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Now Is The Time
by Dave
Monday, November 30, 2009
Many, if not most, of us are in the off-season. Yes, elite travel players aged about 14 and up are working towards winter showcases in Florida and elsewhere. Many warm weather states are playing their winter seasons. And in the cold states, some few are making plans for indoor winter ball or their indoor workout sessions. But that's travel ball and what I'm about to discuss has nothing to do with that. Right now, my thoughts are with rec programs around the country. Officers and other league officials are making plans for the coming season including tryouts which will happen for many right after the holidays. In going with the catch phrase of 2009, how about thinking about some sort of "change" for the 2010 season?!
When my mind drifts back to rec ball, a couple images come to mind. For one thing, there are those eternally long games between large teams (15 or more) of girls aged 7 to 10. Another image that comes to mind is of girls in the 12U division who really are not interested in playing softball at a high level but just want to get out and socialize with their friends. The final image that comes to mind is of the older divisions which have depleted rosters either because most of the skilled players are somewhere else, perhaps in travel, or because softball is competing with school and other activities.
These are macro images and when I think of each, a couple sub-set images come to mind. In the 10U age group, typically you have about half the girls who have never played anything beyond tee ball and about half the girls who have already played a full year, possibly more, of real softball. Of those who have played some, there is a smaller sub-set of girls who have attended clinics on their own or possibly gotten involved with travel ball someplace where they played 50 games outside the rec league, practiced all winter and developed their skills well beyond the newbies.
Generally, the pitching stinks in this category except for a very small group of girls who have actually taken lessons, perhaps even pitched travel ball for a year. There are not nearly enough of these girls to go around to all the teams and because the league restricts girls from pitching more than say 3 innings a game or week, the games almost always degrade into walk-fests with a few hits when the pitcher finds the strike zone and the wrong kid, some travel kid, is at bat.
Games usually have some sort of time restriction like 2 hours and thank goodness for that because nobody could take any more. A game might start out with a bunch of walks and then somebody hits a grounder that exceeds the reach of any infielder and rolls past the outfielders. Finally the last outs are recorded and the teams switch. the next half inning might proceed like the first or the other team might have one of those travel pitchers. In any event, it continues until the score is pretty high, the travel pitcher ends her permitted number, or some such. Nobody has really gained from the experience. But everyone goes out for ice cream or speeds off to a family party or other event. Meet back here Tuesday or next Saturday and we'll replay the same game against another team.
At 12U, most of the girls are more coordinated and there is more "quality" pitching. A few teams have one travel pitcher, possibly two. Some teams do not. Generally the teams that have pitchers will make it to the playoffs by blowing out the others. And then there are some quality games, quality for the more serious players, that is. The less serious, less skilled kids will be either at home because their team is no longer playing or stuck out in the outfield and overwhelmed by the opposing pitching. Games are shorter throughout the season and particularly in the playoffs. Bragging rights are established. And many girls start considering leaving softball for something a little more interesting and exciting, or something they can actually excel at.
In the older age categories, there is a massively reduced number of players because girls have left for other activities because they have absolutely no confidence on the softball diamond. Some play although they are not serious about the game because they can still hold their own and there is nothing else much that interests them. When basketball or some other event conflicts with their rec softball games, they choose the other activity which causes teams to have trouble fielding 9. There are fewer and fewer teams and age groups are often combined in order to have enough teams with enough kids to play games.
This is the rec softball pyramid. We start out with too many kids to count at age 7 or 8 and end up with too few kids to bother counting by 15 and 16. Competition stinks in the early ages. It gets marginally better in older ones and then degrades as the number of participants depletes. It is a shame for a truly great game.
But what do we do about it? Like I said, right now is the planning stage for many rec programs. If I have accurately described rec softball, ultimately, We can really do only one of two things. We can leave it alone and assume nothing will make it any better, or fooling with it might make it worse. Or we can try to make some positive changes. What some of these changes could be are the subject of today's discussion.
Some leagues divide up the girls between 8U and 10U or 8-9 and 10U while some have leagues where 7 and under are relegated to tee ball while everyone over 8 and under 10 plays in a single league. The differences in coordination, strength, athleticism, etc. between a youngish 9 (let alone 8) and an older 10 is considerable. IMHO, girls aged 8 should not be playing with the 10s. It would be preferable if programs could establish separate leagues for 8U and 10U, even perhaps divide up the 9s and 10s into competitive and less competitive play.
If for example, you have 8 teams of 10U in which all different skill and age levels are represented, what would be wrong with creating 2 divisions, based partly on age and partly on skill. These would then play against just 3 other teams rather than having a single 8-team league in which some kid who could not field a grounder or make a decent throw to first must play against another who has played a year of travel ball in addition to rec. So my first recommendation is to consider dividing up your 10U league into competitive and less competitive divisions. If you do not wish to do this at 10U for whatever reasons, consider doing it for 12U.
Next, it is almost painful to watch the pitching at 10U in most rec leagues. Yes, there are some which train their pitchers and that is generally a better league. Many just conduct tryouts and leave the teams to their own devices. One team has one great pitcher and many poor ones. Other teams have decent pitchers who do not walk the world. But overall, the total quality of pitching is very poor.
Right now, when budgets are being established and plans for the season are being laid out, why not consider addressing the pitching issue? What you can do is bring in a professional instructor to train a group of pitchers at weekly clinics. If a professional trainer is not within the realm of budgetary possibility, comsider talking to local high school coaches to get a kid pitching at that level who would volunteer to work with the kids. Every high schooler who aspires to go to college must perform a minimum number of hours of community volunteering. This would be a fun way to earn one's required points.
These clinics could be conducted during the late winter months in some school gymnasium or other facility. Presumably the local rec league can gain access to a school gym for free or some sort of nominal charge. You get your space, some balls, an instructor and see how things develop.
The pitching clinics should not be some sort of free benefit provided by the league that anyone who wants to come whenever they want to come can feel free to attend. It should be mandatory for all girls who state they want to pitch in the league. There could be a nominal fee to cover expenses. If a professional instructor would accept $200 for a two hour clinic and you were able to squeeze 20 kids into a lesson, $5 - $10 per kid is not bad for one or two hours worth of Saturday afternoon baby sitting for a girl to gain the opportunity to stand in the circle. Add to this the other costs and divide by 20 or have the league pick up those costs. The point is, this could be accomplished for very little cost per aspiring pitcher.
One league I have spoken about in the past puts the word out that anyone who wishes to pitch must attend their pitching clinics which have a paid instructor plus some high school volunteers. A good instructor can easily handle 20 kids but give him 2 high school aged, softball playing girls and everything goes very smoothly. Attendance is taken at these clinics. Girls who want to pitch must attend, regardless of excuses provided. If your clinic consists of 8 to 10 sessions, you might allow any one girl to miss 2 but more than that and they are no longer pitchers. yes that's tough politically but if you want your league to provide a quality experience, trust me, this is a necessary step.
Girls who attend their own private lessons, could be exempted or have a reduced number of sessions, provided that it is clear that they are actually attending lessons and do not need additional work in a group setting. This can easily be seen in tryouts or at a first clinic session at which skills are evaluated. Don't simply accept anyone's word that a particular kid is in lessons and therefore has a valid e4xcuse not to show at your clinics. Otherwise, you will most certainly see more kids laying claim to being in lessons while your league's pitching improves only a bit.
The point about improving pitching is not merely some way to alleviate parental pain caused by sitting through horrendous walk-fest games. There is a better reason to take the plunge and do this. While hitting is very much a mechanical issue that should be addressed in a vacuum, it is also critical for hitters to see decent pitching, as mush as possible. When walk-fests take place, nobody benefits, not the struggling pitchers, not the bored fielders, not the batters who never get to take swings. When a league's 10U pitching improves, everybody benefits. Batters take their cuts. Fielders field balls because batters are hitting them. And the game moves along so nobody is caught yawning either in the stands or out in right field.
It should be noted that when 10U pitching improves, 12U games are better too as kids move up having actually pitched somewhat well. Others have fielded real grounders or flies. And batters have real experiences of seeing strikes and ripping at them.
As a side note, there is another pitching related issue which can be addressed to improve your local rec league. That issue can be addressed either in a non-competitive 10U or, if you have a 9U or other pre-10U league, there. That issue is walks.
One way to deal with the issue is to alter the number of balls required before a batter is walked. At young ages, 6 might be the magic number which changes the game for the better. If that doesn't cut down the number of bases on balls, there is another approach which is guaranteed to. Abolish them. That is, do not permit walking. When the pitcher throws 4 or 6 balls, have a coach pitch.
One league we were involved with had a rule which limited walks to 4 per inning. After that, a coach pitched the rest of the inning. That did not really work all that well. Almost every inning began with 4 walks followed by, of course, coaches pitching. if you want to do that sort of thing, why not put 3 runners on base, give the batting team a run and then have coaches pitch the whole thing? Of course, this also solves nothing. So, instead, consider doing away with walks, just at this low level, and allow pitchers to try to throw strikes to each and every batter without facing the risk of boring their teammates to death.
A peripheral issue involves the way teams are set up. Say you have 8 teams in your league and 16 kids have attended the clinics. That works out nicely since 2 pitchers could be placed on each team. But that is never the way it works unless you design it as such. if you want to improve your league's games along with the pitching, conduct separate drafts of pitchers and other players. The teams which go first in the pitcher draft go last in the player draft. And do not allow two parents who also happen to have their kids in pitching lessons to coach on the same team. Split them up. I don't really care who is friends with whom. The league exists for the good of the largest possible number of participants, not to ensure that Sally gets to play with her best friends.
This raises an issue unrelated to generally improving a rec league but I want to address it nonetheless because it is a thorn in my side. How many times have you seen this kind of thing happen: Matt, Sara's dad who is coaching the Marlins or Phillies has Sara, an ace pitcher on his team. His daughter knows Jane and Mollie who are very good softball players that can also pitch in a pinch. They know Maggie, Allie, Kristen and Lauren, also good players. The group conspires to go to tryouts and not really try. Matt is able to draft all 6 girls plus his daughter and they crush all comers in the league once games start. One of the 7 always pitches, another always catches, and the others make up the infield. They bat 1-7 with the "other girls" filling in remaining spots and sharing tim e on the bench. This kind of stuff cannot be allowed to go unpunished. It happens all the time across this nation and most other league participants are hurt in some fashion by it. Enough of that. If a league president knows about such shenanigans and is too spineless to put a stop to it, he or she should not be president.
So that is pitching and two related draft issues which could be addressed in order to improve a rec league. I believe that this issue alone, if it is resolved, will lead to a better rec league. But I'm going to delve a bit further into other areas because I do not believe resolving this issue alone will lead to better participation, particularly as girls age up.
Another area which can be addressed is fundamental defensive skills. So many kids progress through rec softball without ever really knowing how to field a ball or make a throw or catch that it is mind boggling. Kids come out for the lowest levels and coaches do make an effort to teach their teams how to field and throw. But before long, they come to the conclusion that half the kids can do it and the other half cannot. They also conclude that the only way they are going to win games is to take the kids who can field and throw, put them in the infield, and then teach them where to throw. They encourage these more naturally gifted kids to take over control of the game. If the ball is hit to the outfield and you can get it, go get it. Don't wait to allow the others to try to make a play. Just take charge and make every play you possibly can. While there is nothing wrong with the philosophy of going for everything in general, it can devolve into the old "Bad News Bear" scene in which one kid races back and forth and catches the ball right in front of another kid. That's not good.
A better approach is to require coaches to teach basic skills. That's tougher than it sounds since most coaches: A) do not have the slightest idea of what basic skills are, let alone how to teach them; B) see the rec league as a way of raising their own egos or providing their kid with a winning experience; or C) do not want to be told how to coach or structure a practice since they played college ball and the league officials did not. Leagues must coach their coaches.
If you go watch a very good rec league, one of the elements of play which will strike you is the fundamental skills of the players. This league might just be blessed with better water or soil which yields a better crop of athletes. But if that happens year after year, most likely the water and soil have nothing to do with it. There must be another reason. Most likely they teach all the participants those fundamental skills.
Many towns have certain requirements their coaches must meet. They have to attend the safety training class. They must attend a meeting which tells them that they should emphasize certain things like fun, basic skills, and team work, not winning. But even when these perfunctory meetings and classes are conducted at which all the good intentions are laid out, nothing much changes. We have to find a way to force or coerce coaches into teaching sound fundamentals, putting the emphasis on the right thing, or otherwise improving everyone's experience and learning.
The first issue is to make sure coaches know fundamental skills. For this, perhaps a film session followed by an open discussion would suffice. There are videos out there which teach fundamentals. Most are addressed to players but there is no harm in having coaches watch them. An alternative is to bring in a competent local high school or travel coach. I say competent because there are plenty of incompetents. I know of some high school coaches who parents of players would like to sit down and teach the basics of the game to. If the local high school coach is merely taking additional pay for the least possible amount of effort, perhaps a travel coach would be willing to come in and help out. If he or she pulls many of their players from the local area, this can only benefit their program.
The second issue is finding a way to make sure the coaches teach the skills to their players. It is nearly impossible to draft up a specimen practice regimen, require its use, and then enforce the requirement. Nobody takes kindly to this sort of control from league officials. But some sort of requirement for teaching skills is absolutely necessary at young ages.
There are a couple ways to resolve the issue. One is to require coaches to conduct practices of a certain duration consisting of a certain amount (say half of practice) of fundamental skills teaching and practicing. [; The second half is theirs to do with as they choose. This can be tough to police unless a league rep can attend practices regularly and watch in order to enforce the rule. A secojnd, more effective way to enforce the requirement of spending a certain amount of time working fundamental skills is to take away the practice time and put it into "clinic" time. You have 8 to 16 coaches looking to practice their players. You have say 160 girls looking to practice. Rather than conducting separate practices by team, use half the time to conduct clinics at which the team coaches are instructors under the supervision of a coordinator who directs what is to be done, when and how.
A league which, for example, plays its games on Sunday and Wednesday could establish some sort of Saturday clinic schedule and then allow teams no more than one practice outside the clinis per week. Coaches might work with their players for some of the time but be supervised by league officials or the coordinator while conducting the drills. There are many ways to conduct these clinis but you can figure this out for yourselves.
As a final comment about clinics as opposed to practices, I find that many leagues do this sort of thing but only at the youngest age levels. It would be best if these kinds of skills clinics could be continued at least through 10U. It would be better if they continued up to at least 12U, though in more sophisticated form.
And as a final comment about coaching or policing coaches, some sort of evaluation program should be implemented. It should be formal and standardized. It must involve the players, parents or both. Each participant's family ought to receive an evaluation form concerning how the team was run. The form should contain a questionnaire which grades coaches ability and willingness to teach fundamental skills. The questions must be objective such as:
"Fundamental skills" (circle all comments that apply)
"I (my daughter) was taught fundamental skills more than / less than half of all practice time"
"I (my daughter) had ample / insufficient time to learn these skills"
"The coach was knowledgeable / needs work on his understanding of skills / ability to communicate those skills with the kids."
I think you get the idea. No, I don't have a specimen questionnaire for you to use. You need to draft one up which mirrors your organization's values. But keep in mind that you want a high level of participation in the process. Getting 50% or less of these questionnaires back is not only a good thing, it makes the entire batch completely useless. You cannot evaluate coaches based on a half return rate. You need a minimum of 75%. Also the process must be anonymous. Specific comments, if you allow parents to provide them, cannot be read back to the coach. When the process is over, the overall grade is the only thing which you share with the coach.
For example, a coach might be told, you had an overwhelming response which indicated that you do not like to teach fundamentals or you need to work on your communication skills. A coach might be told that the majority of respondents felt that you put winning too high on your list of priorities. Again, I think you get the idea and can do for yourselves.
So, these are my suggestions to you to improve your rec league. I have no vested interest in this. It really just popped into my head this morning. I suppose I know where it all came from. I was discussing some softball issues with a web friend. He directed me to a forum which discussed all sorts of softball issues in his state. I was struck by how similar the discussion was to similar forums regarding my state. I was also struck by how many of the same issues pop up all over the place.
One of the issues which was raised had to do with "how do we bring our state's softball up to the level of California?" In that discussion, one of the readers wondered why CA players were so good. All sorts of reasons were givewn and most I take issue with. For one thing, there is this assumption that the only good ball is played in CA. Last I looked Florida is making some large inroads. Further, there is very good softball being played in Texas, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Georgia, etc, (sorry if I missed your state).
For another thing, everyone assumes CA has better softball because it has such great weather. yes, they do have great weather but not everywhere in the state. Some places are way too hot to play ball in the summer. Some places actually get snow. Some places are just grand to play softball 365 days per year but, you know, I know of some teams that play in colder, less pleasant climates who play over 100 games per year, play indoors whenever the weather is no good, and otherwise ought to be able to compete with CA teams. Yet there must be other reasons because one particular organization which does this and who I am thinking about is good but hardly the best around.
The fact is CA has been at this fastpitch thing longer than most places. In my state and many others, girls were playing slowpitch or modified for many decades before they gradually moved over to fastpitch. Heck, there are some high schools which still play slowpitch in a few places around the country. Fastpitch hasn't really been around many places for very long. I think that people either don;t know or forget that colleges in the SEC and ACC have not fielded softball teams for very long, mostly less than two decades. Until the game has been around for longer and things have sorted themselves out, just a few places will continue to yield the largest, highest quality crop of softball players and teams. The question cannot be what does CA have that we'll never have which allows them to produce better softball. The question has to be, what can we learn from other places about how to improve our softball. One, important place we can improve is the quality of our rec leagues. If we drastically improve our rec leagues, the entire game in our region will improve. But not only that, also more and more girls will come to appreciate our game. More and more girls will have fun p[laying softball well. That is why I wrote this today.
"Change" is the catchword of today. We do need to make changes in many aspects of our lives. It cannot be change for change's sake. It must be change for the sake of improvement. I've laid out a few areas in which our rec softball leagues can change. Pitching is key. Fundamentals are almost as important. As you, the league officials, plan for the coming rec season, how about thinking about some positive changes?Labels: coaching, fielding, instruction, little league, parenting, pitching, pre-season preparation, Youth recreational softball
Permanent Link: Now Is The Time
 
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!
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