Category Archives: Coaching
First base coaches have responsibilities
Earlier today I was out watching a fastpitch softball game where I had some students playing. I go to games to see them in action, provide support and see if there are things we need to work on that don’t show up in lessons.
Along the way, of course, I also get to see a game. For the most part the outcome of the game overall doesn’t matter to me – I don’t have a horse in the race per se, although I like to see a well-played game. But every now and then I see something that brings out the game coach in me.
Today it happened when I went over to the bleachers behind the first base dugout to kick back a bit. The team I’d come to watch was hitting. And that’s when I saw it.
The first base coach went out to her position, then proceeded to spend the entire half inning exchanging hair tips with the girls in the dugout. She stood close to the dugout and kept chatting away even when there were runners on base! Every now and then she’d yell “Back!” if she happened to notice that a ball had been hit foul or a runner had wandered a bit far. But for the most part the runners were on their own. She wasn’t watching the third base coach for signs or even offering any encouragement to the hitter.
So even though, again, I really had no horse in the race, I started to get irritated watching her. The picture that came to my mind was Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle, standing behind the USA bench while his team was playing Sweden in an early match, listening to them talking about the girls in the stands. “You don’t want to during the game, fine. We’ll work now.”
I know that traditionally most of the responsibility is placed on the third base coach, but the first base coach does have a function. It’s not the place where you should be exchanging hair care tips, or checking your fantasy football picks on your cell phone, or texting your bookie or otherwise being and causing distractions. You should be focused on the game and helping the runners any way you can.
I’ve had the privilege of working with some great first base coaches. They made sure the runner on first knew the situation, what to do in different circumstances, what to look for about the pitcher, letting them know if the team was susceptible to a delayed steal, things like that. They also made sure the runners were watching me for signs at third, and kept a watchful eye on each pitch to help the runner make a decision about whether to attempt advancing on a ball in the dirt or one that looked like it might get away. In short, they were in the game and worth their weight in gold.
The other thing they did was set an example of how the players should approach the game. How intensely they should be watching for anything that might give an advantage. As opposed to this coach, who essentially told her entire team that it wasn’t important to be in the game or in the moment – that it was ok to sit and chit chat about nothing.
It may seem like coaching first base is simple but it’s not. Like anything else it’s something you need to work at. If you don’t want to pay attention, or you want to chit chat during the game, the first base coach’s box is not the place to be. (Actually, if you want to prattle about nothing, the dugout is probably not the place for you either because you’re a distraction to the players, who should be paying attention to the game and trying to learn something about the opposing pitcher and defense.)
Hopefully one of the other coaches in the dugout says something to the head coach and a correction is made. Because you know if something bad happens it will come at the worst possible time – it always does.
If you’re in the first base coach’s box, be sure you take the responsibility seriously. You can contribute a lot – if you’re paying attention.
The best way to help softball players feel good
University of Arizona head coach Mike Candrea is famous for saying that the difference between boys and girls is that boys have to play good to feel good, and girls have to feel good to play good. There is a lot of truth in that as anyone who has ever coached both can attest.
But how do you get girls to feel good so they can play good? To some people it seems to mean always saying something positive, even when it’s not earned. I disagree.
Girls are smart, and they tend to be more self-aware than boys, especially in the teen years. If they mess up and you say “good job” they know you’re lying, or saying it to try to make them feel good. It doesn’t take long before even sincere compliments are treated with skepticism.
If you really want to help a girl play good (and yes, I know the correct word in English is “well” but let’s stay with the theme), the way to make her feel good is to help her learn to play better. If they are hitting well, they will continue to hit well. If they believe they can hit well, because they’ve seen themselves do it, they will hit well (eventually). The same goes for pitching, fielding and running the bases.
Understand, though, that most people don’t get better by getting yelled at. That is something many coaches seem to forget. If they were spoken to at their jobs the way they speak to their players in practice or at a game, they’d quit. So why expect any other result if you’re constantly yelling at and berating your players?
If you want to help them get better so they can perform better, teach them. Or find someone else who can. Be patient. Explain not just what to do but why. Help them see the big picture, which is not something that usually comes naturally to young people male or female. Give them context and a reason why doing something a certain way will help and they’ll be much more likely to do what you want them to do.
One of the things I dislike most during a game is when a player screws up – say drops an easy pop-up – and coaches or parents say “nice try.” That’s not a nice try, it’s an error. A nice try is when you dive after a ball that ends up just out of reach. If you set the standard that a nice try is muffing an easy play, how is that player ever going to improve her game?
When you give sincere feedback, even if it’s corrective, the player knows you have her best interests at heart. The message you’re sending is “I know you can do (whatever), here’s how to make it happen.” That goes a lot further than saying “nice job” when the player knows it wasn’t.
Of course, there are a lot more things that go into a player feeling good than just what happens on the field. But you can’t control most of those. You can work with her, however, to develop her skills so at least that’s one less thing she has to worry about. Do that and you’re sure to end up with a player who’s more game-ready every game.
Strategy for winning the international tie breaker
One of the staples of fastpitch softball tournaments is the international tie breaker, or ITB. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a way of trying to get to a winner faster in a tie game. After seven innings, or the time limit expires if you’re playing with one of those, each team starts the inning with a runner on second base. The runner on second is the last out from the previous inning. Each team gets three outs to try to score as many runs as they can in their half-inning. If one score more than the other, they win. It’s sort of like the soccer shoot-out for those of you watching the World Cup, or a shoot-out in hockey. While I said “as many runs as you can,” in most instances you’re trying to get one run. Most games that go to the ITB are not double-digit slugfests. They’re usually low-scoring affairs, which is why you start with a runner on second. Softball strategy 101 says the team at bat should sacrifice bunt the runner to third, and then take two outs to try to bring her home. That’s what most teams do. But I have a strategy that, if you have the right pieces in place, can help you get that runner at least to third with no outs. It depends on two things. The first is a runner with decent speed – enough to make it a challenge for the shortstop to cover on a steal. The second is a hitter with the ability to slug bunt, i.e., show bunt then pull back and slap the ball hard on the ground. Here’s how you take advantage of them. If you can get the hitter to a favorable count such as 2-0 where the pitcher really needs to throw a strike, have your runner on second steal third, and your hitter execute a slug bunt. When you do this, you’re starting out by giving the defensive team what they expect – a bunt. Third base will likely be playing up for the bunt, which means the shortstop must cover third on a steal. When your runner takes off, the shortstop will likely start moving to cover third on the throw from the catcher. You may also get the second baseman moving to cover first if the first baseman is also playing close. That opens up some space. After showing bunt and pulling back, the hitter attempts to slap the ball on the ground, either to where the shortstop or second baseman normally plays. There are several possible good outcomes. One is if the shortstop or second baseman did start moving to their respective corners and the hitter gets the ball on the ground, it will roll through the area they vacated, perhaps to the outfield grass. Since your runner was already stealing, she may be far enough along to keep going and score. And you have a runner on first with no outs. What about if the hitter swings and misses? No problem. Perhaps the act of pulling back gets the shortstop to freeze long enough to allow your runner to get to third unchallenged. Even if she keeps going it’s still a tough play at third. A poor throw or a miss and your runner is either safe at third or headed home. Again, you also have a runner at first with no outs. And that runner will likely be standing on second after the next pitch, because the defense can’t afford to let the runner on third score. If the hitter goes for the slug and hits it directly to a fielder, the runner on second is still likely to get to third cleanly, although the batter may be out depending on her speed. In that case you’re no worse off than if you’d sacrifice bunted. Any of those outcomes will make you look like an offensive genius. About the only thing that can go wrong is if your hitter pops up instead of putting the ball on the ground. In that case the batter is out and the runner who was on second will probably get doubled off. Then everyone thinks you’re an idiot. Still, the odds are in your favor. With the summer tournament season heating up, you’re likely to face an ITB sooner or later. Keep this strategy in mind and you just may improve your odds of winning. Now it’s your turn? What other non-standard strategies do you employ on the ITB?
Pitching: hitting your spots not the be-all and end-all
Back to focusing on softball with something that’s been on my mind for a little while. It never ceases to amaze me how obsessed coaches often are with whether their pitchers hit their spots. Especially at the younger ages.
It’s almost like that’s the only thing they know about pitching. Anytime a pitcher gives up a hit (or even comes close to it) some coach is likely to yell “you need to hit your spots.”
There are a couple of flaws in that thinking. The first is that the value of hitting a particular spot when it’s called is directly proportional to how good the person calling the pitches is at setting up hitters.
I’ve known of coaches who basically call low and outside fastballs 90% of the time. I’ve heard about coaches that call screwball after screwball because, well, they saw screwballs work on TV. I’ve seen coaches refuse to call the changeup because they prefer that their pitchers throw heat.
The problem with that is predictability. If you’re throwing to the same location all the time it probably won’t take long for hitters to figure it out and adjust. Speed kills, but as we saw in the last WCWS, even a 70 mph pitch isn’t enough alone to overcome good hitters. So sure as shootin’ a 45 or 55 mph pitch won’t be. You need a mix of speeds and locations.
There’s also an art to setting up a hitter. It takes time and effort to learn how to do it. For example, when a hitter fouls a ball straight back, a good follow-up pitch is a changeup. Of course, if you do it every time you become predictable.
When you get ahead in the count 0-2, you don’t want to throw a strike – you want to throw a ball that looks like a strike. Maybe a curve, maybe a high fastball or rise. But again, you need to mix it up to keep hitters from settling in.
An inexperienced coach often doesn’t know that. So they’ll call that favorite pitch even when it isn’t appropriate. The pitcher would actually be doing the coach a favor by missing the spot, truthfully. I’ve seen more than one coach saved by a pitcher who didn’t throw what was called.
The other reason hitting spots is often overrated is that it isn’t the best measure of a pitcher. Coaches like it because it can be quantified. They also like it because they can use it as justification for elevating one pitcher over another – i.e., pitcher A hits her spots and pitcher B doesn’t, so A must be better than B.
But the truth is the single best measure of a pitcher is whether she can get hitters out. She may not put the ball exactly where the coach called it, but if she’s getting hitters out what difference does it make? Hitting spots alone doesn’t get hitters out. You get no credit for that from the umpire, just as having a perfect swing doesn’t entitle you to get on base. I’ll take a sloppy pitcher who can get hitters out over a precise one who can’t any day of the week.
That’s not to say pitchers shouldn’t work on hitting their spots – they should. If for not other reason than they may play for a coach who actually does know how to call a game – or better yet how to teach a catcher to call one. If they can put the ball right where they want it they can really take command.
But coaches, don’t let it become your determining factor. See the whole picture and give some space to the pitchers who can get people out.
Pitching around the big hitter
Tonight I was watching a high school softball playoff game. It was a great game – a real seesaw battle where the lead changed several times. Each time you thought one team was down something would happen and momentum would change.
While it was entertaining, it also brought up a situation worth discussing – whether or not to pitch to the other team’s big hitter.
As I recall, it came up three times during the game. The team in the field held a one- or two-run lead, while the offensive team had runners on second or second and third (depending on the inning) when their best hitter came to the plate. This is a girl who is a total gamer and can really put the bat on the ball.
I was standing with a few of the other spectators, and we all agreed the smart thing to do with first base open and less than two outs is walk this girl and pitch to the next one. Time after time, though, the coach decided to pitch to her. Each time the hitter went 0-2, then knocked a hit that score a run or two. The offensive team went on to win by three runs – which was fewer than the total number of RBIs that hitter had.
I can understand maybe taking a chance and pitching to her early in the game – match strength for strength. (Although in reality the defensive team wasn’t throwing their #1 pitcher, who I think was injured.) But after getting burned once, it seems that discretion is the better part of valor.
In my mind, if you’re going to lose, make someone else beat you. Not the other team’s best hitter, especially in a playoff game. If the bag is open, put that big hitter on and take your chances with the next one. It doesn’t always work out, but your odds are better. If you’re really worried, maybe even walk her with bases loaded. Better to give up one run than two or three – or four.
What do you think? Would you go intentional walk? Or would you gut it out and pitch to that hitter?
Funny expression
Today I heard a very funny expression from one of my students. She told me her high school coach says it all the time.
When they’re in practice, if they start overthrowing the ball back and forth he’ll yell “It looks like you’re having a snowball fight.” What a great description! Made me laugh when I heard it.
It may not be new to some of you, but it sure was to me and I just had to share it.
One other funny line I heard a while back comes from former Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks. When his players were struggling he’d yell, “You guys are getting worse every day, and right now you’re playing like it’s next month.” Again, very funny but it gets the point across.
As a coach it always helps to have a few one-lines handy to get attention and break the tension at the same time. So what are your favorite (serious but funny) things to say to your players when they need to be brought back on track?
Product Review: Pocket Radar Ball Coach
If you are into pitching at all, or work with pitchers, you’ve probably heard about the Pocket Radar. It’s a device about the size of a mobile phone that makes it easy to gun pitch speeds, overhand throws, exit speed of the ball off the bat and (allegedly) the speed of car w
hizzing through your neighborhood.
I recently upgraded from the original Pocket Radar to the new Ball Coach version. While it’s an $100 more expensive than the original, I feel like it’s worth the extra money. The Pocket Radar Ball Coach retails for $299, which is still considerably less that a Jugs or Stalker gun – and it does a very comparable job.
The thing that got me to upgrade (other than a $100 rebate being offered for sending the old one back) was the ease of use. With the original Pocket Radar you had to time pushing the button just right to get the maximum speed. It was as much an art as it was a science.
The new version takes that timing issue out of it. In other words, it’s radar speed measurement for dummies. With the Ball Coach version, you point the unit at the source of the pitch, hold down the big blue button (as opposed to a red button on the original) and keep holding it until you get a speed reading. Nothing could be simpler.
When I first got the new version I immediately tried it next to my Jugs gun. While they didn’t always match exactly, they were always within 1 mph of one another. Sometimes the Pocket Radar read higher, sometimes the Jugs gun did. But close enough for my purposes.
The real acid test, though, came this past weekend when I took it to a couple of games and (somewhat) discretely timed the pitchers from behind the backstop. In one case I was well behind it. But it seemed to give me good readings on all the pitchers.
Another advantage to the Pocket Radar Ball Coach is the ability to have it automatically take up to 25 reading in automatic mode. You can set it up on a tripod or a mobile phone holder, click through to automatic mode, and it will give you the readings. You can then page through to see what the player got – which is great for batting practice, pitching practice or whatever.
If you’re reading this in Canada, or anywhere else that uses the metric system, you’ll be glad to know the Pocket Radar Ball Coach can be switched to read in kilometers per hour. The instructions explain how.
The Pocket Radar Ball Coach comes with a handy soft shell pouch that clips onto your belt. That’s another nice upgrade over the original, which came with a hard shell case you had to keep in your pocket. I still kept mine in my pocket, but it takes up less space. In addition to the case it also comes with a wrist strap and a pair of AA batteries (Eveready alkaline batteries, not those cheap no-name ones that often come with many electronics these days.
If you’re at all interested in measuring speed I can highly recommend the Pocket Radar Ball Coach. With its (relatively) low cost, high accuracy and ease of use it’s a great investment.
Where to go to choose your hitting models
It’s often been said, here and elsewhere, that one of the most important things you can do during lessons is compare what you (or your daughter, player, etc.) is being told to do against what the best players in the world do. If it doesn’t match it, it’s probably not the way to go.
For hitting, one obvious place to go for comparison is Major League Baseball (ML
. The best hitters there are paid millions of dollars by willing owners who compete for their services, so there’s a good chance those hitters know what to do. (Whether they know what they’re doing is a debate for another day.)
Still, it can be difficult for some players to relate to baseball players. And there are always some coaches who think baseball and softball are two different games that only look similar, which means they think what works in baseball won’t work in softball. Not true, but it’s hard to change a mindset. So with that in mind, another good place to look for models of how to swing the bat is college softball.
How do you know which softball players (or teams) to follow? A good place to start is with the statistics.
This area on the NCAA website shows the stats for the top hitters in college. As I write this it’s late March 2014, so the link may have moved for 2015. But poke around a bit and you should be able to find it. You can who is leading in batting average, on-base percentage, home runs, slugging percentage and a whole bunch more. (It also shows some pitching stats.) Look at the leaders in various categories and the odds are you’ll find some hitters who really know what they’re doing.
There is also a team section that shows which teams are leading in various categories. Not surprisingly, Arizona is leading in batting average and slugging percentage, and #3 in home runs per game and overall scoring.
Now, we can debate all day long as to how much actual impact the coaching staff has on how their players hit. Unless you’re on the inside it’s tough to know for sure, although my guess is they work with them a lot. But if nothing else, a team with great hitting stats shows the coaching staff knows what to look for in hitters. So there’s a good chance those are again some good models to follow. Put the two together – the best hitters on the best hitting teams – and you’ve likely found some great players to use as models.
The other good thing about using college players as a model is their results are probably closer to their reality of what you can achieve. Although it’s good to look at MLB hitters, keep in mind there is a HUGE difference in game experience, practice time put in, athletic ability, strength, and learning abilities between a 28 year old MLB professional in the prime of his career and, say, a 12 or 14 year old girl who is still learning the game.
There is also a HUGE difference in the access to top-level facilities, video of every swing, access to coaching and, quite frankly, time and incentive to work on their swings between these two groups. A high-level MLB player has literally million$ of reasons to spend hours studying his swing and working to improve it. A young girl, even the most dedicated of them, is trying to work in hitting practice between school, homework, family obligations, other activities and all the challenges that go along with adolescence.
But a college player, while more accomplished and with more access to facilities, still has many other things happening in her life and competing for her time. And she’s not that far removed from being that 12 or 14 year old player. So while the college player’s swing may not be ideal just yet, it may also be more achievable.
The bottom line is don’t just believe what someone calling him or herself a hitting coach tells you. As Ronald Regan liked to say, trust but verify. (Side note: Regan said it about the Soviet Union, which was ironic because it’s an old Russian proverb.) Use those resources to see who the best college softball hitters are right now and compare what they’re doing to what you’re hearing. It could save you a lot of work heading in the wrong direction.
Sometimes you can outsmart yourself with changes
This afternoon I had the opportunity to watch the University of Arizona v. UCLA softball game. It was the second game of their three-game series and a lot of fun to watch.
U of A was behind for most of the game. Despite all the offense they’ve been putting up against non-Pac 12 teams, they seemed to struggle against UCLA. They were shut out in yesterday’s game, and were down 3-1 until the top of the seventh.
The Wildcats had a runner on first and no outs when one of their hitters hit a comebacker to pitcher Jessica Hall. She wheeled around to throw to second and — threw the ball away. Runners were safe at first and second. At that point, despite the fact that Hall had been pitching lights-out, Coach Inouye-Perez decided to make a pitching change, bringing in Ally Carda who had shut U of A out the day before. (Carda and Hall switched positions.) After a sac bunt to waste an out, Kellie Fox hit a three-run home run to put Arizona up 4-3. They were three outs from evening the series at 1-1.
SPOILER ALERT: If you have the game on DVR stop reading here until you’ve watched it.
Ok, everybody else. In the bottom of the seventh, Coach Candrea decided to replace Kenzie Fowler, who had had some troubles but pitched her way out of them, with Estella Pinon. She immediately got into trouble, giving up a solo homer to leadoff hitter Mysha Sataraka. She then walked two batters and hit one to load the bases. At that point she appeared to have heat exhaustion and was lifted in favor of Nancy Bowling. Bowling promptly surrendered a walk off grand slam homer to Gracie Gould.
Knowing when to replace a pitcher is always a tough call. There may have been factors influencing things that we TV viewers don’t know. But from the outside it sure appears both coaches may have outsmarted themselves, and one wound up paying for it.
For those of us coaching on lesser stages there are a couple of lessons to be learned here. First is that even the highest-level coaches can make mistakes, or at least decisions they regret later. So when you do it – and we all do – don’t beat yourself up too badly.
The second lesson, in my opinion, is when you have a pitcher on a roll, go with it. Wait until she shows she can’t handle things before you decide to take her out. She may not be on top of her game, but she has a feel for what’s going on. Unless you have a pitcher whose actual role is to be a closer – and softball teams rarely do — it’s tough to come in cold. You may be better off sticking with what you’ve got rather than taking a chance with someone new. Better the devil you know!
What’s your story? Have you ever taken out a pitcher based on what you thought what might happen only to have it blow up in your face? I sure have! Share your stories in the comments.
NOTE: Edited to reflect what actually happened.
Keeping softball from turning into Space Armada
Back in the mid-1980s, I owned an early video game console from Mattel called Intellivision. Extremely primitive by today’s standards, I still managed to waste many an hour playing it. This was long before I started coaching softball, obviously.
My favorite game was one called Space Armada, basically a knockoff of Atari’s Space Invaders. The object was to kill off all the invaders while avoiding being hit by bombs dropped by a flying saucer that went back and forth across the screen. If one of the invaders reached the bottom of the screen, the game was over.
Why tell you about an ancient video game in a softball blog? Because there were a lot of similarities between that game and what can happen to softball players when they start to panic.
You see, as hard as it may be for today’s young games to understand, in Space Armada there was no way to “win.” You didn’t beat a level boss to move up, and you could never reach an end. In Space Aramada, every time you cleared the aliens a new group would appear. Each new screen would work faster and faster, while the pulsing “music” behind it would go from thump…..thump……thump to thump…thump…thump and ultimately thumpthumpthump. In the meantime, your heart would race and your brain would be, shall we say, over-stimulated.
That’s the way it can feel in a softball game or even a practice too. We often hear players who are “in the zone” say the game slowed down while they were in there.
Well, the opposite can happen when things don’t go well, such a pitcher not making the pitches (or getting the calls), or a hitter struggling through a slump. The player starts to press, and you can almost hear the background sounds going thumpthumpthump. At that point it’s going to be tough to recover. Usually the biggest sign is that the player starts to work faster, such as a pitcher trying to throw the next pitch as soon as she gets the ball back.
If you feel that happening (or you’re a coach and you see it happening to a player or the team) you need to try to get them to chill out, slow it back down and relax.
The best way to do it is to take some time to breathe. Not just any breath, though. Take a deep cleansing breath or two – in through your no
se, out through your mouth, slowly and taking in as much oxygen as you can. You’d be amazed at how that deep breath can help you calm down and relax.
You want to clear your brain and quit over-thinking — especially of the consequences of failure. Trust your training and focus on the task at hand.
If you’re a coach, you may want to take this opportunity to call a timeout and talk to the player or team. Tell a joke, comment on what a nice day it is, remind the player or team that they’re playing for the love of the game, and perhaps a little plastic trophy or medal, not world peace. Do whatever it takes to slow those aliens down and keep the game at a pace they can handle.
When I played Space Armada I knew it was just a game. But the competitor in me couldn’t help but get wrapped up in the pressure to perform. It’s the same for your team. Help them keep the game from getting out of control and you’ll like the results a whole lot better.
