Monthly Archives: March 2024
Little Things That Make a Big Difference
It seems like softball coaches, players, and especially parents are always in search of the “silver bullet” – that one technique or piece of knowledge or magic adjustment that will take an average (or below-average) player and turn her into a superstar.
That desire is actually what keeps a lot of what I would call charlatans – people who claim to have a “secret sauce” when really what they have is a knack for hyping otherwise very ordinary solutions – in business. It’s also what drives some of the incredibly crazy drills or controversial posts you see on social media.
Well, that and a need to constantly feed things into the social media machine so they can keep getting those clicks.
In my experience there is no single silver bullet or secret sauce drill that can turn an average player into a superstar overnight. There is no “next big thing” either.
But there are a lot of little things that can make a huge difference in your game if you learn to execute them properly. Here’s a little collection of some of them.
Pitching a rise ball
The rise ball is often the toughest pitch to learn. That’s because getting true backspin on a 12 inch softball (versus the typical bullet spin) requires the pitcher to do some things that work against the body’s natural tendencies.
One of the biggest has to do with what the hand and forearm do at release.
The natural movement for the hand and forearm as they pass the back leg is to pronate, i.e., turn inward. If you hold your arm up and let it just drop behind you, you’ll see that inward turn when you get to the bottom of the circle.
Try it for yourself, right now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
When you’re throwing a rise ball, however, you have to keep the hand and forearm in supination, i.e., pointed outward, as you go into release if you want to be able to cut under the ball and achieve backspin. Otherwise you’re throwing a drop ball.
What often happens, however, is that in trying to keep the forearm and hand pointed out, the pitcher will cup her hand under the ball so the palm is pointed toward the sky or ceiling. That may work to impart backspin when doing drills from a short distance away, but it will also create a “big dot” spin instead of a more efficient and active “small dot” spin when thrown full-out.
So, to throw a true backspin rise the pitcher needs to learn to keep the palm of her hand pointed mostly out to the side, with just a slight cupping of the fingers. In other words, throw with more of a fastball-type orientation (fingers down) going into release, then angle the hand back up slightly so the fingertips are under the ball instead of to the side.
Do that and you have a much better chance of getting 6 to 12 backspin. (For those unfamiliar with that term, think of an analog clock, with the spin direction moving from the bottom at 6:00 to the top at 12:00.)
Another key is to freeze the fingers at release rather than trying to twist the ball out like a doorknob.
Again, twisting or “twizzling” the ball (as Rick Pauly calls it) will work when you’re self-spinning or throwing at a short distance. But once you try to put any energy into the ball, your hand’s natural tendency to pronate or turn in (remember that from a few minutes ago?) will cause you to turn the palm forward and create bullet spin.
Now, if you can throw the ball 70 mph or more, I suppose it doesn’t matter how your rise ball is spinning so you can get away with that. But if you’re not, forget the twizzling and make sure your hand simply cuts under the ball like a 9 iron hitting a golf ball onto the green and you’ll have a lot more success with it.
Bend in slightly to the curve ball
The curve ball tends to have the opposite problem. Here, you want your hand to be palm-up (if you’re throwing a cut-under curve) so the spin axis is on top of the ball.
The problem is many pitchers will tend to extend their spines a little as they go to throw the curve, which will naturally make the hand tend to sag down, turning the palm more out and away rather than up.
To avoid that issue, try bending in slightly over your bellybutton (on the sagittal plan for those who love the technical terms). That slight bowing in makes it easier to maintain a palm-up orientation, placing the spin axis on the top of the ball and creating a better chance for the fast, tight spin that enables a late break.
Get hitting power from your hips, not your arms
Look, I get it. You hold your bat in your hands, which are at the ends of your arms. So logically you would think to hit the ball harder you should use your arms more if you want to swing the bat harder.
And yes, that will work if you’re on a tee, where the ball isn’t moving. But if you’re not 7 years old, it won’t work so well when the ball is moving.
The reason is when you use the arms to create power, you give up control of the bat. You’re just yanking it wildly and hoping something good would happen.
The better approach is to use your hips (and core) to generate energy through body rotation. More energy, in fact, than you can create with your arms.
Then use the arms to easily direct that energy toward the ball. Approaching it this way will give you the adjustability you need to take the bat to where the ball is going instead of where it was when you first started the swing.
Generating power from the hips first also gives you more time to see the ball before you have to commit the bat, further allowing you to fine-tune the path of the bat to where the ball will be when it gets close to the plate.
Remember, the difference between a great contact and a weak one, or no contact for that matter, can be measured in centimeters (fractions of an inch for those who don’t remember the metric system from school). The ability to make fine adjustments during the swing is often the difference between a great hit and a poor one. Or none at all.
Shoulder tilt creates bat angle
While we’re talking hitting, another small adjustment has to do with the angle of the shoulders at contact.
We’ve all heard the instruction to “swing level” at some point or another. Many of you may have even said it, or say it now.
But if by swing level you mean having the bat parallel to the ground you’re just asking for a season filled with pop-ups and ground balls.
If you look at great hitters at the point of contact, you’ll see that 99 times out of 100 they have an angle on the bat that slopes down from the handle to the barrel. If you look a little further, you’ll see that the angle of the bat usually matches the angle of the shoulders.
So…if you want to get a great bat angle to hit rising line drives and other powerful hits, you don’t really need to manipulate the bat. You just need to let the back shoulder tilt downwards toward the ball. This preferably happens about halfway through the turn rather than dropping the shoulder first and then turning.
Think of the back shoulder as an aiming device. Once you see where the ball is headed, take the back shoulder in that direction and swing on a plane that matches the shoulder angle.
Before you can say “Bob’s your uncle” (always wanted to use that one) you’re crushing the ball deep – without having to do any crazy manipulations.
A better way to put on your glove or mitt
Given the power of the Internet to spread information I’m surprised that this little trick isn’t more well-known.
When most people put on a softball glove or mitt, they tend to put it on as they do a regular glove, i.e., one finger in each slot. I mean, it makes sense, right?
But that’s now how the pros do it. The problem with the one finger, one slot approach is that you ring and little fingers are your two weakest fingers. Far weaker than the index and middle fingers.
So when you go to catch the ball, your weakest (little) finger is trying to close at least half, if not more, of the glove by itself while the strongest part of your hand is closing the other half. You don’t have to be an anatomy expert to figure out why that can contribute to a lot more dropped or mis-handled balls.
Here’s a trick that can solve that issue: Take your ring and little finger, hold them together, and then slide them into the loop in the last finger stall. Then move each of the other fingers over one toward that end, leaving the area for the first finger open.
Now your two weakest fingers have combined to create one stronger finger, better balancing the closing power between the thumb and other side of your hand. You middle finger also gives somewhat of an assist to the other two.
And bonus, you no longer have to leave your index finger out of the glove to keep it from hurting when the ball hits the palm of the glove because it’s not in that spot anymore!
It’s going to feel awkward at first, especially because your hand won’t go into the glove quite as deeply. But try it for a month. You’ll never go back to the old way.
Little things mean a lot
None of these little tips are earth-shaking or revolutionary. But each of them can make a significant difference in your performance.
If you’re struggling with any of these issues, give these tips a try. It’s amazing the difference a slight adjustment can make.
There’s a Difference Between Being Demanding and Being Mean
We’ve all seen the stereotype in dozens of sports movies over the years: the coach who constantly screams at and demeans his/her players early in the movie only to go on to win the a championship during the climactic ending.
It makes for great Hollywood drama. But unfortunately too many people today watch those movies and think it’s a blueprint for how to become a successful coach.
So all they really do is learn how to yell and scream at their players, calling them names and telling them how horrible they are. And then punishing them physically for a lack of performance.
Do they really think that helps? Personally, I think it’s more of a symptom that the real-life coach has no idea how to help their team better so they just yell or do other things in the hopes that it will miraculously scare the players into playing better.
So does that mean coaches shouldn’t raise their voices to their players or hold them accountable? Absolutely not.
But what they need to understand is there’s a difference between being demanding, or being tough, and being mean.
Being demanding is holding your players to a high standard – after teaching them what the standard is. Take a baserunner who is called out for not tagging up at third.
My first question in that situation is whether the coach actually went over the rules on tagging up and explained what to do in that situation. If not, they shouldn’t be calling out the player.
As a team coach, I always assumed my players didn’t know anything if I didn’t teach it to them. That way I was encouraged to teach them as much as I could about the game rather than assuming they knew certain things only to be disappointed later.
If the coach did teach it and the player had a mental lapse then yes, the coach should call it out. While they may get a bit heated in the moment, a demanding coach will remind the player that they went over it, here’s what you’re supposed to do (teachable moment) and talk about staying focused and aware of the situation.
A mean coach will call the player a name or two, ask if the player is trying to make the coach look bad, and probably bench the player for making a mistake. The problem is, if the player made that mistake she probably doesn’t know what she should have done instead, and the situation is likely to repeat itself in the future.
Demanding coaches are tough because they want to get the best from their players. To paraphrase the old Boy Scout slogan, they want to leave the player better than they found her.
Mean coaches are tough because they feel anything players do wrong reflects poorly on THEM, and their egos can’t handle people thinking they are bad coaches.
Demanding coaches believe in their players and hold them accountable to a defined set of standards. They care about seeing their become better at the sport as well as better people.
Yes, they want to win just like anybody else. But they’re also careful not to sacrifice their players’ self-esteem at the altar of winning.
Deep down they want their players to enjoy the experience and maintain or even enhance their passion for the game. And yes, their overall goal is for their players to have fun.
Mean coaches don’t rally care if their players are enjoying the experience or having fun. They don’t care if their players get burned out or lose their passion for the game because hey, there’s always another player coming along and maybe that one will be naturally better.
Which is a good segue to the fact that demanding coaches love to teach the game to their players. As with our baserunning example above they don’t assume anything; they thrive on the details.
Take the story about UCLA basketball and all-around coaching legend John Wooden. The first thing Coach Wooden would do with his incoming freshmen was teach them how to put on their socks.
Now, these were 18 year old college students who had presumably been dressing themselves for more than a decade, and many at first thought it was silly that their coach was teaching them how to put on socks. But the process served two purposes.
First, the way he had them do it would help prevent them from getting blisters on their feet during the long and difficult practices they went through. Very practical.
But it also served to show them in a subtle way that there was a UCLA way to do things, and that these individual players, all of whom had probably been stars on their high school teams, needed to adopt the UCLA way of doing things if they were going to be part of the team.
I find that mean coaches don’t teach the game that much – often because they haven’t put in the effort to learn much beyond the basics or whatever they were taught when they were playing. They would much rather just try to recruit good players and throw them on the field to fend for themselves.
Then, if their performance doesn’t meet the coach’s standards (i.e., it causes the team to lose), the coach will try to harangue the player into doing better or bench them in the hopes that feeling bad about being taken out will make them play better the next time they’re on the field – if there is a next time.
In the end, it all comes down to intentions.
The demanding coach wants to see players reach their potential not just as athletes but as human beings, and will remind them that the pursuit of excellence has no days off. They may sound mean or angry at times, but underlying that surface is a layer of love.
The mean coach doesn’t really care about the player reaching their potential except as it affects winning and the accolades that the coach will receive for the team’s performance. There is no love there, or loyalty for that matter.
It’s simply a transactional approach that sees players as chess pieces to be used and/or discarded as-needed to bolster the coach’s self-image, regardless of the toll it takes on their players.
The good news is both players and coaches have a choice.
If you’re a coach, think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Is it helping your players to become better people as well as athletes?
If yes, great. If not, while you may think you’re being tough you may just be being mean.
If you’re a player, or the parent of a player, think about whether this coach cares about you as a person and is promoting your love of the game.. If yes, while you may not always enjoy it they’re being demanding to help you grow.
If not, they may just be mean. And you can either accept and understand it for what it is or move on,
Either way it’s not you. It’s them.
Angry woman photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
5 Simple Rules for Surviving High School Softball
So, the good news is your daughter made the high school fastpitch softball team. Congratulations! That’s a relief, especially in those increasingly rare instances where high school softball programs are still actually cutting players.
Now the “bad” news: if you’ve never been through the experience you could be in for a rude awakening. Because unless your high school coach is also your travel or rec league team coach, high school softball is often very different from travel or rec ball.
Understand that doesn’t mean I’m about to bash high school coaches. There are many excellent, caring, knowledgeable high school coaches out there.
I know some of them myself, and have heard great stories about many more. Also, many of the things that are said to criticize high school coaches could just as easily be applied to travel or rec coaches.
But it is a different experience, so if you’re a parent or guardian of a newly minted high school player you need to be aware of a few things before you get yourself all tied up in knots before the first pitch is thrown. Here are a few simple rules on how to survive high school softball.
Understand the Power Structure
This is Rule #1. In 99.999% of high school softball situations you have no power. None. Nada. Zilch.
It is basically an authoritarian system where all decisions rest with the head coach and where trying to buck that reality or get around it could end up hurting your daughter rather than helping her. Think Vladimir Putin with a clipboard instead of a nuclear arsenal.
But wait, you’re friends with the athletic director or a school board member? Surely that must give you some leverage, right?
Nope. The reality is softball is not a revenue sport so no one at that level cares about the drama or the day-to-day operations of the softball program.
It is nearly impossible to get a high school softball coach replaced or even reprimanded, especially because you think your daughter should be playing varsity or playing shortstop or doing something else high-profile and the head coach does not. The head coach basically has to do something illegal, and seriously so, to even have anyone look into him/her.
Even then, it’s likely that the head coach and whoever is doing the investigating are friends or at least colleagues, so the chances of a change being made are pretty slim. And if the head coach survives, your daughter probably has a target on her back.
Unless there is actual physical abuse, it’s probably best to remember the old saying “If come at the King (or Queen), you’d best not miss.”
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s look at what you can do.
Remember It’s Hard to Change Teams
Parents who are used to jumping teams in travel ball may be surprised to learn this, but if you don’t like your high school’s coach you only have two basic options.
The most obvious is to move to another school district. I’m pretty sure that the way public school works everywhere is you are basically assigned to a high school based on where you live.
If that’s not true in your area please share that info in the comments, by the way. I love to learn.
But assuming what I said is true, you can’t just request for your daughter to go to another public high school because you don’t like the softball coach, or you don’t like anything else for that matter.
There is another option, however. You can always send your daughter to a private school if you can afford to pay the freight, which can amount to the down payment on a small house or a really nice boat each semester.
If you’re going there for the education that’s one thing. More power to you.
But if you’re doing it so you can brag to your friends and family that your daughter is the starting shortstop it may not be your best investment. Although it’s your money so if it’s that important to you I guess have at it.
The good news is, if your daughter goes on to play in college the new portal rules open everything up again, making it easier to move teams if you’re not happy with the situation. So there’s that.
Learn to Enjoy the Game from the Outfield
In rec and travel ball, parents often like to sit as close to the action as they can – whether it’s to see the game better, offer hitting advice to their daughters when they come up to bat, or help the home plate umpire call the game.
If you’re in category #1 you can still do that. If you’re in category #2 or #3, though, my suggestion is to forget all that and learn to enjoy the game from the outfield.
When you’re sitting either down the line or even better behind the home run fence it’s a lot less likely that the coach who makes playing time decisions will be able to hear your running commentary. You’ll also be sitting among your people, the others who are unhappy with the head coach and are trying to figure out a way to get him/her removed.
You’ll also be safe from rabbit-eared umpires who are looking for a fan to toss to make sure the rest of the crazy softball parents stay in line and don’t plan to form a lynch mob because he/she blew a safe/out call at home in the second inning, thereby hurting their daughter’s team’s chances of overcoming that eight-run deficit they currently have.
The good news there is at least one of the outfield regulars probably has a little something stashed in his/her thermos jug in violation of the school’s strict drug and alcohol policy. Get friendly with that person and the game will become more tolerable, at least by the fourth inning.
Don’t Over-Think It
Maybe you’re a student of the game who loves to argue the nuances of how to put together a productive offensive lineup or how to use data to position each fielder to increase the chances of getting an out. Maybe you are considered by yourself or even others to be an expert at calling pitches or using the short game strategically.
Whatever you believe makes your decisions better than those of the head coach, learn to set it all aside. Because all you’re going to do is make yourself aggravated or angry, and who needs that?
Instead, learn to just chill in your chair and enjoy watching the game for the sheer pleasure of seeing your daughter play. Trust me on this one.
If you just sit back and let the game happen however it happens you’ll be a lot happier. And so will your daughter.
Remember the Cosmic Snowball Theory
This is something I first came across in the book Ball Four, the first sports tell-all book by Jim Bouton. It’s seen me through many a tough time. It goes:
“A billion years from now, the Earth will just be a big cosmic snowball floating through space, and nothing that happens here today will matter.”
When you’re getting all angry about this decision or that boneheaded move, keep the Cosmic Snowball Theory in mind. It’ll save you a lot of grief and heartache – and maybe a trip to jail.
Developing Fastpitch Pitchers: The Speed v Accuracy Debate
One of the age-old questions when developing fastpitch pitchers is whether coaches should prioritize speed or accuracy.
Of course the real answer is they should focus on mechanics and everything else comes from that. In other words, focus on the process and the outcomes will take care of themselves.
Still, you do need some way of measuring whether the mechanics you’re working on are helping your pitcher get better or not. The two most common are speed and accuracy.
So we again come to that question: which of those should be the priority? In my opinion, the priority for young pitchers should be speed. Here’s why.
Let’s say you choose to prioritize accuracy. Understandable, especially if you are a team coach.
You want pitchers who can get the ball over the plate and get hitters swinging. After all, you can’t defend a walk and all that, and no one likes a walkfest.
The problem is, if you sacrifice speed for accuracy your pitcher will develop a way of pitching that is totally focused on that outcome. That will get her by up until about the age of 12, especially if you’re not playing high-level ball.
But at some point she will need to gain some speed or she won’t be pitching anymore. While it may have been good enough to “just get the ball over the plate” when she was younger and the opponents didn’t hit very well, those hitters have been developing too.
And they can now crush those slow meatballs all the way toward South America.
So she’s going to have to gain some speed. The problem is, that’s going to throw off her whole way of pitching because she’s going to need to use her body differently than she’s been doing it, which means her accuracy will go down anyway. And now she’s neither fast nor accurate.
Let’s look at it from the other side. If you focus on speed first, your pitcher may have some trouble throwing strikes at first.
Young people don’t always have total command of their bodies, and some have less than others. Which means you could have arms and legs (as well as pitches) going everywhere when they try to use their full energy But…
The more they work at it at full or near-full energy level, the better they’ll be able to feel their body moving in space. Pitches that were way wide, or going to the top of the backstop, or rolling in the dirt, start getting closer to being strikes.
The zone keeps narrowing until finally the pitcher can throw reliably. Only instead of throwing meatballs she’s bringing heat.
And as she gets older, the mechanics she developed to build that speed continue to be refined, giving her better and better control without having to go back to the drawing board and re-learn how to pitch.
In the end, it comes down to what your goals for that pitcher are. If all the team coach cares about is not giving up walks to ensure a better shot at wins in the short term, it might make sense to go for accuracy.
Your pitcher will definitely get more opportunity to pitch right now.
If, however, you’re looking to develop your pitcher in a way that delivers long-term success, put the priority on speed and let accuracy come later. Because by the time a pitcher is 13, she needs a minimum level of speed to even be considered for most teams, much less given the ball when it counts.
You show up to a tryout with speed and no one cares how many batters you walked or hit when you were younger. They may even be willing to take a chance on you if you look a little wild.
But show up throwing in the mid-40s or less and you’re probably not going to be pitching much no matter how accurate you are. Because by that time accuracy will be considered table stakes, not a point of differentiation.
7 Fastpitch Softball Rules Myths BUSTED!
A few weeks ago one of my students and her dad came to me with a question about the pitching rules. She had been called for an illegal pitch because she stepped on the pitching rubber with her hands together.
I confirmed that that was a rule and we worked on making sure she broke that habit (she never really did it during lessons). But then they also said their team coach told them something else that, as Tom Cruise says in A Few Good Men, just ain’t true. Even though a lot of people seem to think it is
That got me to thinking about some of the other fastpitch softball “rules” myths people seem to believe and spout off about at every opportunity. And since rules posts are pretty popular here on Life in the Fastpitch Lane I thought it was time to address some of those myths. So…
Myth #1: You Have to Present the Ball
This was the question that sparked this post. My pitcher was told you have to show the ball to the hitter before bringing your hands together. In other words, hold it in your pitching hand when you step on the pitcher’s plate (rubber in common terms).
That is completely false. The rules state that you must have the hands separated when you step on the pitcher’s plate. But they also state the ball can be in EITHER hand.
Which means it can be in your glove when you step on, and you can then reach your pitching hand into the glove to grab the ball.
(I would quote the rule with the number but I don’t happen to have a current USA Softball rulebook. If any of you have it feel free to add it in the comments.)
It isn’t just coaches and parents who don’t understand or know this rule, by the way. I have witnessed and heard about umpires not understanding it either, and insisting the pitcher has to “present the ball.”
If you find yourself in that situation, you can decide whether it’s worth arguing. But it’s good to know the truth nonetheless.
Myth #2: The Hands Are Part of the Bat
This one comes up in a hit by pitch (HBP) situation when the ball comes inside and hits the batter’s hand while she is holding the bat.
The umpire will award the batter first base, and immediately the opposing coach will come out of the dugout claiming or screaming she shouldn’t get a base because the hands are considered part of the bat.
There is an easy test for this one. Have the batter hold the bat straight out in front of her with her hands, and then let go. If the hands hit the ground with the bat, they are part of the bat.
Otherwise they are not, and batter gets the base.
Myth #3: The Tie Goes to the Runner
This one is a baserunning situation related to a force out, although some try to apply it to tag plays too.
Basically, the ball and runner arrive at the base at what appears to be the same time (although rarely is that true). If the umpire calls the runner out, the offensive coach will claim she should be safe because the tie goes to the runner.
While that is a very common belief, again there is no such rule. It is entirely up to the umpire’s judgment as to whether the ball beat the runner to the base or runner beat the ball to the fielder’s glove.
In the rare case where both arrive at exactly the same time, which would be a statistical anomaly of the highest order, it is still up to the umpire’s judgment as to whether the runner is safe or out.
You can yell and scream all you want about it but the rules won’t help you out. The umpire’s call is the final word.
Myth #4: If a Fielder in Fair Territory Touches a Ball in Foul Territory It’s a Fair Ball
I actually heard this one being argued by a parent at a high school game about a line drive hit down the third base line.
The ball was over foul territory when it was touched, but the fielder was in fair territory. He was trying to argue that the ball should be fair.
The reality, however, is that fair or foul has nothing to do with the fielder’s position. It’s where the ball is when it hits the ground or is touched by a player. So even if the ball is deflected back into fair territory it is considered a foul ball because of where it was when it was deflected.
Myth #5: A Runner Tagging Up Can’t Leave the Base Until the Ball Is Caught
This is another one that is often misunderstood by the folks along the sidelines, and sometimes in the dugouts too.
A typical situation will have a runner on third with fewer than two outs. A fly ball is hit to the outfield and the runner on third will tag up, i.e., come back to the base and stand with her foot on it.
When the outfielder catches the ball cleanly the runner on third will take off for home. All good so far.
But what if the outfielder bobbles the ball instead of catching it cleanly? Some will argue that the runner can’t leave the base until the ball is secured. But they would be wrong.
The runner is free to leave the base as soon as the outfielder TOUCHES it. This rule is in place to prevent a skilled outfielder from juggling the ball all the way back to the infield before catching to hold the runner at third.
It makes sense when you think about it that way. So coaches, teach your outfielders to catch the ball cleanly if you want a shot at the runner on third.
Myth #6: No Hit By Pitch If the Ball Bounces First
This one may actually be true in some rec leagues, but overall it doesn’t matter if the ball hits the ground before it hits the batter. If a pitched ball hits the batter she is awarded first base.
Myth #7: A Pitcher Can Only Hit X Batters Before She Has to Come Out
Again, this may be true in some rec or other local leagues. But for high school, college, and travel ball the pitcher can hit as many batters as her coach will allow her to.
This one should be self-regulating. Every HBP is another baserunner who has a chance to score.
Hit four in an inning and that’s a free run for the opposition. And if you hit four, who’s to say you won’t hit six, or eight? That’s a lot of free runs to give up.
The smart move if a pitcher is having that much control trouble is to get her out of there and try someone else. But there’s nothing in the rules that requires it.
That’s a Wrap
So there you have it – seven fastpitch softball myths that some/many (depending on the myth) think are true but really aren’t.
So what did I miss? Are there others you’ve seen or heard that drive you nuts? Leave your thoughts like therapy in the comments.
Stonehenge photo by John Nail on Pexels.com
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 