Yes, I know, it sounds like a folk song but it’s a legitimate question. Especially now that we are hot and heavy into the softball tryout season.

If you’re following softball-oriented Facebook groups or forums such as Discuss Fastpitch you’re probably seeing this plea a lot, particularly in the older age groups: Impossibly great team looking for one more bracket pitcher to complete our outstanding roster.

With all the 8-10 year olds jumping into the pitching pool you would think there would be a cornucopia of pitching at every level. It’s not unusual to see box scores on GameChanger that show four or five pitchers each getting an inning of work on a regular basis. And it’s been that way for long before GameChanger existed.

So what happened to all those pitchers?

Well, somewhere along the way they stopped pitching. Or maybe even playing the game entirely.

Sure, some probably found that they just didn’t care for the pressure of being in the circle. And some probably found that they didn’t like all the extra work that goes with being a pitcher. All legit, and to each her own.

But I can’t help but think that the rapid shrinking of the pitching pool might in many cases also be driven by team coaches and parents who are more focused on winning 10U or 12U games or trophies than they are on ensuring their players develop properly.

Take the coach who has 5 pitchers on his/her roster but gives 90% of the innings to the #1 pitcher. Yes, it’s nice to win games and tournaments, but if you’re only really giving one pitcher an opportunity to pitch regularly the others won’t develop.

Then they won’t develop, they’ll fall farther behind, get discouraged by their lack of progress as well as their lack of opportunity, and eventually stop pitching. So now four more are out of the pitcher pool for the future.

Oh, and in the meantime the #1 develops an overuse injury and may end up not pitching either.

Then there are the coaches who set impossible standards for their young, developing pitchers. They tell them in order to pitch they need to “hit their spots” 80% of the time.

Not because it’s necessary – really the only “spots” that are important at the 10U level are ball and strike – but because they heard on TV or read an article that said that’s what college pitchers do. Or because they want to use the vague “hit your spots” as an excuse not to pitch a girl who isn’t going to walk in and dominate every game.

So again, she doesn’t get circle time, falls behind, and eventually gives it up because what’s the point of taking lessons and practicing if you never get to pitch, even in “friendlies” or pool play?

Pitching coaches who say they’re teaching 10 or 12 year olds to throw seven pitches aren’t much help either.

Most 10U and 12U pitchers have enough to do mastering a fastball and and a changeup. Having them work on five other pitches – especially with some of the crazy mechanics I’ve seen them try to use – is a recipe for disaster.

Those pitchers never master their fundamentals. So when the hitters get better all those so-called different pitches turn out to be bullet spin fastballs to different locations that are fairly easy to hit. And then they’re out of the pitching pool because they’re getting hammered all the time.

And the list goes on. If we really want to have more pitchers available at 16U and 18U, parents and coaches have to do more to encourage greater success for more pitchers at the younger levels.

Keep them pitching, keep them developing, and give them opportunities to learn their craft – even when they’re bad at it. Then maybe there won’t be so many teams begging for pitchers or fighting over the same ones at the older levels.