Author Archives: Ken Krause
Face masks for pitchers and players
Reader Rick put up a question on a previous post asking what I thought of the face masks now being worn by pitchers and other players. He thought it might make a good new topic and I have to say I agree. So here we go.
For me there isn’t a simple answer. To be honest, I’m kind of old school about masks myself. I personally find them rather odd. I thought face masks for hitters was a good idea, especially with all the bunting that goes on in fastpitch. In fact, I think they’d be a good idea for boys baseball too.
But when it comes to fielders I’m having trouble getting behind them. I’m not sure why. I guess it seems like overkill to me. I kind of understand pitchers wearing them. They stand awfully close after release, and the act of pitching consumes the bulk of their attention. With all the high tech bats out there they don’t have a lot of reaction time, and in the one in a million chance one of those pitches comes rocketing back at their faces they have some level of protection.
My own daughter has had a couple of line drives whiz past her ear recently. When I asked her if she wanted a mask she just gave me a funny look and said “no.” But for other pitchers it’s the right thing to do.
It seems less critical for outfielders or other infielders, with the possible exception of third base. Out in the field you should have plenty of time to read and react to a batted ball. A charging third baseman who gets suckered on a fake bunt and slap might be vulnerable, but other than that it just doesn’t seem necessary to me.
Keep in mind I grew up in an era when you didn’t wear a helmet to ride a bicycle, and baserunners in youth baseball would use a device rather like earmuffs instead of a full helmet. We survived. I think players are better trained and more athletic than in my playing days, so there’s even less risk.
That being said, ultimately it’s a personal preference. It doesn’t really hurt anything to wear a mask. If a field player on my team chose to wear one I might secretly roll my eyes but I wouldn’t stop her. If you’re more comfortable playing with one knock yourself out. But I sure hope the day never comes when it’s a requirement. It just seems like overkill to me.
Sportsmanship and class
I’m sure some if not many of you have seen this already, but I think it bears promoting anyway. It’s a video story from ESPN about a college game and the act of class and sportsmanship that one team showed another.
The basics are that a player on one team hit an over-the-fence home run — her first-ever as a player. As she was going into second on her home run trot she realized she didn’t touch first and turned to go back and touch it. As she turned she tore her ACL (probably metal cleats catching in the dirt, but that’s another story). She crawled back to first, then just lay there hugging the base. The umpire told her coach that no one from their team could help her around the bases, and they couldn’t use a pinch runner for her (the latter of which turned out to be untrue). So she was stuck at first, in pain, unable to go on, when a very classy thing occured.
Two players from the opposing team, with the hitter’s permission, picked her up and carried her around the bases, pausing at each one to let her touch it. They certainly didn’t have to do it, but they felt it was the right thing to do.
What an amazing thing. In our ultra-competitive society, where everyone is trying to gain an advantage, it would’ve been easy to let her lie there and her run not to count. The team on defense at the time went on to lose the game. But those players made the decision to do the right thing, consequences be damned.
What a tribute to those players, their coach, and their parents. I hope they were at least named conference players of the week. This is the type of thing sports are supposed to teach but don’t always do. If you want your kids to have role models, you couldn’t find any better ones than these young ladies.
Blasting balls at fielders
You see it everywhere. Teams of younger players out on the field for fielding practice. A big coach (usually a guy) standing at home plate. He tosses the ball up, takes a powerful swing, and blasts a hard ground ball at one of the girls, who does her best to field it and make the throw. The coach is hitting the ball hard at the girls with the best of intentions. He wants them to learn to handle hard hit balls, and to improve their reaction time. Yet what he is more likely doing is practicing to lose rather than win.
Think about it. Let’s say the team is 10U or 12U. How many girls that age can hit a pitched ball as hard as a large, grown man can fungo it? You can probably count them on the fingers of one ear. Once in a blue moon a ball might be hit that hard, but it’s certainly the exception.
By hitting hard ball after hard ball, the coach is teaching his players to sit back and wait. He’s also teaching them that the elapsed time from contact with the bat to contact with the glove is one second or less. Yet that’s not really what happens on the field. It’s more likely that the ball will be hit softly, requiring the fielders to charge it. But since they’re used to sitting back so they don’t get killed, they’re slow to charge the batted ball. In the meantime, the batter is running up the first base line. The throw gets there late and everyone is unhappy that the fielder got to it late.
The other thing that happens with hard fungoes is the practice becomes more about survival than technique. The fielder may learn to knock the ball down or stab at it, but she’s not really learning proper fielding technique that will translate to the field. She’s less likely to be able to get her butt and glove down properly, receive the ball gently, scoop it cleanly and make the transition to throw. She’s just going to grab it and go.
Contrast that with what I see when I watch college teams practice. They often roll the ball by hand to players so they can work on their fundamentals — even before an actual game. When they do fungo ground balls, they’re hit lightly so the fielders have to be aggressive, rather than sitting back passively waiting for the ball to nearly overpower them.
It applies at every level, but especially at the younger levels. If you’re smacking hard grounders at your players, make a pledge to stop now. Hit the ball at the speed they can reasonably expect based on your level of competition so they set their minds on making the plays you need them to make. Believe me — if anything is hit harder and right at them, they’ll make the play out of self-defense. Coach for the majority of what you’ll face instead of the minority and you’ll make more plays and win more games. It’s just common sense.
Adding Life in the Fastpitch Lane to your RSS reader
This entry should actually be filed under “housekeeping,” but since I don’t have that as a category we’ll just leave it under General Thoughts. It’s something that I was finally able to figure out how to do, so I want to pass it along. I might even add it as a sidebar instruction since it doesn’t seem to be intuitive.
The topic is how to add this blog to your RSS reader. Those who are into the whole Web 2.0 thing are probably familiar with RSS readers. They are tools that let you aggregate the content from various blogs in a single place so you can see what’s out there and decide whether to read it. (Hopefully the answer is always “yes” for Life in the Fastpitch Lane.) Google Reader, My AOLand Yahoo! are three examples. Bloglines is another.
In the past I’ve tried to add the buttons in the sidebar that make it simple, but it hasn’t worked. I’ve also tried using their tools, but when I entered the URL for this blog I received an error message.
Yesterday I figured it out. What you have to do (assuming you have an account with one of the services) is click on the button that lets you add a feed, then come to Life in the Fastpitch Lane, click on the type of feed you want, then copy and paste THAT URL into the feed reader.
Here’s an example from Google. On the Google home page, go to the top and click on the link to More. In the left hand column there is a button that says + Add subscription. Click on that, and it will give you a box that tells you to find feeds or paste in the URL. With me so far?
Now come to Life in the Fastpitch Lane. In the right hand column there is a section labeled Syndicate. Click on your choice (Entries RSS 1.0, Entries RSS 2.0, etc.). The page will change and there will be a new URL at the top of the page. Copy that and paste it into the box on Google. Once you’ve done that your feed reader will start showing the latest entries.
I haven’t tried it on the others yet but I will. If there is anything different to do I will let you know. But I know it definitely works with Google.
For throwing problems, check the thumb
Sometimes the solution to a big problem is something small. Take throwing problems for example. If the ball is tailing off, or is not going hard enough, it could be due to the position of the thumb.
Girls have a tendency to lay their thumbs on the side of the ball rather than opposite the middle finger where it belongs. This is often driven by the size of their hands v. the size of the ball.
It’s funny when you think about it, really. Boys, who tend to have larger hands, play with a baseball that is nine inches in circumference. (Yes I know boys also play fastpitch, but it’s not predominant). Girls, whose hands are generally smaller than those of boys, play with a ball that has a circumference of 11 or 12 inches. It just doesn’t seem to match up.
The problem this creates is putting the thumb in the proper position opposite the middle finger can be somewhat uncomfortable for girls. The younger the girl, the more uncomfortable it can be. But laying the thumb out to the side is not a strong position, which means the throws won’t be as good as they could be.
As your players throw, it’s definitely worthwhile to check their grips and make the correction if needed. They may not like it at first, but you’ll be doing them a favor.
Outs are the clock in softball
“Outs are the clock in softball.” This is a phrase I heard or read earlier in the week. Can’t remember who said it — perhaps my friend and fellow coach Rich — but I think this is a great way to think of outs and what you want to do with them, especially late in the game.
To put it into perspective, let’s think about a different sport that does have a clock. I love football, so let’s look at that.
Let’s say you’re losing by 10 points and you have 2:30 left to play. To tie the game you will need to score twice — at least a touchdown and a field goal. To win you will need a two-point conversion as well.
Two minutes and 30 seconds is not a lot of time, but it’s doable. What it means is you need to score quickly, using as little time as possible, then get the ball back and try again. Ideally you’ll score the touchdown first, which takes some of the pressure off.
There are all kinds of plays you could run to try to advance the ball and score. The smart play is to pass, because generally speaking you can move the ball farther and move it closer to the sidelines to get out of bounds and stop the clock. Also, if you’re unsuccessful the clock stops, giving you more time to plan the next play.
You could also run the ball. But it’s tougher to get the ball out of bounds that way, and a good running play generally goes for about four to five yards. If you have a lot of ground to cover you’re expending a lot of time to try to get that score.
It’s all about clock management. Being able to stop the clock without expending timeouts will give you a better chance of scoring. The clock is your enemy at this point, so you need to conserve as much time as you can.
Now let’s bring it back to softball. Unless you’re playing in a tournament with a time limit, your “clock” is the number of outs. The more of them you use, the fewer you have left to try to score. If you’re in a close game, say down by one run, it may be a good move to trade an out for a run. But if you’re behind by two or more, it may not be such a good idea.
Let’s say it’s the top of the sixth, your team is behind by three runs, and you are the visitors. You now have six outs to try to score a minimum of three runs to tie or four to win. (You also may want a couple more to give yourself some insurance.)
In any case, that’s a lot of runs in two innings. You’re probably going to need every out you can get. What that means is you don’t want to be throwing them away by sacrifice bunting, attempting steals (unless you’re positive you can beat the throw) or using other such strategies. You don’t want to send a runner around third on an iffy play either. You’re going to have to trust your hitters to put the ball in play. It still may not work out, but it’s your best bet. You want to extend the inning as long as you can. That means not using up your outs on purpose.
Of course, one other factor that can have an effect is what the actual score is. There’s a huge difference in offensive potential between being behind 16-13 or 4-1.
In a seven-inning game, both teams start with 21 outs. How you use them from there often determines your fate. If you purposely expend one per inning, and your opponent doesn’t, you’ve just cut your allotted number of outs to 14. That’s a pretty big advantage to hand your opponent for no reason other than you don’t know what else to do, or you’re stuck on a single strategy.
If you were told that the local rules dictated that your team gets two outs per inning while your opponents get three, there’s little doubt you’d either protest or leave the contest entirely. But that’s exactly what you’re doing to yourself when you don’t use your outs more intelligently.
Before you just start giving them away, keep that idea in mind. Outs are the clock in our game of fastpitch softball. Don’t run the time needlessly off of yours.
What it’s all about
Had another one of those moments last night that reminds me of why I love coaching. One of my students came to her lesson all excited. She had pitched what the parent of another student called the game of her life against one of the top 14U teams in the area. She said she was throwing really well, all her pitches were working, and she was completely baffling them.
Although her team eventually lost the game 2-1 on two unearned runs in the bottom of the last inning, she felt like she’d won. She definitely made a statement.
Here in the midwest we spend a lot of time indoors working on pitching. In fact, often we spend far more time indoors than outdoors. The summer season runs from about April to August, with fall ball encompassing September and October. With so much time in the gym it’s easy for pitchers to lose perspective and forget why they’re practicing. Games like the one Rachel had this past weekend are the reward for what can often be long and tedious hours spent throwing ball after ball indoors.
I can tell you this much. Not only did she come in pumped up, she was as attentive and worked as hard as I’ve ever seen her work. A little taste of success can sure leave you hungry for more!
More on the sacrifice bunt
My pal Rich sent me some information today that further confirms what I said earlier — the sacrifice bunt is way over-used relative to its value.
Here’s a link to an incredible article that really breaks down the chances of scoring with various numbers of baserunners with 0,1, or 2 outs. This is not some guy offering his opinion on the way things should be. It’s an academic type performing a statistical analysis that Billy Beane would be proud of. Be warned — the article (or more accurately academic paper) is long and very mathematical. But it certainly reinforces the points I and others made before.
The basis for this paper is the analysis of the actual outcomes of at bats in Major League Baseball. It talks about how many runs are scored per inning on average in each of the situations. More than that, though, it also breaks it down by who is hitting, i.e. where in the lineup you are. The numbers are a little different for an 8 hitter than a 3 hitter, so this takes it into account. It also accounts for the DH in the American League v. having the pitcher hit in the National.
Let’s take a look at a classic scenario. The leadoff hitter gets on base, and the #2 hitter in the lineup bunts him to second. If you do that all the time, the probability of scoring at least one run is .439. If you leave the runner on first and have the #2 hitter swing away, the probability of scoring is .483. So you’ve actually hurt your chances of scoring by giving up that out to advance the runner.
Ok, that’s the top of the lineup. Let’s look at the #7 hitter getting on and the #8 hitter at bat. In that case, the probability of scoring from second with one out is .379, while the probability of scoring from first with no outs is .393. Hmmm. So why are we bunting again?
Where the sacrifice bunt does seem to make sense is with no outs and a runner on second. But it seems like a lot of softball coaches never give themselves the chance to get in that situation. They knee-jerk bunt as soon as a runner gets on first and regardless of whether a weak or strong hitter is at the plate. They take themselves out of more innings than they create opportunities.
Now I’m sure there are some who will say softball is not baseball, the bases are shorter, the pitcher is closer, blah blah blah. That argument may have been valid 15 years ago, but it’s not anymore. Today’s athletes are bigger, stronger, faster and better trained. Third basemen in particular make their bones by fielding the bunt and making the play, often times getting the lead runner. Hitters put in more work than they used to, and have bats that are a lot hotter than they used to be too. There is a much greater chance that they’ll put the ball in play and get a big inning started. One check of the local newspapers for high school games or the NCAA Web site will show you that the days of 1-0 15 inning nail biters are long past. Offense is all the rage, and those who can’t generate it by swinging the bats are doomed to wind up on the short end of the stick.
As Mike Hanscom pointed out before it’s a little different at the younger ages. But even there, better teams are starting to play the bunt better. You don’t see as many balls thrown away or as many runners reaching base safely as you used to. The expectations are higher.
Does all this mean you should never bunt? No! When the defense is playing back, or you know you’re playing for one run, or the defense has shown it’s a little sloppy on the bunt you should take advantage of it. It’s still a good weapon. But it’s not the be-all and end-all of fastpitch offense, and it shouldn’t be an automatic. If you’ve trained your hitters to hit then let them do their jobs. In most cases you’ll increase your probability of scoring. Not because I say so, but because the numbers don’t lie.
Playing hurt – a coach’s dilemma
About a week ago Coach Greg wrote to me to tell about his team’s performance in an early spring tournament. They came in second, which was a great start to their season. Along the way, though, he brought up an interesting topic.
It seems that one of his pitchers had hurt her wrist. Greg knew it was painful but the girl said she was ok to go, and she wound up pitching four innings. Later she went to get the wrist checked out and discovered it wasn’t just sprained but broken.
Greg said had he known the injury was that severe he would never have allowed her to pitch. The girl probably knew it too, soo she hid the true degree of her injury from him. Therein lies the dilemma.
As coaches, we have to rely on what our players tell us regarding injuries. We can try to test it, of course, but without formal medical training we’re really just guessing. The mind can be a powerful thing, even when it comes to pain. If a player wants to play bad enough, she may be able to push pain out of her mind in order to stay on the field.
The problem is pain is there for a reason. It’s our body’s way of warning us that something is wrong, and that we should cease whatever we’re doing before it gets worse. When we ignore those signs we do so at our own peril.
While there is a very small percentage of coaches who would knowingly allow a player to play with a major injury if they thought it meant winning a big game or a tournament, most would not. The key word is knowingly.
In the end, you have to follow your gut. I’ve certainly allowed players to play on serious injuries because I’ve wanted to believe them when they said they weren’t hurt too badly. But somewhere deep down inside I knew.
Players who are wincing every time they perform a skill, or who are favoring an arm, leg, or whatever are hurt enough to come out. Better to get them out now than risk more serious damage to their careers or their bodies down the road. They may not like it, but there’s a point where you cease being tough and instead are just being stupid.
By the way, this also applies to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Players who are sick to their stomachs, dizzy, pale, etc. have no place on the field. Take care of them even when they’re not willing to take care of themselves. It’s your responsibility as coach.
A corollary to the Law of Opposites
In a previous post I described what I cal the Law of Opposites, which essentially states that to make a ball move in one direction you must first go in the opposite direction.
There is a corollary to this law however. It applies to the changeup. This law says that to make a ball go slow, you must go fast. Not for one of those weak slow your arm down types of changes, but for a true change where you disguise the pitch speed.
Even those who are throwing a true change sometimes will let up off the pitch, especially at the end. That is the wrong approach to take. What it will do is actually make the change faster than it should be. Instead, you should focus on bringing the arm around as fast at you can. Going fast will take you past the normal point of release for a fastball, helping you release the ball at a weaker point. Throwing the ball from a weak release point, of course, will make it go slower.
It is counter-intuitive, but it works. Keep the arm speed up throughout and you’ll have greater success with the change.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 