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Terms
by Dave
Monday, April 20, 2009
At this early juncture in the new softball season (season in terms of school, recreational and travel ball), I find it necessary to define some terms. My reasons for defining terms should become patently obvious but suffice it to say that my motivatiopn has to do with some misconceptions I have heard along the sidelines already this year. I also feel that for those somewhat new to the game, knowing a few terms would be handy. So, here goes.
First let's start with some very basic terms. We'll move on to the more important stuff, the crux of the matter, before long so please be patient. The first terms I want to bring up are in regards to playing level.
The lowest level is what is commonly referred to as recreational (or rec) ball. This level is generally sanctioned by a town, village or group of towns or villages. Fields are typically owned and maintained by local government with tax money but can very often involve those owned by the local government which are leased (for very little money) or ceded to some recreational organization for its exclusive or mostly exclusive use. In these cases, the local organization often maintains the fields, runs the snack bar, keeps the common areas clean, etc.
Recreational ball is most often open to anyone within the specific geographic location who wants to play, who signs up in accordance with the league's practices, and who comes out for the league's tryouts and draft. Tryouts is probably a misnomer because nobody is generally excluded based on performance. "Tryouts" are usually conducted to rate players for the specific purpose of balancing the teams in terms of players' abilities. It should be a rec league's goal to have teams playing against each other which are as closely matched as possible. However, often adults involved in rec leagues try to skew talent towards their own daughters' teams which often defeats the purpose behind the league which is, of course, to create an environment for recreation.
There are some (few?) rec leagues which are not restricted by geographic location. These leagues, while often involving town supported facilities, can be open to anyone who wishes to sign up and pay the league fee. They exist mostly for purposes of providing an activity to town residents but for one reason or another the town sought to broaden its draw. Little Leagues generally are restricted to residents within specific postal zip codes, and for good reason, but there are many rec leagues outside of Little League which do not have any such restrictions.
Very often recreational leagues have all-star programs in which the most talented players get together outside the confines of the rec league and practice and play games against other town all-star teams. It should be noted that many town all-star teams feature travel ball players and can be as competitive as any travel team. But we differentiate between "town all-stars" and travel teams because an "all-star" team SHOULD include only players who ordinarilly are found within the rec league which sponsors the all-star team.
Some of the better "all-star" teams will play tournaments against the best travel teams and compete favorably against them. Some "all-star" teams evolve into travel teams which seek the best players they can accumulate regardless of residence or participation in any rec league. These teams often "hide" behind the all-star label and are really travel teams with a town name.
When we refer to travel teams, sometimes referred to as club, elite, or some such label, we are talking about teams which conduct tryouts open to players without regard to participation in any rec league or specific boundary of residence. These teams often are members of an organization which may be incorporated or not, may be for "not-for-profit" or not, may conduct business openly via a baord of directors or not, etc. The goal of most travel organizations and teams is to put the absolute best team they can on the field, to play tournaments, and to compete for berths to some larger, higher tournament while also developing girls into players who will continue to play during their high school days and perhaps into college.
While recreational leagues should exist for the good of all participants, all-star teams for the good of the best players in the rec league, travel teams really should exist for the good of the travel organization and everyone in it. One often hears things regarding the use of organizational funds like, "sure the older girls get more but so will your kid when she gets there." That is a cop-out. Every kid within a travel organization should benefit about equally or expressly agree that the "older kids get more and so will your kid when she gets there" before joining.
This brings up something which is still fairly rare within the softball world and is something we'll refer to as a softball academy. &n bsp; A softball academy generally is a facility and organization, usually for profit and run like a business, which has the express desire of providing lessons and clinics for a fee. Some such organizations sponsor travel teams in addition to providing lessons for fees but usually the travel organization is separately incorporated and keeps its funds and accounting apart from the academy, though that is not an absolute and does not need to be.
Also, as you will see shortly, it is not my desire at this juncture to closely and completely examine the world of softball academies nor the finances of travel organizations. The important parts of this leg of the piece is the differentiation between types of ball and the possible variations on the organizational theme which you may experience. I want to emphasize, before I go any further, that whether an organization is for profit or not may not impact whether your experiences with it will be positive ones. There are too many examples of a "not-for-profit" organization really being run for the benefit of individuals (via legal or illegal means) to list in a single writing. There are also too many examples of a so-called "for profit" organization in which one receives so much in return for one's money that the "for-profit" / "not-for-profit" designation is absolutely meaningless that one should not harp to much on this aspect. Find a place which gives you what you want and leave the corporate terminology for somebody else.
OK, so that is how I see the world in terms of playing level. But that is not my primary goal in writing today. Rather, I want to go over some common terminology in regards to types of fastpitch softball play outside of what we commonly think of as "practice." That is, I want to define and explain some terms like scrimmage, friendly, tournament, and qualifier. My motivations for doing so is because I have heard and witnessed conduct which indicates that many inside the softball world just do not understand the differences between these types of play.
Let's start with the term scrimmage because that is a logical first foray beyond our typical practices. You can work ground balls, flies, and take at-bats to a certain level inside the confines of practice and cause players to develop only so far. At some point you've got to get girls out on the field with a "blue" (umpire) or two, have balls called balls (hopefully), make outs, score runs, etc. In the early season, and sometimes much later on, teams conduct what they refer to as scrimmages in which one team plays against another in situations which are entirely game. The idea behind a scrimmage is to get the girls game experience in addition to what they will gain as the real season wears on.
It should be noted that a "scrimmage" really exists in the no-man's-land (or no woman's-land) between practice and game. It should never be the objective of any participant (coach, player, parent) to "win" a scrimmage. The reason I emphasize this is because I have heard people exclaim "Oh, that team is no good. We played them in a game a few weeks ago and beat the living daylights out of them." There never serems to be the understanding that the other team considered the thing a scrimmage, a glorified practice, and did things it would never consider doing in a game. As a coach, I have had my teams play many scrimmages in which we were up or down by 10 runs and I had a baserunner who is not known to be a good base stealer try to steal when the next three or four hitters are among our best. I figure the kid needs to improve her skillset and learn to steal a little better. And she won't get the chance to steal once tournament season starts.
It is also possible that during the course of a scrimmage I might have my big bopper bunt with runners on second and third and us trailing by a single run. I might also have a kid bunt with bases loaded and our slowest runner standing on third. It is entirely possible that three or more consecutive batters might be given the bunt sign, even while they have two strikes on them in order to get them to put one down. I view all scrimmages as practices and I conduct my players that way. For this reason, I find myself dazed and confused (as opposed to shocked and awed) when we scrimmage against one of those teams which seems to always play to win regardless of the arrangement.
Understand that some scrimmages are played to a win-lose conclusion and in many cases that is the idea behind the scrimmage. I remember being a fan at a high school scrimmage which ended 7 innings in a tie with another game scheduled to start immediately afterwards where they put runners on second to play ITB (international tie breaker) extra-innings and determine a winner. I was confused by this but that was the arrangement under which the scrimmages were played.
Regarding the use of ITB and other situations in a scrimmage, it is not unusual for coaches to agree to certain situations before the game starts. I haven't seen it but I would not be shocked if a scrimmage were to consist of every inning starting with a runner placed on second. Similarly, it wouldn't surprise me if teams agreed to play the first couple of innings like usual, begin the fourth and fifth with the bases loaded, and thereafter to play with the ITB. That's kind of the beauty of a true scrimmage. There are no limits to what you can do. Batters could come up for their at-bats with the count 2-1 or some such.
Another thing you frequently see at scrimmages is a batter walked or hit by pitch and the coach refuses to let her take her base. If needs be, a runner could sub for her on base but the batter takes another at-bat. It is also not unusual, assuming a team has a kid designated to run the bases, to have one kid go out and run for multiple base runners during a single inning. They are not cheating by having their fastest kid run for players when that's not allowed. It is a scrimmage and they are trying to get the kid as many on-base situations as possible. Sometimes, after a baserunner has successfully been sacrificed over to second, the coach will ask that she be allowed to return to first, again for the purpose of gaining experience. The possibilities are endless. The key to understanding is to know that most scrimmages are conducted for the purpose of getting teams and players ready for the real deal. This is not the real deal and there are no bragging rights conferred. To act otherwise is to demonstrate the quality of being "bush league" (amateurish).
Beyond practice and scrimmage are, quite obviously, games. But there are many different types of games. I don't wish to explore high school, middle school, or rec ball any further. At this point I'm really exploring the world of travel.
Within travel ball, particularly early in the season, we have lots of what are called friendlies in which play is not brought to a head by some sort of championship or trophy. Many times these are conducted under a competitive sanctioning body's rules (like ASA, NSA, PONY) and are played just like any tournament game. There could be "MVP" awards (which I don't wish to get into), mercy run-rules (in which one team leading another by say 12 after 3 innings, 10 after 4, 8 after 5, etc.) is declared the winner, and other things you usualloy see in regular tournament games. Most often there are drop-dead times. But most of the time friendlies are not played until a winner is established.
Friendlies are not scrimmages in the sense that you do not see the kinds of odd ball things like batters not allowed to take a base on balls or runners placed on at the beginning of innings during games. They are played under normal game rules.
Friendlies are usually competitive games in which the teams are trying to win. They are a slice above your prototypical scrimmage. One of the principal objectives of teams playing a friendly is to get teams ready to play tournaments. Along those lines, teams are playing using their normal batting order, bunting runners up, stealing, etc. in order to score runs and try to win the thing. We wanrt the girls to get the feel of a real game and we tell them that before we play. But coaches are, or should be, looking to gain more than game experience during a friendly. Coaches should strive to teach. They should be trying out different things. They might come in with a game plan which is intended to work certain aspects of their players or team as a whole.
For example, it is not uncommon to see some pitcher pitching a perfect game or no hitter, or to have a highly contentious game going on, and then see a coach pull the pitcher who has been shutting down the opposition in favor of the team's third or fourth pitcher just to see how she handles coming in in the middle of a game. It isn't unusual for a team to try a delayed steal, even of home, when they are leading by 8 runs and the other team has not had so much as a baserunner yet. They aren't being overly aggressive, at least not most of the time. Sometimes they just want the kid trying the delayed steal to work on that skill. A team might try something overly aggressive like a suicide squeeze when they are down by 6 runs in the last inning and there are two outs with the bases loaded. That would be a little odd but you can and do see all kinds of things in friendlies you don't see, say, in elimination games.
A friendly, while usually not particularly friendly, is a venue in which players, coaches and teams can try things out to improve their games. They are preparation for the real deal. Sometimes bragging rights can go along with the results of a friendly but, once again, this is somewhat amateurish. I say this because I was talking with someone a few weeks ago, after a friendly, and I asked him how his team did. He declared, with obvious pride, that they had won all their games. I didn't bother to tell the fellow that one of the games they won and about which he was most proud, involved a team which, in an elimination situation most likely would have smoked his team and that the pitcher they faced was that team's number 3. I figured it was better not to emphasize the term "friendly" or otherwise enlighten him. He would have left the conversation merely considering me to be a jerk. And he wouldn't have gotten the point.
The next rung on our game ladder is what I hear called a round-robin ("RR"). That kind of play is usually a one-day tournament which is played to a championship although typically there is no trophy involved. Depending on the number of teams, a RR involves winners of first games playing against other winners, losers playing against losers, and then, after round two is played, the same sort of thing. Eventually, the two teams which have won all their games face each other in a championship game. This is often great fun and a great way to prepare girls for what a Sunday might be like. I don't want to get ahead of myself but what I mean is playing in a RR is like a situation in which you win or go home.
Of course, one of the beauties of a RR you don't go home but rather continue to play regardkless of whether you win or not. You might get three, four, or more games in during a single day. This can be exhausting and that's part of the purpose. If you are a parent along the sidelines, know that playing three or more games in a day is tough stuff. By the third game, girls are pretty well exhausted and their minds can wander at the wrong time. If you want kids to be prepared for real tournaments, however, they simply must get used to playing a lot of games. And the single day RR is the best way I know to do that.
Another great aspect of a RR is it really does not matter what the caliber of teams involved in it is. If you win, you get to play another team that has won. If you lose, you get to play against a team which has lost. &n bsp; So, as you move through the day, it becomes more and more likely that you will face a team against which you are well matched. This can be as valuable for very talented teams as it can be for lesser ones. Eventually, there probably is a team which has lost every game and they can leave to go home and lick their wounds. Similarly there is a team which has won every game and leaves knowing they are champion. But in terms of actual experience in more tightly contested games, generally most teams get something sloce to this because of the way the day is organized. It is tremendous preparation for the real deal.
Now, we move from the worlds of scrimmages, friendlies and round robins into the real tournament world. When I use the term "tournament," generally I mean a competition in which a champion is determined after a first "seeding" round followed by an elimination round, and leading up to a championship game.
Some tournaments are conducted on a single day and I'll mention them briefly but most are two or more day affairs. A seeding round involves teams playing to compile records and then ranked from best to worst. Usually this is done via a sequence of ranking criteria like 1) record, 2) head to head, 3) runs scored against, 4) runs scored by, and coin toss or some random way of ranking teams that are otherwise tied in the seedings.
Usually seeding round games are of shorter duration, involving strict drop dead time limits, sometimes as short as one hour. Ties are considered in a team's record and there is no reason for the seeding round games to come to a win-loss result. Of course a win is better than a tie but a team needs to keep the time limit, current score, etc. in mind during the round. Drop dead rules can cause the team leading the game to record a loss or tie if, for example, the score has to revert back to the last completed inning. Before yuou participate in a tournnament, you should fully understand how seeding is done, any time restrictions, and how the thing flows. You don't want to cost your team by not knowing the rules. Ignorance of the rules is no excuse. And there is no negotiation of one's seding after the fact. Of course, tournament directors do sometimes make seeding mistakes so you want to understand your seeding and make sure it has been compiled accurately.
Next comes the championship or elimination round in which winners move on and losers leave the competition. In one dayers, the seeding round is often done after a break for, say, lunch during which the tournament director compiles the results of the round and then produces a schedule for the next round. This is a very hard day, particularly for teams which make it all the way to the championship. Teams could play five total games, perhaps more, in a single day. It is great preparation and a wonderful way to play a lot of ball in one sitting. It is also a situation that is prone to director errors in seeding since there are significant time constraints and when people are under pressure, they make mistakes. During any tournament, and particularly in one dayers, it would be best if someone were keeping an eye on the seedings and informing the coaches of how things are progressing.
Because seeding can be critical to how a team progresses through the elimination round, coaches often try to manage their teams with at least one eye on that. For example, sometimes teams will really run up or keep down a score in order to preserve a top seeding. It is not at all unusual for one team to be ahead 30 nothing in the top of the third inning and try to squeeze across one more run. There could be an argument between one coach and the ump or the other coach over whether a runner crossed home before a tag was applied even though the score is 15-0 and the other team hasn't had a runner beyond first yet. A team might be leading by enough to gain a mercy run rule win after the current inning and then when you have a runner on third and your batter bunts, play against allowing the run to score rather than getting the out. These sorts of things are not demonstrative of bad sportsmanship. The parents and coaches on the losing side should not get their noses out of joint because the killers over there are trying to pummel us into the ground. They are trying to protect their seeding. That's it. End of story.
Generally a tournament ends with some sort of trophy to the winners and runners up. of course the physical object is junk but that doesn't really matter. The trophy is symbolic of a job well done. We put all that time in during the winter, we play some scrimmages, we do a few friendlies, etc. all with an eye towards competing for some junk that is put together with screws and glue and will fall apart not that long after the thing is over. The real value is in accomplishing the mission and knowing that hard work paid off.
As a sidebar to the tournament discussion, a select few tournaments provide for what are called A and B "flights." The first round is played and teams are seeded. The bottom half of the seeding moves into a "B bracket" and the top half the "A." The As play to a championship and the Bs have their own. The two sides never meet in the final round. This kind of tournament can be among the best. Highly competive teams can play against other competitive teams all the way to an ultimate winner. Lesser teams, including town rec all-stars or quasi-travel teams can play to their own championship. Having had kids involved with both A and B championships at the same tournament in different years, I can tell you that while it is obvious to anyone when you win the Bs that there are a bunch of teams better than you, it still feels good to win something. I know that when we finished second in the A flight one year, we knew we were better than a rival team that won the Bs but we also slapped them on the back and knew they felt good about winning what they won.
One of the criticisms of the particular tournament I have in mind is that run-of-the-mill travel clubs go into it, play themselves into the B bracket deliberately, and then beat up on town all-star teams. That may indeed happen every now and again. But I went to the particular tournament yet a third time with a run-of-the-mill travel team, we played our way into the B bracket, but we got smoked right out of there in the first round by an all-star team that played at a level well above us. I don't think many travel teams win their way through the B flight unless they just happen to have played very badly one day and very well the next. I don't think anyone does this deliberately.
At this point, I want to add a word or two about a particular type of "tournament" which is called a "showcase." Showcase tournaments, as their name implies, exists for the sole purpose of "showcasing" talent. That is, their mission is to put 18 and under players in front of college coaches, preferably college coaches of their choosing. Some of these are played to a championship. Many are not. In showcases, winning is not paramount though demonstrating how one handles tough and or winning and loosing game situations may very well be. But when a showcase is played to some sort of championship, that championship is not really a valuable commodity.
To explain this a bit, college-aspiring softball players whould make efforts to contact coaches of institutions in which they are interested, before the tournament so as to try to get in front of them. [; This subject is too complicated to insert here but the point is, you don't merely want to play in front of anny old college coach. The idea is to play in front of a college coach from the institutions you aspire to. That's simple enough, I think.
Further, teams playing these games ought not to seek victory at the cost of showcasing kids. I have heard an example of a game in which one particular kid asked to play a little more at a particular position because the college coach of her choosing had promised to be in attendance. Her request was met with one of those "I decide who plays, who plays where, and who plays how long and I do this based on what is good for the team" comments. That is all well and good but it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the purpose of the showcase. &nnbsp; It also shows a disregard for the players on the team, especially if the kid playing second base or whatever for the majority of innings could not care less what the college coaches nearby think of her play and would be happy to trade time in this game for time in that one. This is also not exactly a game changing exchange which favors the continued viability of the showcase team or which will endear the coach to future prospective roster members, let alone current ones.
A showcase tournament exists to showcase talent, not to produce championships. Showcase teams exist to showcase their players' talents, not to win in order to establish reputation. A team which routinely pushes aside requests like this is looking for trouble. If I'm looking for a showcase team for my kid, I'm not going to consider a team on which requests for a little more playing time at a position are pushed aside without even considering the players situation. That's bad ball. That's bush league. That's just stupid!
Finally, with respect to showcase ball, I have heard a few too many comments which indicate some people just don't get it. Sure it may be important to be involved with a showcase team with reputation in order to "get noticed." But looking for a team which wins a lot or coaching a team in order to win regardless of what that might mean demonstrates a misunderstanding of what college athletic recruiting is all about. Many times I have heard folks bragging about how their team won some third rate showcase tournament title or espousing the notion that if a player wants to get noticed, they should play for such and such team since they always win. That's absurd. When you look for a team to showcase you, you should know and like the coaching staff; you should look for a coach who knows the college coaches and is a great schmoozer; find a team which places people at the schools you are interested in and feel you have a reasonable shot at making; and find a good fit for your goals. If you think this is about winning the tournament title, good luck and enjoy your trophy. Put it right next to all the trophies you have won at "B" tournaments through the years. Now back to your regularly scheduled rpogram of youth travel tournaments.
In travel ball, ultimately the winning of tournaments is the goal. But there is something more important than the mere winning of run-of-the-mill tournaments. That is qualifying for, competing at, and making a good showing at something a bit grander than your typical tournament. This bring us to the type of tournament typically referred to as qualifiers (or national quualifiers).
A qualifier is just like any other tournament. It could be a one dayer but most often is conducted, weather permitting, over two or more days. Winning a qualifier, as you might expect, qualifies a team for some higher tournament, perhaps a national championship under one organizaing body or another. These are the real, real deal!
Qualifiers generally involve a ferocious level of play as a team tries to gain attendance at its ultimate goal tournament. Girls put it all on the line, lay out for foul pops, try to intimidate opponents, and generally go all out to win at qualifiers. After seeding rounds and the first few elimination games, things get extremely heated. If you are not used to this level of emotions, it can be off-putting. You may walk away saying to yourself, there is something wrong with those people, perhaps all of society. They act as if winning is more important than anything else. Their lives might be coming apart at the seams and they are out here seeking blood from a bunch of 12, 14, 16 year old girls. "Did you hear what they guy said when the first baseman went for the foul pop? He yelled 'I got it, I got it.' That's really nasty. That girl might have been hurt." While it is true that there is no room for a parent yelling "I got" at any youth game whatsoever, you will see things at qualifiers you will not see anywhere else, particularly as first round evolves into second, as quarter-finals become semi-finals. It can get tense.
As I said, winning a qualifier gets you a berth at some higher tournament, perhjaps a national. Depending on the sanctioning body, there can be other ways to gain a berth but I don't wish to go into this right now. Also, sometimes the team which wins a qualifier has already qualified or is disinterested in attending the particular sanctioning body's national. Maybe when they signed up for tournaments, they aimed to attend NSA nationals but were willing to go to FAST or PONY, if they didn't qualify for NSAs. They won their NSA berth week ago and they don't want the FAST berth they just won. Or maybe the team wanted to go to PONY nationals so badly that they signed up for qualifiers and they have already won two of them. When these circumstances occur, often the runner-uop earns the berth. And sometimes the runner up has also already qualified and made plans to go wherever. Soemtimes the third, fourth or whatever place team gains the berth, depending on the rules under which the thing is played. A few years ago, we earned a berth to attend a national tournament after finishing third and going home with our tails between our legs. Then we learned we won the berth! Sometimers it pays to hang around and learn what the outcome is!!
Our final consideration of types of games involves the national tournament and in order to discuss these, I need to add a word about the sanctioning bodies under which they are played. I think there are some misconceptions out there regarding which is best and other issues like that.
First, national tournaments are many and varied. You wouldn't think that would be the case but there are several different sanctioning bodies and, in this sport, there is not necessarily a clear hierarchy the way there is in other sports. I know in basketball the one top dog is AAU. I understand that in soccer there is one top dog but the name escapes me at the moment. In softball, arguably, the top dog is and should be ASA. But, as usual, on a softball diamond, it is not quite as clear as that.
At the 23U level, I believe ASA is by far the biggest and most important. On the other hand, I do not believe that many in the sport particularly care much about 23U ball. There are far fewer teams at 23U than other age levels excluding maybe 8U and 10U - those may be a lot larger than 23U, I really just don't know. It is not my understanding that a large portion of the top college players play at 23U once they are done or work at it hard the way a 17 year old Gold player might. It ios my understanding that good lower level college teams are often a lot better than the standard issue 23U team. Nuff said?
At the 18U level, I do not believe there is any question that ASA Gold level is by far the best level. I know other bodies sanction nationals at 18U but it is my understanding that the best level of play is entirely ASA Gold. Now there are really three types of Gold tournaments. There are Gold tournaments which are really showcases (see above), those that are merely run-of-the-mill, and qualifiers. Qualifiers and the actual championship are the real, real, real deal. And to my knowledge no level of tournament competes with these.
At 16U, I do believe that most likely ASA is the top. 16U nationals is where college coaches go to watch potential prospects. These games, though I have never been to ASA nat.s, are said to be among the fiercest played. It is my understanding that other sanctioning bodies put on some very good competition but I do not think that comes close to competing with ASA. But below 16U, the waters get murkier and murkier.
I don;t know that I can easily distinguish between FAST and NSA at the 14U level. I can tell you that, over the years, what I have noticed is NSA tends to draw from a more wide geographical dispersion than FAST. FAST is definitely oriented towards Florida teams at all age levels. You could write this off easily except for one thing, Flortida teams tend to be extremely good. Years ago, maybe they were not up to snuff with the west coast teams but that's no longer the case. And travelling to Florida to play only or mostly Florida teams at FAST nationals is not a way to go to a lesser nationals and pick up some easy bling. FAST natiuonals are pretty brutal. Also, I have heard from participants that there can be some home cooking prepared by the umpires. I don't know if the same can be said of NSA but I do know they get good teams from all over the country at the 14U level.
At 12U, the water is extremely murky though it is quite possible that ASA is the top. The trouble is some very good teams go to 12U nationals at Pony, NSA, FAST and, obviously, ASA. Often times, over the past several years, teams which competed well at Pony nat.s or other sanctioning bodies also competed well at ASA or NSA. I think I've written before in these pages that during one year I remember one team which had finished behind several others went on to take second at NSAs while the several others got smoked at Ponys. I know of a team which went to FAST and got really crushed after having beaten several teams which did well at other bodies' nat.s. At 12U, it is a mixed bag and the mix is changing all the time. Most recently, if you asked me to speculate, I guess I'd have to say that NSA is quite possibly the top dog at this level.
I'm really not sure what the mix at 10U is, and I'm not all that sure that anyone should care. before you send me nasty-grams, let me say that, yes, 10U does matter. But 12U matters more since A) the girls are far more mature, B) they pitch the real ball at the real distance (at least until you get to levels which pitch from 43 feet), C) and this is the softball crossroads at which girls decide if they reallt want to play this sport or focus on basketball or soccer instead. There is nothing magic about the 12U age group per se. But I don't know too many 9 or 10 year olds who have already reached their adult height or have any sense of how they are going to deal with life when the kid they were always more athletic than all of a sudden grows 8 inches, puts on 50 pounds of muscle and is doing very well at her velocity training three times a week year round.
Perhaps more importantly than the age and maturity involved in national play, a very good 16U or 18U team might be willing to take the space shuttle to the moon (yes I know it doesn't go there) in order to play against the best possible teams. The parents of a very good 14U team are probably less likely to travel from Oregon to Virginia. An economically troubled gaggle of families with outstanding 12U kids from Detroit might choose to forego the flight to California this year in favor of someplace they can drive to. And so it goes. There is no way any particular sanctioning body at any particular age level can plan a national tournament so as to be certain that they are drawing the best possible competition. And, as a result, there is no guaranteed top dog after you move down from 16U ball to lower age groups. The one thing I can tell you is that there are far more sanctioning bodies than I have mentioned. But the majority of those do not draw in teams the caliber which can be found at ASA, NSA, FAST, and perhaps PONY. I will add only that while the classic cricitism of FAST is it is more than half Florida teams, the same kind of thing is said about PONY which draws majority from a few select states and those states are not classic softball powerhouses.Labels: parents, players, teams, Travel vs. Recreational, Tryouts, Youth recreational softball, youth tournament teams
Permanent Link: Terms
 
For LOVE Of The Game
by Dave
Friday, October 31, 2008
Last night, I read an article in "Fastpitch Delivery" written by Margie Wright, 24 year head coach of Fresno State and NFCA Hall of Fame inductee. I found it to be an interesting perspective but wrong on a number of levels. Today I want to offer up a refutation of many of the article's points.
Before I begin, let me acknowledge that Wright has much more perspective on this subject than I do, having played and coached the game for longer than I've been an adult. Further, she's been involved in the game at a high level in the most competitive "market." I should not have a better perspective on girls competitive fastpitch softball than Margie Wright and I suppose I really don't. She knows the subject inside out. Still, there are some obvious discrepancies in her positions and it is these I want to point out for the purpose of examining the sport and hopefully improving some folks' understanding.
Wright first praises the growth in our sport from the point of view of the benefits Title IX has bestowed. Coaching women's college softball has become "financially sound" in terms of higher budgets including more scholarships, better facilities, and legitimate recognition. There are more opportunities than ever for girls to participate in "competitive softball at all levels."
Wright claims that the huge growth in "exposure tournaments" has become a "lucrative business." She believes this and some other changes have made the game more about money and less about the "original reasons girls and women wanted to have the opportunity to play sports," which is for love of the game.
In order to bolster her arguments, Wright discusses the history of the game and notes that back in the good ole days, there were no age groups in softball. Young girls had to play with older ones or have no opportunity to participate. This provided opportunities to develop leadership skills as the older girls with greater experience necessarily had to teach the younger, less experienced girls what was expected of them. There were very few scholarship opportunities. Tournaments were always competitive ones - fastpitch showcases hadn't evolved yet. Opportunities to play professionally or in the capacity of representing the country were minimal. So players could play only for one reason, love of the game.
Before I get too into my refutation, let me say that "lucrative," "financially sound" and other measures of "success" are apparently in the eye of the beholder. It is relatively easy to acknowledge that women's basketball is a much more financially sound operation than softball is. Further, I know no person who has become particularly "wealthy" as a result of participation in softball.
Measures of wealth are obviously relative but among the most successful people involved in the sport, I believe very few have become wealthy directly from softball, at least in terms of what most people in this country would call wealthy. Many private coaches who run clinics and schools do make significant chunks of change. Some top college coaches are paid pretty well. Those who sell equipment or tutorials often earn a good living. There is money within the sport and some are better than others at piling it up. But the opportunities to earn significant sums are extremely limited and available to but a select, decided minority of even the best known names in the sport.
Women's college basketball coaches make far more money than do softball coaches. The very best earners, while not making anywhere near their male sport counterparts, often earn top dollar when compared to their peers in the general public. A local D-1 basketball coach, who happens to be among the top earners in the sport, makes a living which is among the top 1% of all earners in the country. She makes somewhere between a half million and a million dollars annually. But her university decided to pay her this money because it brings prestige to the institution and draws in women of all sorts for many different kinds of purposes. She does not earn this income on the strength of ticket sales for the institution's home games. She promotes the institution in ways completely unrelated to athletics.
I went searching for college softball head coach salaries. I'm pretty sure there is a broad range. Top D-1 coaches obviously make more than those plying their trade at D-3 at American Cumquat College in East Nowhere, Maldives. But across the broad spectrum, what I saw most often were figures in the range of $40K to $60K. By contrast, many lower level, assistant women's basketball positions advertised greater salaries than D-1 head coaching positions.
I'm fairly certain that tope clinicians in this sport can earn a very nice income. I expect there are less than a dozen individuals in these United States with sufficient reputations to earn top dollar and those individuals not only run clinics but also distribute videos they have made. On a local level, I can think of several private instructors who make significant sums. These folks' instruction is highly sought after. Their schedules are booked solid. And they work long hours, including all day long on Saturdays and Sundays. Most of the top local instructors are unable to go out and watch games any longer. The toil away in poor facilities, often run by them, rent out cheap space in schools or use their backyard or basement batting cages to give lessons.
From what I have observed running facilities can be a financially risky proposition. Over the past year or two, we have seen a number of new facilities come into being. Recently, we have observed a number of them close. There has been a net increase in local facilities but that's after about a 50% failure rate. And most of the facilities which have survived do not merely cater to softball. They opened up offering both baseball and softball, added agility and other types of training, and then expanded into other sports like soccer. The amopunt of money in softball is extremely limited.
Also, I challenge the notion that exposure tournaments have become a "lucrative business" for the coaches who run them. Certainly there is money to be made at these things but much of that money is channeled back into the game. My daughters' softball organization partially hosts one of the more important exposure tournaments in the country. It is held at our complex and we get to earn whatever we can make from the snackbar. The fellow who runs the thing has made money outside the sport. His whole reason for running the thing has to do with fundraising for the exposure team he runs. He does not have some huge house or expensive car as a result of running the tournament. It is not a lucrative business for him.
Our organization pretty much makes its money exclusively for the purpose of keeping itself afloat in order to provide a place for a hundred or so girls to play softball, recreational and travel. Were it not for that money, I'm not sure the organization would last a year. The funds go to field maintenance and other run of the mill expenses. There is nothing left over.
You know, when I was a young man, I took a job working in a retail store until such time as I could figure out what I wanted to do. I rose up within the hierarchy and became one of the most respected employees. When someone above me was fired, typically ownership would evaluate the position and decide if I could be moved up. This happened several times until I was the number 2 employee. That provided great opportunity to earn more and more which paid my way through college. I think the top salary I made in that job was $30,000 per year.
That was in the 1980s and was not a bad salary at the time for a 20 year old kid with no degree yet and no previous experience at anything. After college, I made more but at the time I earned $30K, I felt really good about it. I felt like I was earning a lot. No I didn't feel rich but I was making as much as I needed and really had no concept of what making say double that would feel like. A few years later I was earning twice as much but I was in debt, trying to start a family, and generally felt as if I really needed to make a lot more to pay for the things I wanted. Earnings and wealth are mostly relative.
I expect the college coach who made $30,000 per year for several years and then only gradually made her way up to $60,000, maybe $100,000 would feel as if the amount of money in the sport was really skyrocketing. But at the same time, I have to acknowledge that in my area, some elementary school teachers with advanced degrees, paid for by their employers, who have as much experience as Margie Wright earn close to $100K, with a select few making more than that. The average salary stands at near $75K with top earners (holding doctorates and with several decades of experience) making as much as $125K in one school system I reviewed for this article. Softball coaches are not extremely well paid.
In regards to college scholarships, there certainly is some money out there. The cost of tuition, books, room and board, etc. has become quite a nut to crack. Receiving anything at all towards that nut must be seen in a positive light. Achieving a full ride, obviously is a good thing from a purely financial point of view. But, according to stats I saw in the same issue of "Fastpitch Delivery," there were in excess of 370,000 girls playing high school softball last year. According to one web site I saw, there were less than 6,000 full ride equivalent college softball scholarships at all D-1 and 2 schools last year. That's a coverage ratio for all high school kids of less than 2%. That's not a lot. Softball is not a lucrative pursuit for the majority of girls playing the game.
Of those who actually do attain a softball scholarship, I imagine an estimate of the total value would be in the neighborhood of $30,000 to $40,000 per year. I'm willing to be high or low in the interests of just roughing this out. Right now, the cost of your average travel program is somewhere in the neighborhood of one thousand dollars per year. If the average 11 year old were to play travel softball - that's where the scholarship money comes into play - for the duration of her pre-college years, the cost would be a mere $8,000. $160,000 (4 years of college costs) would be a nice return on $8,000. But there are many other costs and evaluating this from an investment perspective yields all sorts of variations on the theme.
For one thing, taking that $8,000 and investing it over the course of say 8 years should cause it to double. Further, nobody I know who attains a fairly high level within the sport ever considers the cost of the travel team to be a particularly large piece of the overall cost structure. There are private hitting lessons, clinics, speed and agility, videotapes, seminars, somewhat significant costs of traveling to run of the mill tournaments, significant costs of travelling to one or more out of state tournaments, greater costs when girls compete at older age groups or go to those "lucrative" showcase events, etc. There are the little incidentals like composite bats at $200 a pop (often at least once a year), the expensive cleats (especially for pitchers), the hundreds of dollars in catching gear every couple of years, doctors bills, etc., etc. and so forth.
One father told me he expected to spend around $20K this year alone (aoll in and including his travel expenses and lodging) for his junior with some chance of obtaining a small piece of money at a lower level D-1 or a D-2 school. Another offered the more modest sum of $10K for his sophomore daughter. That's a one year cost. The sophomore family will spend $30K over the three years before graduation.
If you take all the financial costs of travel softball, played at a high level, and treated it like an investment - putting a little aside gradually and earning a return on it, and compare that to money saved on college costs, I expect the return would be significantly less than what one would hope for. No Virginia, softball is not financially lucrative for anyone but a few involved in the sport.
With respect to fastpitch softball's ability, or lack thereof, to produce leaders today vs. those it may have produced yesterday, I have to disagree with Wright that any drop off has to do with the growth of the age group game. For a very long time, boys have played baseball according to their ages. That's because 12 year olds cannot play baseball with 15 year olds of any decent skill level. Its just not possible. Oh, a few kids sporting 70 mile per hour fastballs who are "natural athletes" (meaning their fathers have them out working every day of the year) may be able to survive playing boys 3 years older than them, especially if those boys are not particularly good. But across the broad spectrum, middle school boys cannot hold their own against boys varsity players. They can barely engage in a game of catch or running bases with older boys. So it has always been.
Of course, there have always been more boys playing baseball than girls playing softball. It is a relatively easy matter to pull together a full league of four or more baseball teams in a small town, even when limited to an age span of just two years. So because there are enough boys and because boys cannot play with those much older than them, age group ball has reigned supreme in the boys game for many decades. Still, leaders are born of youth baseball leagues. There is not any real dearth of leaders on the baseball field.
I believe that if you take any group of people and put them into a situation, some kids will rise to the level of leaders and others will not. Leadership skills can be taught but in any given population, some will rise and some will follow. This has been proven over and over again via various studies. A year or so ago, there was that ridiculous reality TV show in which a group of kids was put into a pioneer town and tracked. The kids ranged in age from around 8 to around 13, I think. Some kids rose up and took leadership roles and many did not. Some of the oldest were reluctant leaders and became followers. Some of the youngest took charge and led groups older than themselves. This was more personality driven than age or experience driven.
I believe leadership comes about through via a complex recipe involving environment, experience, maturity, personality, opportunity, and some intangibles which we are not completely aware of. I do not believe for an instant that given a group of softball players, every time the older girls who have played more will necessarily become the team's leaders. Further, I believe that many of the societal influences on our lives create or fail to create leadership qualities in individuals. In other words, to the extent that we are failing to create leaders in the softball world, this reflects the overall society and does not exist separate and apart from it.
In the current societal environment, our nation's children have far more done for them than current adults do. Further I believe the same was true for the previous generation. The reasons for this are many and complex. I do not wish to delve into them as this might open up a can of worms I cannot shut. I will tell you that in one of the better moments of my life, I paid a visit to the Jack Daniel's distillery in Tennessee. There I learned that young Jack was a mere teenager when he founded the business. That was after years of an apprenticeship and some other business dealings. In Jack Daniel's day, kids took lots more responsibility than I and my peers did.
I know I worked for the first time at the age of 14, illegally, and had self-earned money in my pocket as early as 10 when I would walk along the train tracks, unbeknownst to my parents, pick up returnable bottles, bring them to a candy store and convert my earnings into bubble gum which I sold, against the rules, at school. By eleven, I was arranging to sell seeds via an advertisement I had seen in "Boys Life" magazine. I never asked my parents when I sent in the form. They learned of my endeavor when the seeds were delivered to the house. I walked door to door for three miles, visiting people neither I nor my parents had ever met, selling those seeds, turned in the money myself and arranged to have my reward, a tent, shipped to my house without ever seeking guidance from an adult. I was home alone when the tent arrived. I remember this because I didn't seek any adult guidance in putting the darn thing up. I never noticed the little loops on the side of the tent. I hammered the stakes right through the tent material just like I had seen on cartoons! The tent was garbage after that, although I did use it for several years.
I am hardly the picture of an early starter when it comes to learning how to be self-sufficient. Generally I would say I was far behind the curve - I lived a protected childhood when compared to many I knew. But my kids, by contrast, practically live in a bubble. I was caught hitch-hiking at age 8. My kids were not out of my sight long enough to walk to another house by that age. My friends were busy stealing sun glasses at a department store to sell to friends by age 9. I never engaged in that enterprise because I had been grounded for getting into a fistfight or for hitch-hiking. My kids have never been left alone long enough to get into a fistfight or to steal anything. If they did steal something, I would find it and ask where it came from. If somehow they managed to hide the contraband, they would never have any opportunity to sell it and if they did, I'd know about the money. My kids are growing up in a different environment than I did.
But back to softball. When my kids began playing the sport, I bought some balls and other equipment for them to use. When I was a kid, I was lucky if my father bought a single baseball, perhaps for Christmas or maybe for my birthday. I never remember a time when we had more than one baseball lying around. If I lost it, it might be months before I got a replacement. We have several dozen softballs laying around.
When I was a kid, mny father was a pretty well respected baseball coach. He coahced the 12Us when I was 9 and playing 10U. When I reached 11 and played 12U, my father coached 14s. I was the oldest boy. My father did not coach any team on which he ever had a kid. He did catch my pitching practice, however. I think that was maybe 6-12 times .... during my life. I caught my two daughters that many times (each) during August, our "rest month." Understand that I'm not complaining about my father. He did more than most. And I was never around anyway - I was never around. I usually left the house at about 7 am, every day of the summer, returning by dinner time on most days, lest I receive severe punishment. That routine probably started around age 8. If I wanted to pitch some practice, it was entirely up to me to find a catcher. My kids don't have that option. ' I'm pretty much it. It is a different day.
I believe this has much more to do with the development of leaders in softball than anything else. I do not believe for an instant that we would in anyway increase the development of leaders by combining younger kids with older ones in age group ball. I believe that has nothing to do with the equation.
I do believe there is one tendency of today's youth coaches which hinders the natural development of leaders. That is the fear of loosing control and/or unwillingness to see the development of leaders as a necessary part of putting a good team on the field. We live in a very structured world in which time is very precious. As I believe I noted a moment ago, we manage our kids' lives much more than our parents or their parents ever did. We begin indoor workouts in a highly structured form and continue this into the warmer months. If a kid disrupts the flow f practice, we pull her aside and talk to her about being more focused. That, of course, seems necessary. We don't want to allow practice time to be broken down. But when I was a kid playing youth baseball, that never happened.
When I was a kid, if there was one kid disrupting practice, we had a way of dealing with that. We beat him up and told him to quit it lest he suffer another beating. If we were running a batting practice and the pitcher was trying to strike everyone out, we told him to just throw it over the middle. (I don't wish to go into the error of our ways with this approach here and now) One of us would tell him to just get it over and stop trying to strike the kid out ... or else. It was understood what the consequences of not obeying would be. That could not happen anywhere in this country in a boys or girls sports environment today. Our "leadership" would be squashed immediately. And this extends well beyond the examples provided.
Some of us out here in youth travel coaching land do see the need to identify and develop leaders but we're not really sure how to do it. If we do understand, we are seldom willing to give up the degree of control which has a reasonable chance of building real leaders. Building leaders requires us to give up control and provide the environment in which anarchy can prevail. That is too difficult for most of us. So we err on the side of stucture and that prevents leaders from flexing their muscles.
My points are, there are certain situations which must prevail in order to develop leaders and today's adults do not provide much opportunity for such a development to occur. It has nothing to do with the relative ages we bring together on teams. It is more a societal/cultural thing.
To wrap this up, everything in my experience indicates that: A) Softball is growing - has grown quite a bit from the time of my youth to today; B) Money is not a significant part of the changes in the sport - nobody does this for exclusively financial reasons; C) We do not create as many leaders as we might in this sport - but we don't create as many leaders in any other sort of venture either due to societal forces having nothihng to do with softball, and D) Girls do indeed play this sport for LOVE of the game.
You know, it is impossible to imagine anyone doing something which results in the amount of pain and unhappiness softball induces for any reason other than LOVE of the game. Think about it this way, why would you ever try something with the high likelihood of a 30% success rate being the best you could possibly hope for in the long run? Why would you stand 40 feet from another girl with a big stick trying to hit a projectile at you at hopefully 98 mph? Why would you practice four times a week, year round in order to maybe defeat 60% of the other girls in the game while risking taking the blame for defeat from your closest 10 or 11 friends? Why would you choose to do something in which at least half the people you encounter, probably more like 90%, hope you fail? The only reason someone would choose to do something like that must be LOVE. This great sport of ours is growing precisely because more and more people each day develop a LOVE for it, not in spite of LOVE, nor for financial reasons. if we fail top develop leaders, there may be some things wrong, some things perhaps we can fix, or perhaps not. But its got nothing to do with diminished LOVE for the game.Labels: coaching, parenting, players
Permanent Link: For LOVE Of The Game
More Numbers
by Dave
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
For those of you looking to kill time via anything having any relation to the sport of softball, you may want to peruse the results from some of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Administered and Endorsed Recruitment Camps. Just pick a camp that has already taken place and then take a look at "Camp Quick Links," go down a bit and click on "2008 Camp Results." There are other interesting pieces of information accessible here aside from the results. Enjoy!
Several camps have not yet taken place and, as such, have no results posted. In these instances, the names of participants are usually listed. If you want to spy on your friends and neighbors to see exactly who may aspire to a college softball scholarship, take a look! Actually, that's a joke. What is interesting about the lists of participants is the graduation years. This is a good way to understand what aged girls usually participate in case you are contemplating applying for acceptance to a camp.
There are few 2012s, a few more 2011s, many more 10s and 9s signed up for one camp I looked at. In my many perusals over the years I do not think I have seen very many girls at these camps who are just going into their freshman years in the upcoming school year. Those are a relative rarity and for good reason. As soon as they set foot onto a high school campus, they are untouchable to college coaches. They'll mature and ripen into prospects late in their sophomore years, become approachable July 1 after their junior years, and while there is a lot of buzz about those early "verbals," I suppose one must really be a standout, approach the coach on their own, or otherwise catch the attention of a coach to attain that kind of status. What I mean is college coaches, to my knowledge, don't jump out from underneath their radar guns (reading 67!) at recruitment camps, walk by next year's freshmen, and pretend to drop their business cards and piles of papers detailing their programs' attributes. A little birdy tells me that there are other ways to skin that cat.
Another piece of information concerns the teams these girls play for. Lots of times I hear from people looking to find a team which can garner their kid some exposure to college coaches. The list of teams who have players at the NFCA camps doesn't really provide that information but it does show you some teams which might be a bit more serious about the college recruitment process. I believe all of these camps conduct a tournament in addition to the recruitment camp so you can cull out which of the teams with participants don't play the tournament. From there you can supplement this limited information by looking at which of these teams play some of the more serious showcases. This should give you at least a snapshot of teams from your area which may be of interest to you.
I suppose some of the more important figures folks might be interested in viewing are pitchers' pitch speeds, catchers' pop times, and all players' throwing and running speeds. The available stats vary depending on whether you look at administered or endorsed Camps. The administered camps list 20 yard dash results under the SPARQ testing results. Some of the endorsed camps list results for times from home to first. I don't have much knowledge regarding SPARQ but from what I can tell, the 20 yard dash does not resemble the home to first runs. I say that because there are few sub-3 20 yard SPARQ runs and many sub-3 times to first.
One of the things I like to do with data like this is pull it out of the charts and combine multiple camps results for a particular position, like catcher, and then post it into an Excel spreadsheet which allows me to manipulate the data. Once everything is pulled into a single spreadsheet program, you can sort the data fields by listing pop times, throwing speed, etc. by fastest to slowest. You can determine an average for all participants, pull out the fastest and slowest 10% (or whatever) and then see how that impacts averages, or a whole host of other numbers crunches just to see where your kid stacks up.
In case working with spreadsheets is beyond your capabilities or just plain bores you, there are other pieces of information which the NFCA publishes, not having anything to do with the camps, which can provide some of what you are looking for. For instance, there is a PDF page in the "Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Recruiting Camp Results" which answers the question: "How do my daughter's results compare to that of a NCAA Division I athlete?" But I'm not entirely sure I trust the information provided therein.
The pitching speed range for Div I athletes looks like this:
66 & above Excellent
63 - 65 Good
59 - 62 Average
58 & below Needs Work
To me, this is not all that valid or valuable. I've watched a lot of college games and I'd have to say "66 & above" may very well be excellent but it is also quite rare. The past couple of years I would hazard to guess that there were but a handful of pitchers whose top speeds in games were recorded at or above 66. Those few were not merely "Div I athletes" but athletes at elite Div I programs. It may not be commonly discussed but there are actually run of the mill and even some very weak "Div I programs." Those kinds of programs do not always attract the sort of pitcher who records 66 and up. Besides, there are effective pitchers who never get close to that speed but who have superior location and great movement.
Additionally, while the chart lists 63-65 as "good," I'd have to say that at least in my limited experience, it is a bit better than merely good. if you watched any of the ASA Gold national championships last year on TV, you saw very effective pitchers throw in this range and below. Some of them had already signed or received verbal commitments to top Div I programs. Can you imagine someone approaching you and noting that your or your daughter's recorded speed of 65 after her junior year of high school is "pretty good, keep working and maybe one day you'll be excellent, you're a pretty good little pitcher, keep working hard and maybe, if you're lucky, you might get into a mediocre Div I program."
I don't dispute that 59-62 is average though I haven't crunched the numbers or seen where anyone else has. I do believe I've seen a number of Div I pitchers who seldom hit 59. These girls usually have movement and command on their side, not to mention good mental toughness and loads of experience pitching high level games. 58 and below probably does "need work." But, on the whole, I'd say this chart could use some work. Not that many high school aged pitchers throw at or above 59.
As an aside, I feel the need to mention two things lest I get a bunch of e-mails "informing" me of some facts. Yes, I do know that pitchers in college throw from 43 feet while kids in high school and younger levels of youth softball throw from 40. This should not have any effect on the top recorded speed of any pitch. Obviously, when throwing longer distances, the ending speed of the pitch will be sloser. That is, a single pitch will record a slower speed when it is say 43 feet from the pitcher than it will when it is 40 feet from her. The pitch's top speed, however, is the same whether it is thrown from 40 or 43. If you do not understand that, please do not write to me for a clarification. I can't help you understand this.
Additionally, the way radar works, the gun (assuming you have a good one) will register a more accurate reading if it is pointed on the same line as the pitch. If the catcher were to hold a gun instead of a mitt and the pitch were to come in and hit the gun directly, the reading should be very accurate - though perhaps the gun would be broken! If the radar gun were held by somebody in the on-deck circle, the reading would be relatively inaccurate. That's because of the Cosine Effect which is "called this because the measured speed is directly related to the cosine of the angle between the radar gun and the target's direction of travel." If you want a more accurate reading of your daughter's pitch speed, stand behind the catcher and use a good gun. Don't sit in the stands and get discouraged because she is pitching too slow. Don't stand to the side and measure your daughter's overhand throwing speed from a point not pretty much in a direct line with the throw.
It often amazes me how many people don't understand the Cosine Effect. In fact, it is apparent to me that many, many people have never heard the term. I have been to many tournaments including showcases and watched as somebody, sitting 10 or more feet to the side of the direct pitch line, lifts the gun and takes a reading. You can imagine the lower echelon college coach doing this, looking at the gun and thinking to his or herself, "gee whiz, just 62, that's only average, I'm not interested in her."
So, be careful to not be concerned about getting speed measurements of pitches only at 43 feet, checking speeds from a "safe distance" from the line of the pitch, and/or spending too much time getting stressed out because your poorly taken measurements don't stack up well enough with the recruitment camp crowd or the NFCA's chart of typical Div I pitchers!
I can't say that I've ever timed pop times for some of the best catchers I've seen either in college or high school (or anywhere else for that matter). But if you compare pops at the recruitment camps with the NFCA chart, I do believe that while there are a few 1.8s, precious few are below that mark. And, interestingly, one girl who threw beneath a 1.8 pop also threw one try above 2.0. Her overhand throwing speed was 58 mph which happens to just barely make the mark of "good" found at another location on the NFCA's chart. I cannot judge this girl's prospects because for all I know she could be an 8th grader. She might have had a stomach virus or a bout of insomnia the night before the camp. But the important thing is that there is not a lockstep correlation between throwing speed and pop times. Using the chart, you might come to the conclusion that your throwing speed is so good, anybody would be nuts not to pick you for the Olympic team. Or, alternately, you might conclude that whikle your pop time is better than anybody else, your throwing speed is just average so you might just as well join the chess team and give up this stupid softball dream.
I saw one catcher who threw successively 1.72, 1.78 and 1.65. Those are some great figures. But I've never seen this no-name player catch a game. I can't say if her overall catching mechanics are good, if she is a good, average or poor receiver, if she blocks pitches in the dirt well, etc. I don't know if she can hit. I don't know if she can run to first in under 5 seconds. I expect a kid with that much throwing talent probably has the whole thing together but there's no way to be sure. Besides, while dry pop times are one measure, there's no way to tell if she tenses up too much in games, especially big important ones. That's not even to mention that she might stand, after hours of traction, at no more than 5 feet tall or maybe weigh less than 100 pounds. She may be a gifted 5 foot 11 athlete who plays better under real competitive pressures but whose school grades average around C+ in relatively remedial or basic courses. Pop times are a valuable measure but, as always, just one of many considerations.
The average pop for a Div I catcher may very well be in the range of 1.91-2.00 but I question the usefulness of some straight-A high school honors student freshman (just beyond puberty, who starts varsity, hits the heck out of the ball in competitive Gold games, calls pitches for the all-America, 67-mph-throwing pitcher on her elite travel team, and rarely suffers a PB) using this chart to get discouraged because her still youthful, muscularly-undeveloped arm throws only 57 and her dry pop times come in around 2.05.
Anyways, that's my rant for the day. I get so many questions about numbers that I thought I'd direct everyone to places where I would ordinarily obtain my understanding of them. It is easy to get discouraged by looking at the NFCA's chart. It is also possible to get unwarrantedly optimistic based merely on pitch, running or throwing speeds. These things represent a measurement. They, in and of themselves, should not encourage or discourage anyone.Labels: catching, coaching, college, parenting, pitching, players
Permanent Link: More Numbers
Versatile!
by Dave
Friday, July 11, 2008
Does it occur to anyone that Andrea Duran, a slapper, hits a fair number of home runs? Does it occur to anyone that Jessica Mendoza, possibly the best overall hitter in the game today, is equally comfortable dragging, slapping one to the outfield corners, or drilling one well over the fence? Have you seen Crystl Bustos play third? She has a rocket arm and lightening quick response to balls hit at her. By the way, she may not get down to first in 2.6, but she is NOT a slow runner by most human standards. Jennie Finch knows her way around the bat rack - she is a very good hitter. One of the elements of this game which differentiates it from baseball is the versatility of its top players. Ignore that at your own risk.
I once knew a girl who was a true peanut. She was smaller than girls two years younger. She was a quick runner so her parents decided to turn her into a slapper because "she was never going to hit the ball out of the infield." They followed this approach to the exclusion of any other kind of hitting. She's startiung to grow now and her strength is on the upswing. She may not ever be tall but she is probably going to be around average height once her body gets in gear.
There was a girl who, at the age of ten, was a "better athlete" than any of the girls in her rec league. She was good enough to play with the older girls and often did just that. By rec league standards, she was a good fielder with speed and a strong arm. She often played short, even when playing with older girls. Her parents saw her exclusively as an infielder even going so far as to exclude from consideration any travel teams on which she was not guaranteed starting time at short or another suitable infield position. Yet, anyone who watched her recognized that her throwing mechanics were not well suited to infield play and her instincts in the outfield were among the very best around - that is, best around travel circles, not merely in the rec league. In short she was a "B" infielder and an "A" outfielder.
My kid claims she wants to play second base. She has voiced some desires to see more time at 2B on the team I coach. But her load up on throws is a bit long for an infielder. She has a quick release when compared to her peers. But I can see that her throwing mechanics will be better suited to outfield if she is unable to change them. I've tried to correct this and perhaps we will one day but, you know, she's a very good outfielder who threw three people out at first in this her first year of seeing considerable time in right.
My other kid says she wants to play third. But when no action comes her way over say ten pitches, it is apparent to me that her attention wanes. We've talked about this but I have yet to see any improvement. She is a very good 3B on balls hit in front of her and her arm is suited to oplaying the position. But aside from the attention thing (which scares the heck out of me), she doesn't move laterally all the well on liners. She moves well to her left but her quick movements to the right are at or below average for all players and not as quick as they need to be at third. She can play outfield well enough. She's also not bad around 2B but hates the position.
We have a girl on this year's team who is an overall very good player. In the fall, we used her as a catcher. She was outstanding at the position. But she insists that she never again wants to go behind the plate. We used her some at first because she is tall, long in the arm, and scoops just about anything out of the dirt. It is pretty difficult to throw anything over her head and anything to either side is usually easy for her to get to. Once a throw pulled her off the bag and she quickly jumped off, caught it and tagged the runner before she made the bag. Nobody had ever taught her to do this. Her instincts fot her there. On another play, our infielder held a very fast runner at third and then made the play to first. The runner at third broke immediately to home. Everybody in the place froze. Nobody on the team, including coaches, found the voice to yell "throw it home." This girl made a great catch, pivoted immediately and threw the kid out by about three steps. Her throw, under pressure was about a foot off the ground, and a half foot off the plate. The catcher had only to make the catch and the tag was applied for her. This girl doesn't like first and would prefer to play third where her reactions are not quite as stellar.
We had a girl who insisted her one and only position was third. She was pretty good at it. But we needed a SS. This 3B was one of the fastest and quickest kids on the team, knew the game well, and could make any play required of a shortstop. We put her out at short one scrimmage game and she did quite well. But after that experience, she told us that she much prefers third. "That's my position." Anyone could see that this girl had the potential to be an "A" shortstop, anyone except her school and rec team coaches. Those folks had pigeon-holed her into the role of third baseman. It took everything I learned in the Dale Carnegie "How to Win Friends and Influence People" class I took in my late teens to finally convinve this kid to stick to short with us and play third wherever else she played.
I like girls to be happy in the positions they play. It is a cardinal rule of fastpitch softball that girls. particularly those just entering puberty, must be happy to play ball (the corollary being that boys must play ball to be happy). I don;t want kids out there moping around, cursing their assigned positions. That can be dangerous or a formula for losing and creating disharmony on a team. At the same time, I thoroughly believ that versatility is critical to a player's success in softball.
Many parents have approached me at various times to object to my playing kids at more than one, often more than two, different positions. They would like to know who is playing and hitting where in the line-up the same way they know their favorite professional team. Manny Ramirez never plays SS. Sabathia never is in the lineup as DH. Pudge Rodriquez isn't an outfielder. A-Rod doesn't play third base. Whoops, I messed up there. That last comment is a bit dated.
The parents really get upset when I place a kid at say 2B and she fails to cover first on a bunt. They let me know that "She doesn't know that position. She has never played there before. She doesn't know that she has to cover first on bunts." I like to respond to that oft-recited rant, "now she has and does."
Many very successful teams follow a principle of one player, one position, or, in the case of pitchers and catchers in particular, one kid, one primary position and one secondary one. In this manner, they have kids who "know their position." They avoid circumstances in which the girl out at second isn't playing the position for the first time and then fails to get over to cover first on a bunt. They avoid situations in which the LF doesn't know where to stand on back-ups. They are coordinated and their kids know what to do with the ball when it comes to their one position. But those kids lack verstility and often don;t have well-rounded senses of the game. They get on a team where there is a better SS, 3B, etc., find themselves trying to learn something new, and struggling in the field to learn this "new position."
I've told you before that I was a catcher who found himself on a team with another catcher who would go on to have a fairly long major league career. I had a stick so they put me in the outfield. But I was lucky because the team ahd a coach who had played outfield in the minors and he taught me how to do it. I had played outfield for exactly one inning to that point in my career. I had no idea where to begin. Had this guy not been there to school me, my bat and I would have spent that season getting acquainted wiuth the bench.
Jessica Mendoza tells the story of how she became an outfielder. She went to Stanford on an athletic scholarship and when she got there found the team already had a sophomore All-America playing her position. Stacey Nuveman tells of how much of her early career involved playing exclusively SS. I'd be willing to bet that very few Div I college players played their predominant college position when they were 12, maybe even 14 or 15. Doesn't Cat Osterman say that she began pitching at 12?
It occurs to me that several pitchers I know were also pigeon-holed in their youth. One girl was pretty slow so her parents focused on her movement pitches rather than speed. I remember her 11 year old year. She was the smallest kid on the team. She threw maybe 40 mph with a tail-wind. I saw her yesterday. She is easily 5 feet 10 inches tall with very long arms and will possibly reach 6 feet within the year, right as she enters her freshman year of high school. She's about ready to give up pitching however because she gets tagged pretty good. She throws too slow for top level competition. her mechanics are wrong and her parents still believe the secret to her success is the movement pitches. (Don't take me wrong here - movement and location are critical but anybody can hit a 45 mph curve if it comes anywhere near the plate.)
Another pitcher I know was very fast at young ages. Now I'd say she has slightly below average speed. But her movement pitches are great and she has wonderful command. That's thanks to her parents and pitching coaches' recognition that she was not going to be particularly long or bulky as she aged. Early on the focus was to be well rounded. If she maintained speed, fine. In that event, she would be a fast pitcher with great control and movement. She's happens to be an outstanding infielder and, for that matter, outfielder. She also hits the stuffing out of the ball. This kid can play anywhere and does because nobody would ever leave her bat out of the lineup.
I watched some very young team play a tournament recently. They had a very good 10 year old pitcher. But she was kind of small. You could see her parents pacing the sideline as she pitched her way through every game that team played. Her stamina was as big as her parents were small and nervous. She pitched 3 games a day without any apparent drop-off in her performance. She played no other position. To be quite honest, I've seen better pitchers at the same age. This kid is supposed to be a plow horse when it comes to practicing and perhaps that will make all the difference for her. But to me, she is getting such a narrow experience that I believe it is harming her. She'd be better served to pitch on or one and a half games, at least on Saturdays and see some action at other positions. Perhaps her team would suffer as a result. Right now the kid suffers though nobody seems to be aware of that.
If you read this blog much, you have undoubtedly noticed I have a penchant for criticizing the "rotational" style of hitting. Today I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I don;t actually think it is wrong. What I think is wrong is teaching young kids to hit with the hip-trigger method in order to have them record extra-base-hits and homeruns in youth travel ball. What really gets up my ire is when I hear all those myths promulgated in the name of convincing everyone that rotational is the preferred method of hitting, is what all the colleges teach, and is what the Olympic softball players use. Another part of the myth is that all the big name sluggers in MLB use rotational hitting mechanics.
Recently somebody wrote something to me which included a reference to a piece of the rotational mechanic, wondered why I didn't focus on that, and criticized me for not talking more about it. When I replied, the complainer wrote me back repeating all the common myths about rotational hitting and had a link to one Olympian hitting in what appeared to be the rotational manner. I explained to him the error of his ways and I won't repeat all that again here. But suffice it to say that every truly great hitter is a rotational hitter (or appears to be one) on inside pitches and a linear hitter on outside opitches and balls up in the zone.
The Olympic team may very well teach roptational hitting mechanics but head coach Mike Candrea's hitting videos are pretty much all decidely linear in nature. Michele Smith's (she was a great hitter) advice on hitting is decidedly linear. All the major leaguers cited as rotational hitters are to a man disciples of Charley Lau, an anti-rotational voice. And if you examine tape on say Stacey Nuveman or Bustos, you will see them never let their hips fly open as the trigger to their swings unless somebody tries to jam them.
The link the fellow sent me involved a top hitter being jammed. She did look like a rotational hitter on that one. I sent back links to a dozen or more video clips which showed her to be more of a linear hitter than a rotational one and obviously demonstrating her versatility as a hitter.
The same feelings I have about rotational swing mechanics are true of slap hitting though I admit being totally in awe of what a slap hitter can accomplish in a softball game. It annoys me when I'm in the other dugout but I have to admit a grudging admiration for a girl who can chop a ball into the air and then reach first before the ball comes back to Earth.
Those circumstances are pretty rare. There aren't that many girls who can pull that off. Most slap hitters I see merely tap the ball into play. And they can't do much more than that because they have been doing only that since they were 9. The sickest feeling I get as a coach is looking at the on-deck circle and realizing our girl who can only slap is coming to the plate with the bases loaded and us trailing by a run with nobody available on the bench to hit for her. We've never won a game in those circumstances. If only the girl could pull a Mendoza and hit one hard down the line or drive one over the outfielder's heads, then things would be exciting! We have a slapper in the lineup who can drive the ball to all fields. She is always in the lineup. The one who merely dinks the ball into play is not.
A final area of consternation for me on this day is the big time, number 3 or 4 hitter who cannot lay down a bunt. I understand that on most teams, in most circumstances, you don;t want the kid who hits 5 or 600 with power to put one down. But it isn't difficult to imagine circumstances in which you might want her to do exactly that. I have interacted with coaches and parents who say, "We never want Sally to bunt. She's too good of a hitter for that." All I can say in response is "Mendoza."
Every kid who ever steps foot onto a softball diamond ought to learn to play every position on the field excluding one or two. Nobody should ever be limited to just one position. No youth team should play all of its games with one kid at a particular position, especially pitcher or catcher. It benefits everyone if every kid learns what is involved with most positions. The team benefits at times of injuries and illness. The kid benefits when, later in life, she wanst to stop pitching because she stops growing at 4 feet 11 or when her speed peaks at 53 mph. The all-star rec SS benefits by learning to play a little outfield, a little first and maybe seeing some action behind the plate. Our society is far too focused on specialization. Sure, most scientists aren't brauny enough to work a jackhammer. But that doesn't mean they should never leave their computers or laboratories.
Versatility is good.Labels: attitude, coaching, parenting, players, playing time
Permanent Link: Versatile!
Dangerous Game
by Dave
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tom writes in with a quick story as follows:
"Yesterday we played a 14U game during which our second baseman loaned her game face to our third baseman so she could be protected from her very close position. The second baseman is a good player with fast reflexes and good ball-sense who gets in a good ready position before each pitch and who was playing deep, just in front of the infield grass, about 80 feet from the plate. Our opponent's number 7 batter took a good outside pitch and lined it towards right center. Our 2B reacted quickly but did not get her glove completely up in time. The ball glanced off her glove, struck her square in the face and bounced all the way to the shortstop who caught it in the air and thereby recorded an out. The 2B was taken from the field with her nose gushing blood. Emergency personnel were summoned and took her to the hospital via ambulance.
At the hospital, where she spent the night, it was determined that the girl had suffered a broken nose plus several broken bones around one of her eyes. The girl underwent emergency surgery to reset her nose and take a look at the other breaks. It appears as if her vision will probably come back but, for now, she suffers some double vision. Doctors claim that is to be expected in the short-term though they are still somewhat concerned."
Tom's reason for writing is to encourage everyone in this game, in the strongest terms possible, to use the game face or a similar device (such as the D Mask). Tom knows that many girls playing infield positions refuse to wear these masks because they believe they make them look funny, they may perhaps somewhat obscure their vision, or in some way make them "different" from the other girls on the field. His hope is that if we make these commonplace, most, if not all, girls will wear these things routinely. I have to agree with his reasoning.
Beyond this particular accident, beyond nose and eye socket concerns there is something else I would like you to consider. A very expensive type of injury can also happen on the softbalol diamond involving dental issues.
Some time ago, a friend of mine told me a story about a drill his daughter's team was running either in practice or before a game. His daughter played second base at the time and the drill involved outfield cutoffs. A ball was hit to the rightfielder who fielded it. The 2B went out to get the cutoff but was told by the SS to let it go through to third. The 2B ducked down but the RF hooked the throw and beamed the ball right into the 2B's face, striking her square in the mouth.
The girl went down and was helped from the field spitting a little bit of blood. Her father took her for medical professionals who determined that she did not have any kind of break or damage to any place that had absorbed the blow. I believe that she did not suffer a consussion, a broken jaw, or any permanent damage to teeth. Luckily, she had been wearing a good mouth guard and that apparently had prevented serious injury.
The father, being a normally prudent person, took his daughter to a specialist at a top hospital just to make sure the original diagnosis was correct. There the specialist concurred and noted that had she not been wearing the mouthguard, she most definitely would have had permanent, possibly irreparable damage to both her jaw and teeth.
Lots of girls wear mouthguards though certainly not all. I believe I have seen more infielders and a few outfielders don the gameface and D mask this year. It isn't quite as prevalent as perhaps it will be next year. But the usage of these inexpensive, effective protection devices is growing in our sport.
I've grown a little weary of a common response to discussions regarding safety devices. Most frequently these involve discussion regarding face guards. A few sarcastic individuals make ignorant comments such as "why don't we just put all the girls out there in suits of armor!" That's absurd. These relative few individuals make suggestions like "the boys don't wear these things. Why should the girls?"
One subject which sometimes comes up about this sport is the issue of face masks on batting helmets. I don't wish to addresss this other than to say that foul balls to the face area are pretty common in fastpitch softball. I believe all but the college and international game require such masks and they probably prevent hundreds of potentially serious injuries every year. There's no point in discussing the issue further with anyone who doesn't know that reality.
What seems clear to me is a softball player ought to voluntarily wear a mouth guard when she is in the field. Infielders would be well served if the game decided that a face guard was required for them. Face masks on batting helmets are absolutely necessary and thankfully already required.
When it comes to rulemaking (in sports and other places) which require ever increasing amounts of protective gear, I get anxious. I do not like to be protected by big brother. Yet the same way a catcher is required to wear not just a mask but also a helmet, knee and shin guards, etc., I believe the entire sport ought to mandate batting helmet facemasks and I'm beginning to think that mouth guards for all defensive players and face guards for infielders ought to be a part of the required equipment. You can't play football without a mouth guard because of the concussive force likely to be experienced. The same should probably true on the softball diamond.
Aside from these equipment issues, I would like to bring up one other subject which is probably best targeted at the less experienced, less serious softball player and her parents. I do not believe serious and/or very experienced players need to be told the following. So, if that's you, you can skip the rest of today's class.
Recently I was coaching a 12U game and our team was playing very poorly. By playing very poorly, I don't mean we lost a game or got bumped early out of a tournament. Rather, what I mean is our girls were not making some plays which they have routinely made for months. Ordinary groundballs, with no bad hops, were slipping in between legs; routine flyballs were striking gloves and then finding the ground; and routine throws were being tossed into the stands. We won because some girls hit and because we were playing an inferior team. But our level of play was not particularly encouraging to anyone who has sc hooled these girls in defensive mechanics. Actually, it was rather upsetting and disheartening.
I wasn't sure what I could do to help these girls. I felt we had drilled them pretty hard and taught them well. They were much better than they had played. I wasn't sure what happened. Later, between games, I found out what had happened. I was sitting by myself not too far from where our girls were hanging out, eating their lunches, and overheard a conversation between several girls. Apparently, these girls had held a slumber party the night before. They called it a "sleep-over" but sleep was not an important part of the evening's agenda. One girl mocked another who had fallen asleep by one o'clock. She bragged that she had not gone to sleep until well past four. I had my answer but I was not pleased about it.
More than a month prior to this tournament, one of our coaches had dared to do the unspeakable. he had issued an e-mail suggesting how one might prepare for a tournament. he encouraged the girls to drink lots of fluids the day before a tournament; to eat properly, avoiding candy, ice cream, etc.; and to make sure to get to bed by 9 or, at the latest 10. There was an uproar after that e-mail went out. Several parents wondered where this guy felt he receiuved the right to talk down to them. They wanted to know whether he thought them stupid. They let it be known that they are at least as good of parents as he and do not need ridiculous advice such as this.
Yes, some of those who complained about the condescension were involved in the slumber party. They also were among the folks who made inquiries as to why their children were not listed in the lineup cards as playing infield after making errors in the early games.
Let me be clear about one thing and that is sleep deprivation has some impact on a player's ability to play this game. I can't quantify the effect. Studies have sometimes resulted in contrary findings. But I don't think anyone believes even for a millisecond that getting no sleep the night before the game is just OK. I don't believe anyone thinks that any player will do as well with less sleep than she would with more.
There is some debate as to whether sleep deprivation constitutes torture at Guantanamo Bay detention center. I do not wish to enter that debate in this particular forum. What I will tell you is those who are against it argue that it does result in responses similar to what alcohol consumption does - greatly reduced reaction speed, possibly causes permanent reduction to higher level function, but definitely causes short-term reduced function on normal, mundane tasks. I don't know whether you can claim it is torture or with any certainty causes permanent brain injury (or maybe I better go seek medical help immediately - as a result of having been a parent!). But there's no question that a sleep deprived kid will have a greater tendency to miss easy groundballs, strike out against pitchers she usually hits hard, etc. And where I'm going with this is, I wonder what this says about the risks incurred by the no-mouth-guard, no-game-face, sleep-deprived infielder or pitcher.
Recently, my 14U daughter got very angry with my wife and me. She was angry because we flat out denied her request to "sleep over" at her teammates house on a Saturday night of a three day tournament. The girl sponsoring the "sleep-over" is the manager's daughter and team's only viable catcher. She may have to catch 5 or more games (doubtful that we'll play more than 5 given the circumstances!) over 3 days in what is expected to be 90 degree, humid weather. Our games are scheduled for the hottest parts of the day. Another girl who will be "sleeping" over is our third baseman who routinely positions herself 45 feet from home, 30 and charging in bunt situations, but wears no protective devices. My daughter will likely see a lot of time in the circle. And in our preliminary games, we will be facing some of the best hitting teams around.
I'm going to leave now so I can go pray for the remainder of the day that nobody gets injured. You go do whatever you like.
Follow-up:
Tom read the above piece and wrote in to correct me as follows:
"You are NOT right about ALL the national organizations requiring face masks
on batting helmets. Little League does not require this proven safety device
to be on batting helmets. They also do not require chin straps to keep the
helmet on the players head. They announced their intention of doing so over
a decade ago and most leagues have converted but they never made it mandatory. I have no idea why they have not done so except for the faces not showing up
well on TV; it can't be concern for player's safety."Labels: coaching, parents, players, safety, Tournaments
Permanent Link: Dangerous Game
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