Author Archives: Ken Krause
Trust the Process and the Outcome Takes Care of Itself
Every now and then when I’m working with a pitching student I will have one who is having trouble hitting some of her spots on command. For example, she will tell me that she can hit inside ok but can’t throw outside.
I will talk to her about how to do it. I used to talk about making adjustments such as striding an inch or two toward where you want to throw, or turning your hand a certain way, etc.
But now I simply tell her to look at where you want to throw and then throw it there. Your body will find a way.
That works much of the time, but not always. In those cases where it doesn’t, I will drag a protective screen about halfway between the pitcher and catcher and say “Try it now.” That trick usually works within a couple of pitches.
“Why do you think you can magically hit that spot all of a sudden?” I will ask (triumphantly, I might add).
“Because the screen is there and I can’t throw it the other way,” they’ll reply in some form or another.
That’s true, but there’s a deeper explanation: by blocking off half the plate, her body was forced to make adjustments to not clang into the screen. We fixed the process, and the outcome was what we wanted.
That’s an important lesson for every fastpitch player to learn. All too often players get so caught up in trying to achieve the outcome they lose the thing that will most help them achieve it.
Pitchers will get so caught up in going for speed they’ll over-throw and try to muscle the ball, slowing it down. Or they’ll get so obsessed with hitting a spot or getting a spin that they’ll contort themselves in all sorts of crazy ways to make it happen.
Hitters will be so hellbent on getting a hit that they’ll just flail the bat at the ball instead of taking an approach that lets them see the ball longer and coordinate all their body parts to deliver the bat more efficiently. Fielders will be so focused on throwing hard to set a speed record that they’ll set aside good mechanics to just chuck the ball any old way, taking the throw off-line and getting a worse score than before.
You get the picture. These players become so intent on whatever outcome they’re trying to achieve that they don’t pay attention to how they’re trying to achieve it. That’s just wrong.
The reality is the process is greater than the outcome just like the graphic at the top of this post shows. (I stole that from a t-shirt I saw on the TV show Seal Team, to give credit where it’s due. Then I had my wife make me one with her Cricut so I can wear it to lessons.)
In other words, if you place your focus on the end you can control and work forward, you’re far more likely to achieve the outcomes you desire than if you try to work back from the outcome.
Yes, the outcomes are important. I’m certainly the first to celebrate a student hitting a home run, or achieving a new speed record, or succeeding in some other way.
But placing all your emphasis on them is not the way to achieve them.
Instead, focus on what you’re doing and what you’re feeling. Listen to your body and check on whether it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.
If you keep your focus there, I can guarantee the outcome will take care of itself. Because you can influence the process while you’re doing it.
But once you’ve done it, you can no longer influence the outcome. It’s simply the result of what you did.
The Downside of Being Coachable
One of the highest compliments a coach, journalist, parent, or other observer can pay to a player is to say he or she is “coachable.” I’ve said it myself many times, both about individuals and as a general character trait, and I still believe in the concept.
When you say an athlete is coachable, what you’re really saying is that he or she isn’t stuck in his or her ways, or doesn’t tune out coaches when they offer instruction, but instead embraces the opportunity to learn and grow their skills. Seems like a pretty important attribute in my book.
As with anything, however, there is also a downside to being coachable. One that doesn’t often get talked about, which is why I’m bringing it up today.
Basically, the downside is this: What if what the athlete is being told just isn’t good advice? Or worse, what if the coaching will actually make the player worse in the short- and long-term?
Lord knows there is plenty of bad coaching out there. Some of it comes from well-meaning volunteers who don’t have much experience so they rely on what they remember from their own youth playing days or something they may have heard at a coaching clinic they once attended.
The problem is they may not remember the information correctly, or completely, or they may remember it correctly but the fastpitch softball world moved on from those teachings years ago. Squish the bug, anybody?
Then there is the contribution of the Internet to spreading bad information. At least back in the day a poorly informed coach was only affecting his/her team, or program at worst.
Now with the ready availability of Facebook groups, Instagram posts, YouTube videos, etc., that bad information is being amplified and shared around the world. Some of it by famous names who really ought to know better but apparently don’t.
So what ends up happening is that the coachable athlete, especially at the beginner level, gets shown poor or sub-optimal techniques that quickly become ingrained habits.
They are able to get by with those techniques for a while if their natural athletic ability is superior to their peers who require more training. But eventually that natural advantage levels off and those peers start catching up to them.
At that point, the coachable athletes may find they have hit a plateau or are even falling behind their peers who, while not as athletic, have received better training. But since they may have two, three, six, or more years doing things the way they’ve done them, the techniques are so ingrained they may struggle to learn new, better mechanics or approaches.
It won’t be for lack of trying – they’re still the same coachable athletes they always were. But they’ve been down the rabbit hole for so long that finding their way out can be a long, painful journey.
How can you avoid this issue with your coachable athlete? The #1 way is to ensure you have good information about what is considered high-level in pitching, hitting, throwing, fielding, conditioning, agility training, strength training, and other pertinent aspects of the game.
It’s going to take some time to research, to be sure. The key is not to believe something just because a famous coach or athlete says it.
Seek out a variety of perspectives from a variety of sources, and see what makes sense. Give preference to those who explain the “why” behind what they’re saying, and see if that makes sense as well.
After all, if an explanation doesn’t seem to make sense from a biomechanical or physics standpoint, it’s probably just so much word salad.
Take the old “swing down on the ball to get backspin” belief in hitting. Its proponents will tell you that doing so will help the ball carry farther in the air.
But when you really think about it, any ball you hit on the bottom half will have backspin, regardless of whether you swung down or up. And any ball you hit on the top half will tend to spin downward.
Then realize that if you swing from the bottom-up you’re more likely to hit the lower half of the ball, while swinging from the top-down is more likely to give you contact on the top half of the ball. Also keep in mind that a popup has plenty of backspin, but it tends not to go very far.
And how much backspin is needed to actually overcome gravity to get more carry on a softball weighing 6.5 oz.? Probably more than you can apply with a bat no matter which way it swings.
Once you believe you have a pretty good idea of what makes sense, compare it to what high-level, highly accomplished softball players do. Notice I didn’t say compare it to what they say, because there are plenty of examples of high-level players (including former Olympians) who don’t teach the same mechanics they used themselves.
Use those high-speed video examples to see what most of them have in common. (Don’t use one player because there are always exceptions.)
Look across a variety of players once you know what you think you’re looking for. Then, when you’re pretty sure you know works best, look for programs, team coaches, and private instructors who will teach those techniques to your coachable athletes.
That way, when they’re a few years into their careers, they won’t find themselves having to break deeply ingrained habits that are no longer working for them.
Being coachable is a tremendous asset for athletes. But always keep in mind the old computer saying: garbage in, garbage out.
Be sure what your coachable athlete is learning is correct from the beginning and it will save him or her a whole lot of heartache and frustration later.
The #1 Measure of the Quality of a Fastpitch Pitcher
Ask a group of fastpitch softball coaches or fanatics what the best way is to measure the quality of a pitcher and you’re going to get a variety of answers. Most of which come down to the three S’s – speed, spin, spot.
The most popular, in most cases, is likely to be speed. There’s no doubt about it that speed is important (it is called FASTpitch, after all). The higher the speed, especially at the younger or less experienced levels, the harder it will be (generally) for hitters to put a bat on the ball.
Speed is also easy to measure. You set up your radar gun, turn it on, and the highest number wins. Often you can also eyeball it, particularly if there is more than a couple of miles per hour difference between pitchers.
Others will tell you that speed is less important than spin. Being able to make the ball break – not just angle or bend toward a specific location but actually change direction as the pitch comes in – can really give hitters fits.
They think the ball will be in one location and orient their swings accordingly only to realize the ball is somewhere else by the time it reaches the bat. That phenomenon can either induce a poor hit or a swing and miss, depending on the pitch and the amount of break it has.
Finally, there will be those who insist that pitchers hitting their spots, i.e., throwing the ball to the location that is called within a couple of inches of that location, is really the be-all and end-all measure of a fastpitch pitcher. These are usually coaches who 1) believe in the infallibility of their pitch calling and/or 2) are looking for a reason not to pitch a particular pitcher who is otherwise doing just fine.
In my opinion, though, none of those three S’s are the most important measure of the quality of a pitcher. So what is?
It’s simple: the ability to get hitters out. Preferably with as few pitches as possible each inning.
Think about it. What does it take for your team to come off defense and get the opportunity to put runs on the board so you can win?
You need to get three outs, hopefully in a row but definitely at some point.
You’re not awarded any outs for your pitcher hitting a particular speed with her pitches, or getting a certain number of revolutions per minute/second on her breaking pitches, or nailing her locations 8 out of 10 times. The only thing you’re given an out for is the hitter either swinging and missing up to three times or hitting the ball in a way that your fielders can get her out.
(I was going to say easily out, but while that is preferred even a difficult out is an out. But it sure is safer when they’re easier.)
To me, a perfect inning for a pitcher is when she induces three shallow pop-ups to the first baseman. Easy to field, and if the first baseman fails to catch the ball in spite of that she can still pick up the ball and step on first rather than having to make a throw.
Not to mention a pitcher who can get hitters out with just a few pitches is going to keep her pitch count low, enabling her to throw more pitches throughout the weekend.
After all, the minimum for striking out the side is nine pitches. If your pitcher can get the side out in seven or eight pitches, that difference is going to add up over time. Particularly because even the best strikeout pitchers rarely require only nine pitches inning after inning.
Outs are the currency of our game. You only get so many – 21 in a non-timed game, maybe 12 or 15 in a typical timed game – so a pitcher who can make them happen efficiently is going to be more valuable at game time than one who merely looks good on paper.
So how does a pitcher become that low-count, efficient pitcher? Really, it’s through a combination of the three S’s.
Sure, she needs some measure of speed with which to challenge hitters. But she doesn’t have to be overpowering.
One of the most effective pitchers I ever coached, a young lady whose pitch counts were typically in the 8 to 12 per inning range, never threw above 54 on my Pocket Radar. But man could she throw to a hitter’s weakness and make the ball move as well as change speeds while making every pitch look like it would be the same.
In other words, she could also spin and spot the ball. All three together were a deadly combination for her, even against quality hitters.
She wasn’t the flashiest pitcher you’ve ever seen, and she probably wouldn’t be the one most coaches would choose first if they were watching several pitchers throw in a line. But when the game or the championship was on the line, she was usually the one her team wanted in the circle.
Because she knew how to get hitters out, plain and simple.
There’s no doubt that overpowering speed is impressive, and it can often make up for deficiencies in other areas. Just ask all those bullet spin “riseball” pitchers.
But if you want to win more games, don’t make speed, or spin, or spot alone your only deciding factor.
Look for the pitcher who knows how to get hitters out, doesn’t matter how. She’ll make you look like a smarter coach.
Why Good Circle Visits Are So Critical to Pitchers’ (and Team) Success
One of the toughest decisions a coach has to make during a game is when to take a pitcher out. That decision is based on a lot of factors.
For example, it’s easier to leave a pitcher in a game to see if she can work her way out of trouble if the game doesn’t mean that much. On the other hand, if you’re in a big tournament, the pitcher is your #1 (and thus perceived to be your best chance at winning) and a loss means elimination, it can be very tempting to stick with her even if you know in your heart of hearts she’s done.
If you do decide the current pitcher needs to be replaced, however, one thing that shouldn’t be a difficult decision is deciding how to take her out. That should be handled by a circle visit, either by the head coach or the team’s designated pitching coach.
(ASIDE: If the pitcher is the head coach’s daughter, the visit should probably be handled by literally anyone else. That’s the voice of experience talking, folks.)
The reason I bring this up is I recently heard a story about a team where, when they want to change pitchers, there is no circle visit. The coach just sends the new pitcher out from the bench to tell the current one it’s time to take a seat.
That’s just wrong for so many reasons, not the least of which is the mental game wellbeing of the pitcher – a factor which will no doubt be of importance down the road. It’s also just rude.
A pitcher would have to be pretty unaware of her surroundings and what’s going on in the game to not realize she is struggling. I mean, if she’s walked the bases loaded in 12 pitches she probably has a pretty good clue that she’s not exactly on top of her game.
A circle visit gives the coach an opportunity to say, “Doesn’t look like today is your day,” or something to that effect.
If the pitcher was doing well up to that point the coach can say words to the effect of, “Looks like you’re having some trouble with the umpire. Let’s give her a different look and see if we can’t get out of this jam.” If she wasn’t, the coach can say something such as, “Rough one today. I think we need to change things up right now, but if you keep working there will be other opportunities.”
I’ve talked to many current and former players, and nearly all agree that girls are far more likely to think the worst of themselves and believe it when someone tells them they’re not very good. Even if they know it’s not true.
A few kind words when making a pitching change can help mitigate some of that thinking and bolster the pitcher’s base confidence level. And as we all know, confidence is a critical element to have when you’re playing the position that is most under the spotlight, and has so much impact on the team’s success.
But circle visits aren’t just for pitching changes. Getting out in front of problems, especially if they’re happening to your #1, can help you avoid having to make that tough decision later.
Sometimes when a pitcher starts to struggle she just needs a little positive reinforcement from the coach. Sometimes she needs the visit just to slow the game down and give her a chance to regain her composure, or her mojo. Sometimes she just needs to get out of her own head for a bit.
One time when one of pitchers was struggling I called time, walked to the circle, and said, “A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, ‘Hey, why the long face?'” I then turned around and went back to the bench.
She was a bit stunned at first, I think, but then she realized my Dad joke was just a way of telling her A) don’t take all this too seriously, and B) you’re doing fine, just relax. It worked too – she pitched herself out of the inning with no more trouble.
A circle visit isn’t really a time to offer pitching instruction, although I was known to draw a power line or two in the dirt in my coaching days when I thought it would help. It’s a time to help pitchers deal with the mental side, whether it’s calming down so they can continue or softening the blow of taking them out so they know the situation is temporary, not permanent – and that coming out of a game mid-inning doesn’t make them a bad human being or a terrible pitcher. Everyone gets pulled sooner or later.
Now, I know at this point some of you keyboard warriors are thinking this point of view is soft, and that female pitchers need to not be such snowflakes. They need to toughen up Buttercup and just deal with it.
So for those who think this way let me ask you this: when was the last time you saw a Major League Baseball pitcher get taken out of a game without a coach coming out to the mound to do it? You can count those times on the fingers of one ear.
So if an MLB pitcher who is a fully grown adult and is getting paid millions, or tens of millions, of dollars per year to throw a ball needs a coach to come out and tell them personally that they’re done for the day, why shouldn’t a young or adolescent girl who is just playing for the love of the game be offered the same courtesy? Or a college pitcher for that matter.
If you’re a coach who is managing pitchers in-game, be smart about it. Get off your behind and talk with your pitchers when they need it – whether it’s to calm them down or make a change.
They may not like seeing you come out of the dugout but that feeling will be temporary. Because they will appreciate you showing you care about them as a person as well as a pitcher.
Champions Take Their Warm-ups Seriously
You see it before a game or practice everywhere there’s a ballfield.
Teams positioned in two opposing lines, randomly throwing balls in the general direction of the other line. And then chasing said balls behind them.
Hitters casually knocking balls off tees into the bottom of nets – or over the top. Pitchers sleepwalking through a reps of a K drill or slowly strolling through a walk-through instead of going full speed.
Not just youngling rec teams either. The same behavior can be seen with high school teams, travel ball teams, even college teams.
It’s players sleepwalking through warmups as if they are something to be (barely) tolerated before the “real thing” begins.
That’s unfortunate on many levels, but mostly for what it says about those players’ dedication and desire to play like champions.
You see, champions realize that we are a product of our habits. They also realize the importance of paying attention to details.
Warm-up drills should be about more than just getting your body moving and your muscles loose. They should also be preparing you to play or practice at your highest level.
So if you’re just going through the motions, waiting for practice or the game to start, you’re missing a real opportunity to get better.
Take that hitter who is basically just knocking balls off the tee before a game. Hopefully she knows what she needs to do to hit to her full potential, and what she needs to work on to get there.
So if she’s just taking any old swing to satisfy the requirement of working at that station she could actually be making herself worse instead of better because she’s building habits (such as arm swinging, dropping her hands, or pulling her front side out) that may let her get the ball off the tee but won’t translate into powerful hits in the game.
Or take the pitcher who is sleepwalking through her K drills instead of using that time to focus on whether her arm slot is correct, she is leading her elbow through the back half of the circle, and she is allowing her forearm to whip and pronate into release. She shouldn’t be surprised if her speed is down, her accuracy is off, and her movement pitches aren’t behaving as they should when she goes into a full pitch.
Even the throwing drills that often come right after stretching require more than a half-hearted effort. Consider this: as we have discussed before, 80% of all errors are throwing errors.
Which means if your team can throw better, you can eliminate the source of 8 out of 10 errors. Cutting your errors down from 10 to 2 ought to help you win a few more ballgames, wouldn’t you think? That’s just math.
Yet how many times have you seen initial throwing warmups look more like two firing squads with the worst aim ever lined up opposite of each other?
That would be a great time to be working on throwing mechanics instead of just sharing gossip. Not that there’s anything wrong with talking while you throw. But you have to be able to keep yourself focused on your movements while you chat.
Even stretching needs to be taken seriously if it’s going to help players get ready to play and avoid injury. How many times have you seen players who are supposed to be stretching their hamstrings by kicking their legs straight out and up as high as they can go take three or four steps, raise their legs about hip-high, take another three or four steps, then do the same with the other leg.
Every step should result in a leg raise, not every fourth step. And if young softball players can’t raise their feet any higher than their hips they have some major work to do on their overall conditioning.
Because that’s just pathetic. Maybe less screen time and more time spent moving their bodies would give them more flexibility than a typical 50 year old.
The bottom line is many players seem to think warm-ups are something you do BEFORE you practice or play. But that’s wrong.
Warm-ups are actually a very important part of preparing players to play at the highest level and should be treated as such. If you don’t believe it, just watch any champion warm up.
6 Ways to Take Advantage of the New Year
The holidays are over and the calendar has flipped back to January. I would say people are stressing over writing the wrong dates on their checks but who writes checks anymore?
Except the little old lady in front of you in line at the grocery store when you just want to buy a loaf of bread or a half gallon of milk and get on your way?
While in reality New Year’s Day is just an arbitrary date (as evidenced by the many different calendars, each with their own first day of the year), the idea of a new year does provide an extra incentive to think about doing things a little differently going forward.
So with that in mind, here are a few ideas of how you can shake things up a bit and make this your best softball year ever.
1. Get New Batting Gloves
I actually see this one a lot. Hitters go to put on their batting gloves and half their fingers are sticking out, or the palm looks like a surface map of the moon. Or the stench is so bad it hits from 15 feet away.
Batting gloves aren’t that expensive, at least relative to most equipment in fastpitch softball, yet they can save you from a lot of blisters and other issues during long practice sessions. Sure, your daughter should have asked for them for the holidays but she didn’t, because the only time anyone thinks about batting gloves is when they go to put them on.
Don’t be cheap. Pony up a few bucks and replace them. If your daughter is superstitious, tell her she can keep the old gloves in her bag, or her back pocket. Preferably in a sealable plastic bag.
2. Clean Out Bat and “Go” Bags
Over the course of a season, bat bags quickly become a dumping ground for old water and sports drink bottles, half-eaten fruit rollups, used bandages, team handouts, the occasional extra shirt or shorts, miscellaneous plastic wrappers and other detritus of the sport. Not to mention field dirt and those little rubber pieces from turf fields.
With games at a minimum right now, this is a good time to completely empty out the ol’ bat bag, throw or put away everything that doesn’t need to or shouldn’t be in there, and give the inside of the bag a thorough scrubbing to boot. Maybe at a car wash.
The same goes for parents’ gameday “go” bags and coolers. There’s a pretty good chance you have a few science experiments running in there at the moment.
Clean them out before the season starts to crank back up in earnest. Not only will it be healthier (and smell better). It might even make everything a whole lot lighter.
3. Do Some Research about Doing Research
There is a metric crap ton of information about how to pitch, hit, throw, run the bases, warm up, and perform a variety of other fastpitch softball-related skills on the Internet and in social media. Some of it is great, but quite frankly a lot of it is useless at best and garbage at worst.
How do you tell the difference?
Well, rather than just jumping on to the first thing you come across in a search (or while scrolling), do some research about who is putting out the information, such as:
- What is their background?
- How long have they been teaching?
- Do they seem open to new information or are they stuck in their ways?
- How do their students do overall? Not just their one or two best students but across the spectrum?
- Does what you’re reading/watching make sense to you? (You’d be surprised how many videos, especially on apps such as Instagram, actually seem counter-productive when you think about them, even if you don’t have any expertise.)
- Does what the source is espousing match up to what you see the best players in the world doing?
Taking the time to check the source and evaluate what he/she is saying can save you from taking a long, frustrating trip down the road to nowhere.
4. Challenge Your Current Beliefs
It’s very easy to fall into a rut, or assume that you already know everything (or at least enough) about a topic. Taking that attitude can prevent you from discovering a whole other world of knowledge that can make you even better.
Every now and then it’s important to look at information that challenges what you already believe. Especially when it comes to mechanics and general approaches to the game.
You may end up right back where you started, Which is ok – it’s confirmation you’re already on the right track.
But you may also discover techniques or approaches you’ve taken for granted, or that you learned when you were a player, are not quite as beneficial as you thought they were. You can then decide whether to continue blindly following what you’ve always done or make a change that will help you going forward.
Either way, you’ll have made an informed choice.
5. If You’re Taking Lessons, Attend a Non-Affiliated Clinic or Camp
Taking private lessons is a wonderful thing. Obviously I highly recommend them as the best way to make progress toward improvement.
But after a while even the best-designed lessons can get a little dull. They also usually have a limited perspective, even if you’re in a group lesson with 2-4 other players.
Going to a clinic or camp with a different instructor(s) can help in a few ways. Not the least of which is a different instructor may see something your current instructor doesn’t because of familiarity. After a while, we all tend to see what we’re used to seeing.
It also gives you a chance to see how you compare to others. That’s especially important for those who are really driven to be the best.
Sometimes in the drive to get to the next achievement we forget how far we’ve already come. A large group setting can show that while you’re still working on things, you’re actually ahead of the curve overall.
It can also show if you’re behind the curve, which may be an inspiration to those who maybe have trouble getting themselves up for practice sessions. Nothing like seeing where others are to get a player to say “I’d better get after this.”
Many of these clinics and camps are just one day, so it’s not a huge time commitment. But they can be enlightening.
Just be sure to do your research again before just signing up for any old camp or clinic. Make sure the instructors are going to be teaching solid mechanics and approaches or you could end up going backward instead of forward.
6. Do Some Non-Softball Stuff
These days all competitive sports seem to take up a LOT of your time. While you no doubt love it, and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, there IS more to life than softball.
This is the time of year to find out what the rest of life is all about. Read a book. Go to a museum or a concert or a dance performance. Watch a completely different sporting event, either live or on TV. Go bowling or ice skating or to a trampoline park (just be careful not to get hurt).
Doing something just for the fun of it will clear your head, reset your spirit, and help you get ready for the long grind ahead.
Make It a Good Year
None of what’s listed here is likely to cost you very much. But the return on investment will be huge.
There’s a reason the windshield is much larger than the rear view mirror. This time of year provides a great opportunity to leave the past behind, symbolically as well as literally, and focus on the road ahead.
Doing these little things will help you do just that.
New Year’s photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
When Scheduling, Leave Time for Practice
The other night as I was wrapping up from lessons I got into a conversation with my friend Dave Doerhoefer. In addition to being a private instructor, Dave is a long-time fastpitch softball coach with the Vernon Hills Stingers travel organization as well as Vernon Hills High School.
The question Dave asked was my feelings about the obsession many travel teams today seem to have with squeezing as many games as they possibly can into the brief summer season. It is not uncommon for travel teams – even those that only play a couple of months in the summer due to spring high school softball – to set a goal of playing 100+ games.
I’ve blogged about this before (actually back in 2012), and it only seems to have gotten worse. So much for me being an influencer.
Both Dave and I agree that teams that focus on playing a crazy amount of games are doing their players a disservice on several levels.
No time for practice
Probably the biggest issue is that if you’re scheduling 2-3 nights of games per week, plus playing tournaments every weekend, you’ve left little time for practice.
That’s a problem because games aren’t where you get better. That’s where you measure where your skills are currently. Practice is where you get better.
In practice you can field 100 ground balls or catch 100 fly balls, which allows you to really hone your skills. Especially if the coach is smart enough to make those balls just slightly outside your current level of competence and continues to raise the difficulty level as your skills improve.
In a game, you’re lucky if you get 7-10 touches on a batted ball. Most players will get far fewer, or perhaps not any, especially if you have dominant pitchers with good strikeout numbers playing in five inning games due to time limits.
Younger players playing in timed games, who are the ones that generally need the most repetitions, may only see three innings of play. It’s tough to get better when nothing happens.
Add the need to teach all the various situations and permutations a player needs to know to make the good, instant decisions required to play at a high or even decent level and the problem of not getting enough practice time grows exponentially.
Reducing the number of games to allow for more touches/repetitions and instruction time in practice will do more to grow a player’s skills and softball IQ than just throwing them out on the field and leaving it to random chance.
Keeping the excitement
When you play games practically every day what should be a happy diversion from normal life quickly turns into a job. And how happy are people with their jobs?
Research shows that while 65% of workers surveyed are happy with their jobs, only 20% are actually passionate about them. Translating that into teams, if you have a team of 12 players it means only 8 will actually be happy with the team, and just 3 will be passionate about it, if playing softball starts to feel like a job.
You never want playing to feel routine. You always want your players to be excited and ready to give their all – at least if you want to win.
Cutting back on the volume of games will help keep those you do play more special. It will also give the parents a little more time to keep those uniforms looking spiffy.
Reducing burnout
Burnout is a huge problem in today’s youth sports. In fact, research shows 40% to 50% of youth athletes report experiencing some level of burnout.
That doesn’t mean they stop playing necessarily. But they may not have the same level of enthusiasm for playing they once did, and that can lead them to dropping out of the sport entirely eventually.
We have to remember that while we may have big dreams and aspirations for these young athletes, they are still kids. A few may want to play all the time rather than pursuing other activities, but most need other stimuli to help them full enjoy their lives and reach their human (not just their softball) potential.
More general free time, or even more time spent in practices rather than game situations, can help them grow their social skills more effectively as well, which will also help prevent burnout.
Making time for multi-sport athletes
There is much talk about how college coaches love multi-sport athletes, and how being a multi-sport athlete is better for the youth athlete’s health. The cross-training of playing multiple sports can help prevent injuries, especially those caused by repetitive movements. It can also help prevent the burnout discussed above.
Yet it’s awfully tough to fit another sport into your schedule when your softball team is playing nearly every day as well as all weekend.
Of course, this isn’t just a fastpitch softball problem. EVERY sport seems to think they need their athletes playing an incredibly heavy schedule of games in order to compete, and they plan their years accordingly.
At some point nearly all athletes need to choose a sport to specialize in if they want to play at a higher level, i.e., college. But that doesn’t have to be prior to about 15 years old.
Younger teams that reduce their game schedules give their athletes the opportunity to pursue other sports, at least at some level, to help them fully develop their bodies and potentially reduce the chance of injury. In return, they get athletes who are better conditioned and mentally sharper, helping improve their performance on the softball field.
More is not always better
Yes, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that more is better when it comes to scheduling games. But the reality is it’s not.
It’s time to bring some sanity back into the process. As you plan your 2024 game schedule, don’t get caught up in the “arms race” of which team in your area plays the most games.
Think strategically and prioritize quality of schedule (including the factors listed here) over raw quantity of games. I think you’ll find your results improve – and your athletes will have a better overall experience.
Scheduling photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com
Oh Who Am I Kidding?
I was going to write a new post, but let’s face it. Nobody has the time to read it, especially with Christmas basically falling over the holiday.
So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate I hope it’s a great time for you.
As my gift from me to you, here’s a song I wrote and recorded in my home studio. Enjoy!
Keep Dancing Until It Rains
There is a proverb (or an anecdote, or a story, I’m not sure which) about a Native American medicine man who was particularly renowned for his ability to overcome droughts by performing a rain dance.
One day he decides to retire and so takes on an apprentice to whom he can teach all his secrets. He shows the younger man a whole variety of treatments and such, but of course the younger man is particularly interested in learning the skill for which the medicine man is most famous.
Finally, the younger man just flat-out asks him, “Teacher, what is your secret for being so successful in performing the rain dance?” The medicine man gives him a sideways look, then says, “It’s simple: you have to keep dancing until it rains.”
This is the aspect many young softball players (and their parents) miss when it comes to improving their games. All too often they are looking for that quick fix – do a one-day clinic, take a handful of lessons, stay after practice for an hour one day, etc. and then they’ll be great.
It would be nice, and for an ultra-gifted athlete that may be all they need. But for the overwhelming majority improvement isn’t going to come that fast.
Instead it will happen in small, often unnoticeable increments that add up over time. If the player (and her parents) are willing to keep chipping away at it, they will see the results. Mostly because they kept working until the results showed up.
Take a story I heard the other day. The father of a couple of my students who is also a head coach was telling me about another girl I work with on his team.
When I first got her she struggled with hitting. A lot of strikeouts, and when she did hit the ball it was usually an easy ground ball or pop-up in the infield.
We worked at it and she got better, but it wasn’t exactly a straight line. If she was away from lessons for a few weeks due to being a multi-sport athlete who had other commitments we’d see a lot of backsliding and often have to start all over again.
When that happened I could see the sadness in her face. She was frustrated with the results, and probably frustrated with me that I was telling her she had to go backwards and re-learn how to hit.
Honestly, I thought I was going to lose her at least a couple of times. But she kept dancing.
Fast forward to the other night. The coach told me this girl was raking the ball in practice. I wasn’t surprised because she’d been doing that lately in our lessons too.
The key difference, though, was that although she had taken a few weeks off again, when she came back we were no longer going back over the basics. She had locked them in so all I was left to do was make little tweaks here and there to help her elevate her hitting to a level above where she’d been in the past.
If you looked at her swing now you’d probably think, “Wow, what a natural.” She is smooth and powerful (despite still having what I would call a slight build) and she is bringing the bat with authority. And she’s able to hit the ball hard in multiple zones, not just when it’s thrown down the middle.
None of that would be happening now if she had just given up when things got discouraging, i.e., when the swing mechanics reverted to her old ways. Instead, she kept working at it not just until she could do it right but until she couldn’t do it wrong. And boy is she having fun at the plate now.
Of course, not all roads lead to success. If you’re a parent, coach, or parent/coach you still have to do your due diligence to see if what your daughter is being taught lines up with what you see the majority of high-level players doing – whether that’s hitting, pitching, throwing, or some other skill.
If, however, you are sure of the mechanics or techniques, then keep working at them. Persistence pays off, and eventually it will rain.
Otherwise you may find yourself like the person who invented 6UP, wishing you would have hung in there just a little bit longer.
Rain photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com
The Real Point of Playing Fastpitch Softball
Having a competitive spirit is pretty much a requirement for playing fastpitch softball (or any sport for that matter). As long as someone is keeping score, human nature says you want your team’s score to be better than that of your opponent’s.
Yet if the score and who wins and who is the best becomes the entire point of playing, that mindset will obscure a much more important value that can be gained, in my opinion. Namely, the value of the overall experience.
This thought came to me when I saw an Internet meme with a quote from author Kurt Vonnegut. You can read the full quote here, but I will try to summarize it quickly.
Vonnegut tells a story about being on an archeological dig when he was 15. At one point the head archeologist asked him if he played sports, and he replied no, but told the man he did several other activities. When the archeologist said “Wow, that’s amazing,” Vonnegut told him he wasn’t good at any of them.
That’s when the archeologist dispensed this wisdom: Being good isn’t the point of doing things. It’s gaining the skills and experiences that make you an interesting person (no matter how you do them) that is the real benefit.
I mean wow, right? What a way to think about it.
In our “winning is the most important thing” and “if you’re not the best you’re nothing” culture imagine doing something just because you enjoy it.
Instead of playing for the trophy or chasing the college scholarship imagine that you play for the sheer joy of the experience.
I think that’s what is often missing in today’s game. Too many players are losing the joy in fastpitch softball because they’re so obsessed with reaching a goal someone else has told them they need to be striving for or securing an achievement that really isn’t a priority for them.
One of the biggest examples, of course, is playing in college. Players (and their parents) get so caught up in playing on the “right” teams or the “right” tournaments/showcases (those that will give them exposure to college coaches) that they forget why they picked up a glove and ball in the first place.
Players (and their parents) get so caught up in comparing themselves to others they know personally, or placing as high as they can in some arbitrary rankings, that they end up spending so much time trying to “be the best” that they lose out on other experiences life and the sport has to offer. And if after all of that they still don’t measure up to their wishes or expectations, what once started out as a way to go out and have a little fun in the sunshine as part of a group becomes a source of angst or even despair.
So, does that mean it’s ok for everyone but the most talented or most driven to give up trying to be better? Of course not.
I believe every player should strive to be the best they can be, overall and every time they step on the field. But the key part of that phrase is the “best THEY can be.”
Maybe you’re not going to be compared too favorably to the best players on your team or in your area. Maybe you’re never going to make a super high level team that travels all over the country.
But you can still work to better than you were yesterday.
If you’re a pitcher, maybe you’ll never come close to throwing 70 mph. But if you’re throwing 48 mph today, try to throw 49 mph tomorrow. If you walked 10 hitters today, try to walk only 9 tomorrow.
If you’re a hitter who struck out in every at bat today, work so that you put the ball in play once tomorrow. And so forth.
Others still may not think of you as being a great player, or maybe even a really good one. But you will have learned how to overcome obstacles and build skillsets where you previously didn’t have any.
And that’s going to far more important to your future success than your specific prowess in pitching, hitting, throwing, or fielding a yellow ball. It will also make you a more interesting person.
Try not to get caught up in all the hype and BS that seems to be so much a part of sports and life in general these days.
You don’t have to be great at something to enjoy it. Or to gain value from it.
Just grab your glove and get out on the field. A whole world full of experiences is waiting for you.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 