Author Archives: Ken Krause
Slapping – keep the right foot pointed right
I was working with a young slapper tonight, and she was having trouble keeping her shoulders parallel to the plate. She could do it with practice runs, but once the ball was on its way her shoulders pulled forward.
I worked with her a bit on pulling the left shoulder back when I happened to look down at her feet. I saw that when she took a jab step back, she turned her foot so her toes were facing forward (toward the pitcher). Hmmm, I thought, no wonder she’s having trouble.
When you throw overhand, one of the tricks to help you get into the correct position is to turn the throwing side foot so the ankle bone is facing toward the target. You do that to open up the hips so you’re sideways to the target. It works pretty well for throwing.
But turning the foot when slapping works against you by doing the same thing. It pulls your body around so you are sideways to the plate instead of facing it.
Correcting it is easy — and challenging. It’s a bit of a difficult habit to break, but it can be broken. The hitter simply needs to work on her jab step back, keeping the toes pointed toward the plate. That will strict the motion, allowing the shoulders to stay in toward the plate.
First-ever wounded warrior softball game slide show
With seasons getting under way it’s easy to let emotions get the best of us and forget what it’s all about. So I thought I’d pass along this link to an online slide show of the first-ever wounded warrior softball game, which was played at Hillenbrand Stadium in Tuscon, AZ.
This was a game pitting two teams of soldiers, veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, who are recent amputees. I found out about it through the Candrea on Coaching emails I receive from Liberty Mutual’s Responsible Coaching program.
The short version is Coach Candrea was approached about setting up the game, and he enthusiastically agreed. He also lined up Mizuno and Lousiville Slugger to provide uniforms, bats, gloves and more.
The game was played Friday, March 18 after the Arizona-Baylor game. Players from those teams acted as base coaches, and were there for support. When someone hit a home run, they all joined in the celebration at the plate.
We owe much to our veterans, not the least of which is our ability to spend our weekends in the sunshine coaching, watching or playing the game we love. Take a look at the slide show to see some true American heroes playing despite their disabilities. And be sure to thank a veteran when you see him or her.
Pitch calling — you have to mix it up
Just finished up a lesson with one of my high school pitchers. Understand this is a girl whom I recently clocked throwing 60 mph, so she has good speed.
Unfortunately, so far her team is 0-2 behind her. When I asked about it, she told me a tale that’s all too familiar.
It seems her coach has been calling the pitches, and he’s apparently not to clever about it. She said he’s mostly calling low outside fastballs and drops. It works for a while, but eventually the other team figures it out and starts jumping on the pitches. Then the coach gets annoyed and wonders why she keeps getting hit.
Anyone who knows anything about the game can figure that one out. If you throw the same pitch at the same speed in the same location all the time, you’re going to get hit. It’s just like using a pitching machine. No matter how fast you set it, sooner or later everyone can hit it.
Now, this pitcher has an excellent change — 15 mph off her fastball with no loss of arm speed. She also has an excellent rise and a pretty good curve. Using those pitches, and moving the ball inside as well outside would help keep hitters off balance rather than letting them get zoned in. But for whatever reason this coach doesn’t seem willing to do that.
The real killer is both the pitcher and I consider the drop her weakest pitch. At best it’s competent, but it’s hardly reliable. But she can toss the change and the rise like there’s no tomorrow. Seems to me the coach needs to take a little time to learn what his pitcher can throw (and throw well) rather than calling what he likes.
The pitcher is quite frustrated by the pitch calling. She’s been trained on what each pitch is for and longs to use them properly. I told her perhaps she needs to take matters into her own hands a bit more. Like when the coach calls for the umpteenth fastball, throw a rise instead. Who will know? Or if the situation calls for a change, then throw it, get the out, and shrug your shoulders and smile saying “It seemed like the right thing to do.”
I hate to advise a player to go against a coach, but sometimes a stubborn coach has to be saved from himself. Maybe when he sees what she can do he’ll broaden his pitch selection a little more. We can only hope.
What about you? Have you faced this situation before? If so, how did you handle it/advise it should be handled?
Product review: A Coach’s Guide to Training Catchers DVD
Ok, I will admit I am a little behind the times on this one. A couple of years ago (at least I think it was a couple of years ago) I received a complementary copy of a video called A Coach’s Guide to Training Catchers from Dave Weaver, owner and head instructor of the New England Catching Camp.
I sat down to watch it then without realizing how long it was. I didn’t have enough time to complete it so I stopped it and set it aside, meaning to come back to it. But then life happened, and I didn’t get back to it. Until recently, that is. A change in my work schedule has me on a train three days a week, which gave me plenty of time to give it a look.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive resource for training catchers, this is it. The DVD is 2 hours and 40 minutes long (more on that later), and covers everything from stances to receiving the ball to blocking to fielding bunts to throwing out runners. It appears to be shot during one of Coach Weaver’s camps, so the kids demonstrating are not necessarily the “best of the best,” hand-picked athletes but instead regular players. Some of them may indeed be excellent catchers, but it doesn’t appear that the video was skewed toward it like so many are. Instead, their skills are the results of training, making what’s shown more relatable to the bulk of the people toward whom the video is aimed.
I liked many of the techniques demonstrated by Coach Weaver. A good example is his take on displaying the ball for an umpire, aka framing the pitch. For many people, framing means catching the ball and then pulling it in toward the plate or making some other sort of move that is likely insulting to the umpire’s intelligence. Coach Weaver shows it as catching the part of the ball that’s furthest away from the plate, i.e. if the pitch is high, catch the top half of the ball.
The stances and blocking are pretty much the same as what I teach, so of course I like those as well. Catchers make their bones through their ability to block balls in the dirt, especially with a runner on third. All too often catchers want to “catch” those balls, which leads to disaster when the ball takes a bad hop and gets away. Coach Weaver shows how blocking the ball keeps it close, so runners (especially those on third) stay put. It takes some work to get catchers trained to let the ball hit their gear instead of trying to get it with their gloves, but it will definitely help you win a few more games.
One technique he advocates that I am not a fan of is having the throwing hand in a closed fist behind the glove with runners on base. His take is that it creates a faster transfer of the ball from the glove to the throwing hand. Honestly, I’m not convinced of that. And that comes from an ex-catcher who used to keep his throwing hand behind his glove at all times, because that’s how old I am. The Johnny Bench hand behind the shinguard didn’t come in until after I was pretty close to done. That being said, I wouldn’t stop a catcher from doing it if she’s comfortable. I’m just not sure it’s necessary. I’d need to see some hard numbers to convince me it’s the way to go.
The one thing I found as a negative to the video was it seemed a little ponderous to me. One of the reasons it runs 2 hours and 40 minutes is Coach Weaver has several kids, male and female, demonstrate the techniques. In a live setting it’s probably not a problem. On video it can feel like it’s taking forever. I actually found myself running it a 2X speed or more, which give Coach Weaver a bit of a chipmunk sound to his voice but speeds things along.
Here again, I will note that I’ve been teaching catchers for a while so a lot of the information wasn’t new to me. That may have colored my thinking as I watched it. If you’re coming at it new, all the repetition may be necessary so you can grasp the concepts. On the other hand, it’s video. If you need to see it again you can just run it back as many times as you want. A little judicious editing would be appealing in my book. Coach Weaver says he’s coming out with a new video soon, so perhaps he will incorporate that suggestion (which I have made to him directly).
It is definitely worth owning, though, especially at $39.99. Parents of young catchers, or coaches who understand the value a top-notch catcher can bring to their teams, will want to invest in this video. Catchers are the backbone of your team. Be sure that backbone is strong.
An unfortunate “experience”
One of the things that’s always been great about fastpitch softball has been how fan-friendly it’s been at the highest levels. I’ve watched as members of the Chicago Bandits stood in the rain to sign autographs and talk to fans for as long as those fans wanted to be there. I’ve seen examples of well-known players (at least in the softball world) make themselves very accessible no matter where they are or what else they happen to be doing.
So it was disappointing to hear the stories of two of my students who attended a recent clinic in Wisconsin. It was billed as an “Experience” and featured a famous player who also happened to be someone both of them admired greatly. Yet it seems like her fame has gone to her head, as her behavior seemed more like a Major League Baseball star rather than a softball player.
My students (and their mothers) told me the famous player spent the entire time talking or texting on her mobile phone. She had no time for the girls, didn’t interact with them, and essentially acted the diva. When one of the moms stopped her between calls to thank her for sending some autographed materials to her daughter a couple of years previously, after her daughter had survived a vicious attack by a dog, she said “Oh, my mom did that. I don’t get into that stuff” or something to that effect.
Unbelievable. Even if that’s true, you smile gracefully and say you were glad to do it. Instead, she treated the encounter more like an inconvenience.
The word from the parents is several people left the clinic before it was over, complaining about the attitude of the star player and asking for their money back. They were completely dissatisfied, and doubtless will tell their friends and teammates to avoid it in the future. That’s a shame, too, because I understand there were two other national team players there plus a young lady from the NPF, and all were terrific. But…
The fact is people came because of the star’s fame, and her refusal to be a part of her own clinic tainted the experience for many.
Hopefully, that was just an aberration. I’d hate to think our sport is going the way of so many others, where players feel they’re too good to mix with the fans who ultimately pay for all they have. If that is the case, imagine what it will be like if and when the players ever start being paid real money instead of the token salaries they get now. We may wish for the good old days of salaries that are less than your typical fast food worker makes.
As for the star, hopefully she was just having a bad day. But I get the feeling that wasn’t it. I just hope she realizes the error of her ways before she disappoints any more youngsters who look up to her.
Success requires patience
I’ve talked before how we live in an “instant results” type of world. If we want popcorn we toss a bag in the microwave and three minutes later there it is. If we want to see our favorite TV show or movie we just hit the On Demand button and there it is. And so forth.
Yet it never fails to surprise me when a player or student lacks the patience to learn something new. Last night I was working with a pitcher, second lesson for her with me. Her mom brought her to me because she felt she was stalled where she was. After we worked basic mechanics and locations, I asked what other pitches she threw. She told me a changeup, so I said let’s see it.
After watching a couple I asked what type of change she was throwing. (I always ask in case what I see isn’t what they’re supposed to be doing.) She told me a handshake change. Not my favorite, personally, because to make it work I find most pitchers slow down as they go to release. So I asked if she was willing to try something different. (Normally I don’t ask, but with HS tryouts around the corner I figured I should check.) She said sure — what else was she going to say — so I showed her the backhand change.
After trying it two or three times, and having it work better each time (although not great) she said she was getting frustrated. I was shocked. I mean, how good do you think it will be throwing it three times ever? But apparently she just figured it was like instant cocoa — add a little water and you’re all set.
We continued to work at it and she got better. But I wonder how much she’s going to continue to work on it. Work being the operative word.
Learning to do anything well — pitch, hit, play an instrument, ride a bike, perform brain surgery — takes time. If you’re not willing to put in the time, you’re going to have a tough time competing. Accept getting a little better each day, as Bobby Simpson likes to say, and you’ll find yourself happier and better in the long run.
Hitting and confidence
This may be one of those chicken/egg things, but there’s no doubt in my mind that hitting and confidence go hand in hand. Tough to say whether confidence drives good hits or good hits drive confidence, but it does seem to work both ways. Often it the two come from making adjustments that may seem small but deliver a quick payout.
Here’s a case in point. One of the girls on the team I coach has struggled with her hitting for a couple of years. She’s a big, strong kid (also one of the hardest workers and most enthusiastic players you could ever hope to coach) so she ought to hit the ball hard. This is my first year coaching her, but I’ve worked with her in the past.
Thing is, she wasn’t. Her dad would tell me every now and then she’d get one, but mostly she was hitting weak grounders and pop-ups. Mechanically she actually had a good swing, although it had a couple of issues. But she couldn’t quite seem to get the timing down. When we played indoors in January, she went 0-4 with four strikeouts, all swinging, and barely touched the ball. She was frustrated, and reportedly ready to quit the game she’d loved for so long.
So, it was time to really to get to work on her and figure out how we could turn it around. She’d gotten all sorts of advice over the past couple of years (including from me), so I was aware that there may be some resistance coming out of frustration and confusion.
I had videoed her in the batting cage (along with the rest of the team), so it was time to do some deep analysis. One thing I noticed was a sort of “reaching” with her front foot. There was a little weight shift from the lower body, but the upper body stayed in place. Not good. Generally you see hitters moving to toe touch with the front shoulder over the front hip, more or less. Also, her early timing moves were quick and staccato instead of fluid, the way you’ll see good hitters doing it. (I will accept blame for that since I tended to teach a quicker load and positive move a couple of years ago than I do now.) It was no wonder she was struggling!
I pointed it out to her on video, and showed videos of a couple of top-level hitters (softball and ML
, and it seemed to make sense to her. I sent her off to the tee and she worked on taking her whole body forward.
The following week, my friend and former coaching partner Coach Rich started Jonesing to teach hitting so he came out to practice and worked with her on it too. Rich and I have a sort of ESP when it comes to hitting, so the girls were all amused when either he would tell them something I just said or vice versa. As she continued to work on it, it just seemed to click. But the real test would be her next game action.
That was last weekend. She didn’t strike out once, and the only weak contact she had was when she tried to pull an outside pitch instead of letting it get deep. Given her previous results, that was a trifle! She had a couple of solid hits, plus a couple of solid outs across three one-hour games. The best ball she hit all night was her last one — a hard liner to center that unfortunately went straight to the CF. Probably 10 feet either way, or 10 feet deeper, and it’s a double.
The kicker came this past Monday. She was taking batting practice at her high school’s open gym, and the varsity coach called everyone at all levels over to watch her hit, saying “This is how you should do it.” She is a freshman, by the way, so that’s pretty high praise.
Needless to say, there’s no talk of quitting anymore. In fact, her confidence at this point is sky high, and she’s now looking forward to stepping into the batter’s box.
So was it the first good hit that drove her confidence? Or was it the change in mechanics (which no doubt felt better and more powerful) that drove her confidence? Probably some combination — the change made it easier to hit, which enabled the confidence building. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter. What matters is a good kid is in a happy place. Can’t wait to see what she does this spring and summer.
Getting players to move from static to dynamic stretching
By now it’s been pretty well established that dynamic stretching — stretches that have the body in motion — are far better for preparing teams for athletic competition than the old static stretches where you assume a position and hold it.
The big revelation is that static stretching does nothing for injury prevention (beyond adding a little flexibility), and actually turns the nervous system off, making players slower and less able to respond. Dynamic stretching turns the nervous system on, which is particularly important in a speed game such as fastpitch softball. Here’s a link to an article that explains it much more detail. (Full disclosure: I am affiliated with Softball Performance as administrator of the Discuss Fastpitch Forum community, but have nothing to do with the DVDs shown.)
Even if you buy into it as a coach, though, you may find it’s only half the battle. The tough part sometimes is getting your players to buy into it and change their old habits.
Seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t think that 12 or 14 or even 18 year olds are so set in their ways that it would be difficult. But I’ve been there and know the kind of resistance you can face.
One thing you’ll often hear when you’re showing them the new, improved stretching routine is “I feel stupid.” Not sure why being in motion would make them feel any stupider than standing there holding a stretch but it often does. Perhaps it’s that your team is the only one flailing around like that, while the others do what they’ve always done. In truth that’s good news for you, because it’s giving you a competitive advantage. But only if your team is doing it.
Make the transition requires some effort on your part. First, you don’t ask the team if they want to do it. You just tell them this is what we’re doing. You’re the coach, make it mandatory, just like every other rule you have. I doubt you give players the option of whether they get low on a ground ball. Tell them this is the way it is and have done with it.
That’s how you get them to compliance. To really get the benefit, though, you have to make sure they’re really putting the effort in. Static stretching is really easy to do; it takes little effort, and your players won’t break a sweat. Dynamic stretching, however, requires a great deal more work, which is another reason they may resist. So you have to stay on them.
If I see players just going through the motions, I will stop them and demonstrate what I want done. I can still do a straight-legged kick in front and get my toes up even with my shoulders. Not sure how I can do that but I can. So I show them what I can do and tell them if they can’t beat a fat, out-of-shape old man then they’re pretty pathetic. That usually gets their attention, and they start pushing themselves more. Which is what you want.
The last thing you might hear is “It makes us too tired.” If that’s the case, tell them it sounds like they need to work on their conditioning, so you’ll be doing ladders and poles for the first part of every practice from now on so they’re not too tired to stretch properly. That usually ends that discussion. If it doesn’t, be prepared to follow through.
There are a great many benefits to dynamic stretching — too many to ignore. Make it an absolute, and pretty soon it just becomes accepted as the way your team does things. You not only get to win the battle; your team gets to improve its performance and prevent injury. It’s a victory for everyone.
To the guy who called about his coaches newsletter
Hopefully you will be checking back. Your email to me got caught in my spam filter, and I didn’t look closely enough at the messages before I emptied it. I recognized what it was just in time to not be able to stop it.
So please, if you’re reading this, send it again. I promise I’ll look more carefully this time. Thanks.
Tips for a successful tryout
High school tryouts are coming up in a few short weeks, and with them often come a lot of nerves. (Also a lot of sore muscles as many schools seem to be obsessed with trying to run the not so serious players out of the program before they contaminate the rest of the players).
Sure, you want to show well in a tryout. Who wouldn’t? If you’re an incredibly talented player with monster skills, odds are you’re going to show well no matter what. For the rest, however, you need to put a little extra effort into standing out above the crowd. That’s what this post is about — some ways to make your tryout a little more successful. There are no guarantees, of course, but at least you’ll know you took your best shot.
- Hustle everywhere, all the time. Think of how most players are. They drag themselves from station to station, doing what’s required — and no more. If you hustle everywhere, you’ll look more like a player, the type the coaches can work with and who will find a way to make a contribution.
- Show 10X enthusiam. Ok, I admit I stole that one from Dale Carnegie, via my friend (and Carnegie trainer) Mary Eggert. That doesn’t mean you have to jump up and down and act like a fool. But it does mean paying attention when the coach talks, giving your all with each repetition, encouraging other players, and generally looking like you’re happy to be there and love the game. If it comes down to a choice between a player with 10X enthusiasm and one who’s moping around, which one do YOU think the coach will take?
- Show all your skills. Let’s say you’re hitting, and the coach says to start with a few bunts. Lay down three or four, and then ask if he/she would like to see your slug bunt, or drag bunt, or push bunt, or whatever other bunt you can do. If you’re swinging away, demonstrate your bat control by saying you’re going to hit to the opposite field now, and then do it. Pitchers should always show the pitches they can throw, starting with the changeup. Sure, at a lot of high schools they just line everyone up and pick the fastest one. But you never know — you may leave an impression that helps for the future. Having skills but keeping them in your pocket does you know good. Demonstrate your versatility, and perhaps the coach will see the possibilities adding you to the roster brings.
- Say hello to the coaches. Most players, especially high school age ones, tend to be very tight-lipped around the coaches. So a simple “Hi Coach!” can help you stand out without looking like a big brown noser. Despite what people think, coaches are people too. They might keep you around just so they have someone to talk to on the bus.
- Do something memorable. That doesn’t mean drop your pants or anything like that. But if you’re in a scrimmage situation, look for an opportunity to make something happen. Laying down a surprise bunt, or better yet pulling off a slug bunt, is a good one. If you’re on base and can do it, steal a base. On defense diving for a ball always looks good. Just make sure you’re diving to give extra effort, and not because you were late going after the ball.
Those are my ideas. How about you? Do you have any tips to add for players? I have just one more piece of advice.
Think of tryouts as an opportunity to succeed rather than to fail and you’ll do just fine. Especially if you get some practice time in before the actual tryout date. Good luck!
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 