Author Archives: Ken Krause
The jerk factor
Generally speaking, I have made a concerted effort to keep Life in the Fastpitch Lane positive and informative. But every now and then something just gets to me and I have to speak out. Tonight is one of those nights.
I was teaching lessons when the mother of one of my students, a 10U girl I’ve been working with since September came in with a horror story — her third in three weeks. You see, about three weeks ago they joined a travel team. During the “courtship” phase everything was wonderful. They said all the right things and really made it seem like she had found a home.
Since that time, however, the experience has been anything but good. Part of it stems from the head of the organization who apparently fashions himself a pitching coach and general softball guru. He told the mom that all the girls in the organization are taught by him, and essentially said my student should be too. The mom resisted, as she is happy with the progress her daughter is making and can see the value. She also saw that what this guy is teaching the other pitchers is not what you see in high-level pitchers.
He wants them all to touch their shoulders with their hands after release (both pointless and dangerous to the elbow), and bring the right foot past the left, stepping through (pointless and detrimental to speed and control). Worse, when the 19 girls he has lined up for pitching don’t do those and other stupid things he screams at them.
When she wouldn’t kowtow to him, the abuse started. He began telling her that her daughter was the worst pitcher there, that she couldn’t throw overhand, and basically that she is a terrible player. Her daughter was segregated out with a couple of other new kids during defensive work, so that while the rest of the team (returning players) were working on defensive team drills, the newbies were just fielding ground balls. I don’t work with her on that part and haven’t seen the others so I don’t know where she fits in skill-wise, but you would think that at 10U everyone could use some work on ground balls, and all the kids need to learn team defense. This was apparently more punishment for not getting with the program.
Now, understand this girl is about as enthused about softball as any kid I’ve ever met. For Christmas she asked for (and received) a Club K pitching mat and some other softball training items and was thrilled! She couldn’t wait to tell me about it. But her mom told me she asked if she could just skip team practice. That’s not like her at all. In three weeks, the a** clowns for coaches they have in this program have managed to destroy her spirit. Nice job, jerks.
I talked to the mom about it for a while, but of course I do have a personal stake here. Fortunately, my next student experienced a similar situation a couple of years ago, so I asked her dad to talk to this mom, give his perspective as a neutral observer, and generally see what he thinks. He could care less where she plays or what else she does, so it’s about as neutral as you can get. His advice? Run. Run as fast and as far as you can from this program before they destroy her daughter’s confidence completely and drive her from the game. He told me later that as she described the experience, he was able to finish her thoughts and she his. It was the same thing, although his was a different program. And his daughter pitches for one of the top programs in Illinois, not to mention the US.
The final nail is the difference in this girl between our sessions and her practices. At her last practice, her mom said 48 out of 50 pitches hit the ceiling. When she was with me tonight she threw far more strikes than balls, and never hit the ceiling once. It’s the difference between a positive atmosphere and a toxic one.
I don’t get it. I don’t get why people like that go into coaching. I don’t get why people sign up to be coached by them, or don’t run from them when they see what they are. It’s not like there’s some great payoff. This program is a bottom-feeder — they go into low level tournaments and leagues so they can rack up wins and talk about how good they are. I’ve never seen any of their teams in tournaments I’ve coached in, and neither has the dad.
There is simply no reason to put up with behavior like that, or the abuse that comes with it. Coaches like that give the entire sport a black eye. Hopefully others will wise up and move on to better situations. We really don’t need girls getting turned off to the game by jerks.
Throwing inside? Check the feet
One of the common problems that crops up for pitchers is a tendency to throw inside, i.e. right handed pitcher throwing inside to a right handed hitter. While there can be any number of causes, one I’ve seen a lot is the throwing arm side getting in the way of the throwing arm. When that happens, the pitcher tends to push the ball away from that side in order to avoid hitting her hip and the ball goes inside.
If you’re seeing that, one thing to check immediately is where the pivot foot is going as she drives forward. (In case you don’t feel like thinking, the pivot foot is the foot that is on the throwing side. You’re welcome.) What you’ll probably see is that the toes of the pivot foot are going toward the toes of the stride foot after the latter lands. Often you’ll also see a walk-through, i.e. the pivot foot will keep going past the stride foot.
The simple correction is to tell the pitcher to take the toes of her pivot foot behind the heel of the stride foot. When that happens the hips stay out of the way, the arm stays on the power line, and the ball goes where it’s supposed to — usually. If nothing else it will go a lot less inside and will improve over time.
The nice thing about this instruction is it’s simple and specific. It’s not that difficult to take one foot behind the other, yet it can have a significant effect. Then all you have to do is remember to watch that the pitcher keeps doing it.
Loose elbow the key to feeling the release
Lots has been written about leading the elbow through the circle and keeping the arm loose to generate speed. But there’s another good reason to do it — high/low accuracy.
If you come through the circle with a stiff elbow, you’re going to “feel” the release being around the front leg. That will make it go high. But if you lead the elbow through the circle and keep the arm loose, you’ll feel the release closer to the back leg, and the ball will stay down.
Don’t take my word for it. Try making a circle with a stiff elbow and see where you feel your wrist snap naturally. Then loose it up and do the same. You’ll find the release point move back.
Thanks for your comments, and keep them coming
Just wanted to take a few moments to thank everyone for their comments lately. It’s important to get discussions going, as we all learn more.
I like seeing the activity. You don’t have to agree with what I say to comment either. I might argue with you, but only with the best of intentions. So keep ’em coming. Dialog beats monolog any day!
Embrace adversity
This is probably a direct result of Stacie at the Fastpitch Softball Blog. I saw her post yesterday “Feeling Quoty” and liked it. Then lo and behold, in my day planner this morning I ran across a quote I liked so much I thought I’d pass on. It reads:
“Kites rise highest against the wind — not with it.” The source of the quote is Winston Churchill, a man who knew a thing or two about getting through tough times.
So what does that mean? To me it says that facing difficulties in your life helps make you a better, more complete person. As long as you can stand up to the winds of adversity you will come out the other end at a higher level than when you started. And often it’s the adversity we face that makes us who we are. As another great leader said, “I don’t want to lose my pain. It’s what makes me who I am.” — Captain Kirk
Softball is a game built on failure, and failure is a form of adversity. When that happens — whether it’s striking out, walking too many hitters, booting a ground ball, dropping a fly ball, or not making a team you want to be on — you have two choices. You can feel sorry for yourself, get all down, go into a shell and make things worse. Or you can rise above it, learn from the experience, embrace the lesson and use it all to make you a better person as well as a better ballplayer.
What happens to you is often outside your control. What you do with what happens to you, and how you react to it, is entirely within your control. When the winds of adversity blow, be a kite.
Using the front elbow to throw
My partner in crime Rich and I have been running a little experiment the past few weeks. When we attended the National Fastpitch Coaches College, the coaches there were advocating a throwing technique where you point the front elbow (instead of the glove), then pull it back hard, like you’re trying to elbow someone behind you.
That’s a different technique than we’ve taught in the past. But, being open-minded coaches we decided to give it a try. We’ve been teaching it both to our own players and to some girls in a clinic we work in on Saturday mornings.
After doing it for about three months, I have to say I’m sold. Every girl we’ve done it with has learned to throw harder, straighter and with better overall technique than they were before. And they’ve done it faster than with the point the glove technique.
If you haven’t tried it, it’s definitely worth looking into.
What being a good teammate means
Not sure what got me thinking about this yesterday, but I think it’s a good story and worth telling. It’s about a young lady who really understood the concept of being a teammate, and no doubt still does.
This happened a couple of years ago. About halfway through her sophomore season, my daughter was moved from JV to varsity. She’s actually resisted moving up because she loves pitching. She was pitching nearly every game at JV, but knew there was no way she’d pitch on varsity because they already had a #1 pitcher, and she was a stud. The girl had been pitching varsity since her freshman year. She was now a senior and well-established in our area, which plays a pretty good caliber of high school softball.
I hadn’t seen much of her since she was younger, when she played for a team that was between the ages of my two daughters. She was very good even back then. So I have to admit, I was a bit suspicious of what she’d be like on the high school team. I have seen and heard stories about kids, especially pitchers, who gain that kind of recognition and turn into the typical “Princess in the Circle.” They tend to act like they’re God’s gift to softball, and tend to pout when they aren’t in the spotlight.
What I saw in action, though, was the polar opposite. This girl was the biggest booster of her teammates, always there with a kind word or a pat on the back for the others. She was also the consumate team player, which I saw one day in particular.
Our high school team was playing one of the weak sisters in the area, so she was not pitching that game. As I recall they had her DH for a while, but even that stopped when we built a big lead. Now, the typical Princess might have sulked in dugout at not getting the opportunity to pad her already-impressive stats. Even a non-Princess stud might’ve just hung out in the dugout, not doing much. Instead, this girl was being a good teammate, cheering actively for the others and shouting out encouragement.
More interesting to me, though, was that she was playing bat girl. After a hitter would get on base, she’d go onto the field, retrieve the bat, and bring it back into the dugout. Not because anyone told her to, but because it needed to be done. She’d also go to the outfield to warm up the outfielder closest to the dugout. Basically, she did the kind of jobs you would expect a non-starter to do, not a stud.
The girl’s name is Lauren Ott, and she went on to play at Butler University. To me, she epitomizes the team player — the kind who thinks no job is too small or unimportant for her to do.
Does the grip matter?
So, I was working with our players today on hitting when I noticed something with one of them. As I looked at her hands I could see that she was holding the bat handle deep in her palms, and her knuckles were in the “matched grip” position, i.e. the knocking knuckles on one hand were lined up with the big knuckles of the other.
I stopped her for a moment, double checked what I thought I was seeing, and had her move the bat into her fingers and turn her hands so the knocking knuckles lined up (more or less) with each other. She then continued hitting, but with measurably better results. Instead of hitting weak ground balls and fly balls, she started blasting line drives.
Afterwards, she was pretty pleased. I asked her if anyone had ever told her about moving the bat into her fingers before and she said no. It was the first she’d heard of either.
Previously we had noticed she tended to let go of the bat early — her top hand would often come off at contact, where it would hang down while the bottom hand finished pulling the bat around. We tried to get her to hang on to the bat longer but it was a struggle. After changing her grip she was holding the bat all the way through the swing without being reminded.
Now, understand this is her first year playing travel ball. She had played rec ball and high school (including varsity last year). No’ one had told her about the fingers and the knuckles, though. We didn’t even think to look either. I personally assume kids know it by the time they’re high school age. Apparently not.
The girl was pretty excited about this discovery. We both commented on the big difference a small change can make. She is a very good athlete, and probably got by mostly on that. But athleticism coupled with good technique is better than athleticism alone.
Now, there are those who will say the grip isn’t that important. I beg to differ. This one simple change made a world of difference for this girl by putting her into a stronger position at contact. My guess is the bat used to get knocked back somewhat when it was in the palms. It doesn’t anymore. So learn from my lesson and don’t assume. If you have a hitter who just isn’t hitting to her potential, or is releasing the bat too early, check her grip.
Video of the slug bunt
A few posts ago I put up a post about the slug bunt, also known as the fake bunt and slap. Afterwards, Stevepic at the Discuss Fastpitch Forum asked me to post a video of it.
It took a little while to get it, but here it is. It’s Kathleen, one of my players, executing it in the batting cage. Note that she keeps her shoulders forward (mostly) and uses top hand only to make contact.
Kathleen executes a good slug bunt/fake bunt and slap
You just never know
We live in a society that expects instant results. Often there is very little patience or willingness to hang in there while players find themselves.
I’ve certainly seen that with teaching pitching and hitting. Some kids (and/or their parents) will take a couple of lessons and expect that somehow, magically, the player will instantly become better. Well, it doesn’t work that way. Improvement comes in increments. Some learn faster than others, just like some learn math or a foreign language faster than others. But it’s not instant.
And sometimes it can take a long time. I have had pitching students who just couldn’t seem to get the feeling of attacking the pitch. They’d go through the motions, but without that intent to throw hard. Then one day, the lightbulb comes on and bang! They get a significant speed jump.
What is interesting to me in those cases is the parents who see it and DO have the patience to wait until their child comes out of the gate. It can’t be easy. You’re paying for lessons, and while there is some general improvement it’s not really the kind of results you’d hope for. But rather than giving up, they stick with it, and their patience is rewarded.
Now, if the kid really doesn’t want to be there it’s never going to happen. I’ve had a couple of those, but fortunately only a couple. In those cases I do try to tell the parents it’s not working. But if the player is enthused about the lessons, I’ll keep going as long as she wants to because I know what we’re doing will work when the time is right.
Quite frankly, as a coach I wish every kid could get things instantly. It would be easier on everyone. But that’s not the case. As the song (and the Bible verse on which it’s based) says, there is a time to every purpose under Heaven. Sometimes that time isn’t right away. But if what you’re doing is the right way to go about it, and you put in the effort, sooner or later it will take hold.
I am probably proudest of the students for whom it didn’t come easy — the ones who hung in there until the lightbulb came on. Because when it does, it’s a bigger deal than it was for the kids who were able to do it right away. I’m also confident that they have acquired a skill that will serve them well their entire lives — the skill of persistence.
It’s easy to think if it doesn’t happen right away that it never will. But you just never know. And remember — it doesn’t matter where you start the race. Only where you finish it.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 