving with minimum breaks. You can do 4 way sprints but after that, you're just getting carried away and should look for a big track to run miles on. What you're after is speed.
In addition to sprinting, use some other speed / agility techniques. We like to use "power skipping" in which the player explosively lifts one knee as high as she can in conjunction with the opposite arm coming forwards and up in a running motion. The foot in contact with the floor pushes off and skips at the same time. The next motion involves using the opposite leg and arm the same way. Right leg up, left arm up, hop. Left leg up, right arm up, hop. Repeat across the running distance to the other side.
The power skip is an exaggerated motion. The object is to do it right not to propel yourself quickly across the course. Try it yourself before instructing kids on how to do it. Then while your team is doing it, emphasize proper technique and explosiveness over speed.
There are some other things you can work in. I like to have the players run backwards with knees high. Speed from one point to the other is not the idea here. Rather, I want the girls to focus on keeping their knees very high, the legs moving quickly, and the general motion is slowly backwards. It is like running in place while moving ever so slowly backwards. Use your run course distance but make sure nobody gets hurt at the other end!
We also use what is sometimes referred to as the karaoke run. Please recognize that there is no singing involved with this one. Rather, standing sideways to the course, the player runs sideways by stepping out towards the finish line then stepping once in front of the leading leg and then once in back. This is somewhat difficult to express in words but I'll try. Standing at the start line, turn one quarter to your left. Now step out with your right leg. Then bring your left leg to your right but step in front of the right foot and just past it. Now step towards the finish line with your right leg again and then bring your left leg to it while stepping in back and just past the right foot. Repeat to the other side of the course. Once you reach the finish line, stop and then go back the other way while still facing in the same direction. This time your left leg leads and your right is brought to it, first in front and then in back, across the full length of the course.
Next try a shuffle run. Standing in what could be described as a proper infielding position, legs apart more than shoulder distance, butt down, hands hanging loosely in front, shuffle across the floor while touching the ground with your hands. As you shuffle sideways, your back should move up to rigid while you keep your butt down, then you shuffle, then you touch the ground, up to rigid, shuffle, touch the ground, across the course.
There are plenty of other agility and speed drills you can use. I can't go into all of them here. The idea is to get the girls using their legs in ways they wouldn't normally as they play outdoors and these motions should emphasize good running and playing mechanics as much as possible.
One more training technique you should look into is the agility ladder. I hope you know what this is. I also hope you know some of the basic drills used with it. There are some free web sites and plenty of videos available on the topic.
A complete discussion of speed and agility training is well beyond the scope of this article. But my point here is you should not ignore this kind of training no matter how limited your time or space is. You can run an effective agility training program in fifteen minutes to a half an hour. It will pay dividends in so many ways I can't even begin to touch on them. Suffice it to say that an agile team will defend much better and a team that is in shape, quick and agile will play almost every aspect of the game better than a team that is not.
And if you've got more space than a simple batting tunnel, use it. You can run your girls through these drills four people wide or set up a circuit of different drills to run them through sequentially. And if you've got more than 60 x 60, do some real base running drills too, in order to make it more interesting. I have a fairly large space and after we have the girls huffing and puffing, I have my girls run out a homerun one at a time while the rest of the team shouts encouragement. You can run first to third, etc. even in a fairly small space. But touch 'em all, please! Don't miss the bases in practice!!
Throwing is probably the single most important skill fastpitch players need to work on. But if your space is limited to a single 10 x 60 batting tunnel, you cannot run effective throwing drills for more than two girls. If that's what you've got, I'd say forget about it. Actually, my advice is to find a bigger space.
If you have several tunnels or an even bigger space, throwing should probably take up a good portion for your practice. If the entire available throwing distance is limited to 60 feet or perhaps even less but you can have the girls all throwing at the same time, you can still run an effective throwing practice. Just make the girls throw from one knee. I suggest you tell them to bring something to kneel on like a folded blanket or a loose base. And work on mechanics, not just strength and endurance, in these sessions. For example, while kneeling on one knee with the other leg in front, lift the hand with ball up into throwing position and then throw across the distance, or a portion of it, while making sure to use a good four-seam throw, nearly straight over the top (1 o'clock to 7), with the follow through to the opposite side of the forward leg. As coach, you should be watching closely and correcting errors and lazy throwing. The mechanics are as important as the exercise aspect.
Make sure your throwing sessions last long enough to be beneficial. Less than 100 throws per player is probably too short. I don't have any science to back this up but that's my gut instinct.
If you have sufficient space to throw further than 60 feet, use it even if you can only do a few girls at a time. First perform your kneeling throw and then have two or four girls use the full distance to make throws of 80 feet or more. It is always advisable when constructing throwing drills to use a greater distance than you need. Catchers, for example, benefit from working a 100 foot distance. Infielders get the most out of making throws from greater than 60 feet. Even pitchers get something out of working at least part of their workouts from 45 or 50 feet.
Another important aspect to conducting throwing drills is game situation. There is no way to duplicate game stress in practice but I try to use a proxy - fatigue. One of the things I do try to do in winter workouts is get my girls really tired, huffing and puffing and then have them perform their throwing drills. if I can mix running into the throwing drills, so much the better. As I've said, we have a space that is greater than 60 x 60. So I run what I call the four corners drill (some folks refer to it as the diamond or star). basically you have girls out at the four bases and the one standing at home has the ball. She throws to second and then runs to that base. The girl at second throws to first and runs there. The one at first then throws to third and runs there. The one at third returns the ball to home and runs there. Please note that the minimum you can do this drill with is five players since somebody needs to be at home when the girl at third makes her throw. Then we go around again.
If the ball is overthrown or missed, encourage the players to keep it going and not give up. When we're working outdoors, I stop the drill after a missed ball or overthrow but in a confined space, there's no reason to stop. Just run down the ball and keep it going.
The four corners drill is great for working just your starting infield but if you've got a full team and just that amount of space, you can run it with all your girls involved. During your practice, do your agility drills first, then let them warm up throwing, then do your long tosses, then go into the four corners drill. once a girl has completed the circuit twice, substitute another player in for her and keep the line moving until all the girls have participated. This is complicated since the girl who starts at first is in the drill for longer and because you ideally want to get all the girls to throw with each other. But figure it out. It isn't that hard to do this and you can run girls through the circuit multiple times.
If you haven't got quite enough space to run the full size of an infield, you can run "four corners" with just three corners like you would be forced to do if you had a space 30 x 80. The point is to make a short throw and then a long one. If all you have space for is two long throws and one short one, that's fine.
Another important aspect of throwing drills whether conducted in an indoor, limited space facility or outdoors is to work quick release throwing mechanics - ones where the thrower does not take a crow hop or skip before throwing. This is as easy to do indoors as it is outside. Emphasis should be on making a catch, whether in the air or on the ground, and coming up to make the throw without moving the feet after the catch. The torque for the throw comes from the hip and upper body. This is one of the drills advocated by Howard Kobata to emphasize quickness of release rather than power of the throw. You can and should do these sorts of drills during your indoor practices. And add in some barehanded plays to the mix as well. Make sure to teach proper barehanded technique if you do. the hand should be fully open to the ball, just outside the foot. The pivot foot stays in place while the stride foot takes just that half a step necessary to generate throwing power.
Another type of drill I like to use in addition to these is one which is based on "three ball." Three ball involves a pitcher and catcher. The pitcher has two balls and the catcher one. Standing about 50 feet apart, the pitcher initiates play by performing the windmill motion - absent the wind-up - and throwing with a single step towards the catcher. the catcher catches with one hand and throws the other ball, in her hand, back to the pitcher. The pitcher has removed the second ball from her glove and placed it in her throwing hand. She catches the throw from the catcher and windmills in another one. if a ball gets away from either the pitcher or catcher, ignore it and just continue with the balls still in play until they are all thrown away or about 50 throws have taken place.
Three ball is a great way for a pitcher to get a workout in just a few minutes. It also helps the catcher to practice quick release throwing. We like to use it in the middle of our pitching workouts. It generally results in both the pitcher and catcher being winded. If I have 4 pitchers and catchers, I give each a turn which usually lasts about 5 minutes. If I have sufficient space, I do two pairs, side by side. That gives each pair a good 5 minute wind and muscle workout and five minutes rest. Then we go around again.
The entire team can do this drill with the pitchers so even if you don't have enough real catchers, you can use it. And you don't really need to use pitchers in every iteration. A significant benefit can be had with two girls both throwing regular overhand. I just like to increase the distance to at least 60 feet when two infielders, for example, are doing this drill. if your space is 60 x 40, you should be able to run 6 girls simultaneously. But because this is an intensity drill, I suggest using no more than half the team at a time, one session on, one off for rest. The idea here is speed of transition from catching to throwing combined with powerful throwing. You get no benefit from this if players dog it or the ball constantly gets away.
You should try to use as much of your throwing drill repertoire as possible when conducting indoor drills in adequate space. The idea is to have the team throwing as much as possible and under conditions in which they are winded and tired. Try to get as much distance as you can. Also focus on quick releases. If you can combine different aspects of throwing mechanics, psychological stress, and distance, do it. And if you have some good indoor throwing drills, write me and tell me what they are so I can share them here!
My least favorite aspect of indoor practicing is batting practice. Unless you have great facilities, you're probably limited to just enough space to have a single batter at a time hitting balls from one machine. Even two or three at a time creates a very boring, marginally beneficial situation. You have to do something to try to engage all your girls. If I have twin batting tunnels, I'll use one machine but the other cage for other drills.
I'm a big fan of hitting off the tee. Tee hitting is never quite as easy as it looks. And you can get many more repetitions using a tee than you can with a pitching machine. besides, a pitching machine which throws a single speed on every pitch and puts the ball within the same general two foot area is not at all like hitting live pitching. I'm hesitant to use real live pitching, however, in the type of confined space with somewhat poor lighting teams usually use. So the batting tee is almost as good as the pitching machine and we work on swing fundamentals. Also, by using a second batting tunnel, we can have almost the entire team doing something at all times. A 10 x 60 foot space provides enough room for about 4, possibly more, tees with one girl placing the ball on the tee for the other hitting. Make sure you leave plenty of room and instruct the girls firmly not to walk around the cage, even to retrieve balls. Serious accidents can occur that way. if you are able to partition the space with large nets, that's probably ideal.
In addition to batting tees, you can also make use of soft toss hitting where the girl who would put the ball on the tee instead tosses the ball in an underhand motion. My experience when using soft toss is you need a little more space than you do with the tee. But a very good drill you can use with soft toss is rapid fire hitting where the girl tossing the ball waits until the batter fully recoils and then immediately tosses the next pitch. Batters should be instructed to immediately recoil after completing their swings. Initially I imagine girls get tired after 20 such swings. As your practice "season" progresses, they will be able to handle more. Try to gradually move up to 50, maybe by adding 5 more to each week. This drill helps build quick-twitch muscle strength as well as overall strength and endurance. It is a sprint and will make your hitters far stronger than all the time spent in with a machine.
I know some of you will insist on using pitching machines. I will too. I think you can use machines in an intelligent manner so as to glean some benefit from them. My first thoughts regarding machines is get the speed up to higher than what you expect to see in competition. This is especially true if your girls are moving up an age or competition class. they'll arrive at your first game expecting to see fast pitching and then after a winter of hitting balls 5 mph faster, wonder what they were concerned about!
Also, if you can use smaller balls - say baseball sized - do it! More than actually preparing girls to face live pitching, using a pitching machine is good for training their eyes. Even professional softball players hit off machines but what they do is turn the speed way up, use smaller balls and engage in some innovative practices. For example, the Olympic team uses a special (and expensive) machine which throws tennis balls at high velocity. the balls have numbers or colors painted on them and the batter are told to only swing at those with blue or red paint on them, or the number 5, for example. Again, the idea is not so much to work on mimicking live pitching, but rather to train their eyes for when they do.
Please recognize that using a baseball pitching machine is not advisable. Baseball pitching is, obviously, overhand while softball pitching is underhand. You don;t want your team to face pitching that comes from above the shoulder of a person standing out around the pitcher's plate. The release point has to be around the hip. if you go to most public batting cages, the ball is thrown in such a way to mimic overhand throwing. fastpitch players get no benefit from a pitching machine set up like that. So use baseball sized batting machine balls but make sure the release point is low.
Also, if you've turned up the speed of a pitching machine, note that the arc of the ball is not going to be accurate. Most of the pitching your hitters will face will have more downward motion than you get from a fastball thrown by a machine due to the spin of the ball thrown by a live pitcher and, presumably, the lower speed live pitchers will be throwing. Unless you look forwards to watching your players all strike out by swinging and missing over the top of the pitched ball, adjust the machine to put some downward action on it. Most good machines have speed adjustments for both the lower and upper wheel. You'll have to read the directions and play with it but you don't want the arc of the ball to be quite so flat unless you're deliberately preparing for a riseball pitcher. While we are on the topic, if your team and their competition is sufficiently advanced, use the machine to mimic various pitches like the dropball, screwball and curves. For most machine, this involves a somewhat complex adjustment. Play with it and, again, try reading the directions thoroughly.
Well, we're in the thick of winter practices. My first priority was getting a good space. I'd rather run 10 indoor workouts in 80 x 100 than 30 in 30 x 50 or 50 in a couple of 10 x 40 batting tunnels. If you do the analysis, I think you'll find someplace that is adequate, if a little on the expensive side. You probably have limited resources but use your intellect to get the highest quality possible for your planned indoor practices.
Make sure you don't forget normal, average athletic agility and speed training. It will benefit your team tremendously to do these drills. The less space you have available, the more this is true. And don't use time limitations as a reason for skipping this most fundamental type of athletic training. You can work some agility into even an hour's worth of practice.
Do some throwing - it's really important - but don't have girls throwing back and forth over a 40 foot distance. Too many bad habits are formed that way. Make sure you get in a decent amount of distance throwing or create situations to mimic distance throwing by placing them on one knee.
Work on skills you know your girls will need when the games begin. Quick release throwing and barehanding ground balls shouldn't be ignored. if you;re going to conduct hitting practice, use your head and make the best possible use of the available facilities. There's very little benefit to standing around for 50 minutes waiting for your one or two turns to hit 20 pitches at 45 mph from an overhand machine.
Quantity of practice is important but quality of practice is more important.Labels: coaching, fielding, indoor, practice
Permanent Link: Indoor Workouts => Quality Over Quantity
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