Category Archives: General Thoughts
Why It’s Important to Celebrate Progress, Not Just Achievement
Everyone loves to celebrate the big achievements in softball – winning a tournament or conference championship, tossing a no-hitter, hitting the game-winning home run, and so on. Those are definitely highlight in a player’s career and should be lauded whenever they occur.
Yet celebrations of a player’s performance don’t always have to wait for some major achievement. In fact in my experience it’s often more important to celebrate progress, even if it’s on a small scale, because those little wins now are usually what lead to those big wins down the road.
Here’s a good example. Let’s say you have a hitter who, as they say in Bull Durham, couldn’t hit water if she fell out of a boat. She’s all arms with no control over the bat, and she seems to defy the law of averages by not even making random contact through sheer luck.
Realizing it’s a problem she starts to take hitting lessons, and within a couple of lessons she hits a weak ground ball to second and pops out to first in the same game. Nothing to write home about in the big scheme of things – it’s still a couple of outs – but she at least put the bat on the ball.
That’s something to celebrate because it represents progress. Now, perhaps inspired, she keeps working at it and next game hits a hard line drive to shortstop or flies out with a direct hit to the left fielder.
Again, she is showing progress. Because you are celebrating and encouraging her she continues to work, and suddenly those hard-hit balls start finding some gaps between fielders.
It’s been little steps along the way, but they have been important steps. And maybe before you know it she’ll come to bat with the game on the line and produce one of those highlight reel moments that would have been unthinkable not too long ago.
I’ve seen it happen. If you have, tell your story down in the comments.
Or what about the pitcher who can’t seem to find the plate with both hands and a flashlight due to poor mechanics? She can force the ball over enough to keep giving her opportunities, but her walks are still out-pacing her strikeouts and soft contacts and you’re starting to reconsider your position with the playoffs coming.
She realizes it too and starts taking the need to work on her mechanics more seriously. She puts in the work and you can see her start looking more like a pitcher should look, even if the outcomes, while better, still aren’t where the team needs her to be.
The same goes for pitchers and speed. It takes some longer to figure things out than others, or for their bodies to even have the physical capacity to deliver an appropriate level of speed for her age.
But if she keeps working on the mechanics and on learning to feel what her body is doing at different points in the pitching motion, the improvement will come.
Again, by celebrating the progress you can send a message that what she’s doing is working and she should keep on doing it. That little bit of encouragement may be just what she needs to fulfill her potential and become a reliable member of your pitching rotation.
These are just two examples of what is often called the “grind.” While it would be wonderful if you could just make a tweak here or there and see it pay off instantly, that’s not how it usually works.
Progress doesn’t come in leaps and bounds for most; it’s normally a lot more incremental. But if you wait to recognize only the big achievements they may never happen because the player gets discouraged before she reaches that point.
A better approach is to look for the good, even when it’s small, and call it out to keep players going when the going gets tough.
Now, all of that assumes these players are working on making the changes that are needed in order for progress to occur. Empty praise doesn’t help; they have to be making the effort to fix whatever is preventing them from getting better or they’re just going to fall further behind.
But if they are, take the time to recognize the progress even if the big achievement doesn’t come right away. Because it will in time.
Buying Tools v Learning to Use Them
Like many guys, at one time in my life I thought woodworking would be a great, fun hobby to learn. Clearly that was before my kids started playing sports.
So I started becoming a regular at Sears, Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Menards, Lowes, and other stores that sold woodworking tools. YouTube wasn’t a thing back then (yes, I am THAT old), so I also bought books and magazines that explained how to do various projects.
Here’s the thing, though. I might skim through the books or an article in a magazine to give me just enough knowledge of which end of the tool to hold, then I’d jump right in and start doing the project.
Needless to say, the projects I did never quite came out the way the ones in the pictures did. I also didn’t progress much beyond simple decorative shelves and things like that – although the ones I did make held up for a long time.
The thing I discovered was that buying new tools was a lot easier, and a lot more fun, than learning how to use them. Buying tools is essentially “retail therapy” for people who aren’t into clothes or shoes. And you always think if you just had this tool, or this router bit, or this fancy electronic level, everything will come out better.
Nope. Because no matter how good the tool or accessory is, it still requires some level of skill to use it.
Fastpitch softball parents and players often suffer from the same affliction. They believe that if they get the latest version of expensive bat they will hit better.
They believe if they purchase this gadget they saw promoted on social media it will automatically cure their poor throwing mechanics. They believe if they purchase this heavily advertised pair of cleats they will automatically run faster and cut sharper.
Again, nope. New softball tools like bats and balls with parachutes attached and arm restricting devices and high-end cleats are certainly fun to buy, and there’s nothing like the anticipation and thrill of seeing that Amazon or FedEx or UPS truck coming down the street to make you want to burst into song.
But they’re just tools. In order to get the benefits of those tools you have to learn how to use them correctly then work with them day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
And as we all know, that part isn’t as much fun. There’s a reason it’s called the grind.
Take that bright, shiny $500 bat. If you’re still using a $5 swing, or you’re too timid to even take it off your shoulder, it’s not going to do you much good. It may look pretty but you could be using a $50 bat to the same effect.
You have to get out and practice with it. Not just during practice but even when no one is around. The more you do it the better you’ll get at learning how to use it – just like I discovered with my fancy jigsaw.
Pitching, fielding, throwing, baserunning, it’s all the same. No fancy glove or high tech gadget is going to help you get better no matter how much it costs. You have to learn how to use it, which means getting off your butt (or off your screen) and using it.
If you don’t know how to use it, seek out somebody who does and have them help you. It’s a pretty good way to shortcut the learning process, and often a better way to invest your time and money.
Yup, sure, new tools and toys are a lot of fun to wish for and shop for and buy. But even the best ones can quickly become shelfware if you’re expecting them to do all the work for you.
Get the tools that will help you get the job done, but always remember you have to learn how to use them to reap the full rewards. Otherwise you’re just throwing away money.
Fall Ball Is a Great Time to See What You Have
It seems like only yesterday that the summer travel ball season was getting started – and teams were already promoting open workouts and private tryouts for the next season.
Well, next season is now officially upon us, and with that comes fall ball games. Back when I was coaching teams, fall ball usually meant one practice a week, a couple of double headers (if you could find another team that wanted to play), and maybe a tournament or two if you could scrape up enough players who weren’t committed to fall sports at their schools.
Nowadays for most teams, though, practices are multiple times per week (3-4 for some teams!), there’s a tournament practically every weekend through Halloween, and maybe even a few more “friendlies” sprinkled in here and there. That’s progress I guess.
If you are following this type of heavy schedule I do have a suggestion for you: don’t just treat it like summer ball 2.0. Instead, use at least some of this time to figure out what you have in the way of players. I mean, hopefully you chose well in the tryout process, but you never really know until you see them in action.
To do that effectively you have to be willing to do something that many coaches these days seem reluctant to do: potentially lose some games you might have otherwise won.
For example, instead of pitching your Ace for one out of two games of pool play and as many bracket games as she can go without her arm falling off like you usually do, try using your #2, #3, or even #4 more. Your #1 will probably appreciate the additional rest and recovery time, and you’ll have more opportunity to see what the other pitchers (especially the new ones) can do in a game situation.
There is also an added bonus to this strategy: If your #1 is a strikeout pitcher and the others are more “pitch to contact,” your fielders will get more work and you’ll gain a better understanding of exactly what you need to work on – whether it’s skills, knowing what to do with the ball, communicating effectively or some other aspect. Better to find out now than next summer when it’s probably too late to do anything about it.
One other thing you can do with pitchers is maybe leave them in the circle a little longer than you usually might to see if they can work their way out of a jam or regain their control if they start to lose it a little. Sometimes all a pitcher needs to get out of funk is to get more innings; this is the perfect time to make that happen.
You can also use the fall to shake up your batting order a bit and give hitters who normally are at the bottom a chance to get a few more at-bats. Maybe you don’t move the whole bottom up to the top at once – no sense in going crazy with it – but moving one or two up strategically might help them find their rhythm better and might give you some extra quality bats throughout the lineup for when you need them most.
Going back to fielders, the fall gives you a good chance to see what your backups at a particular position can do. Instead of using, say, the same shortstop or the same catcher, or the same something else in every game, put those backups into a starting role and see how they handle it; they might just surprise you.
The fall is also a good time to try out different strategies to A) see how your team handles them and B) short up any areas of deficiency you discover.
For example, I know the short game isn’t as important in fastpitch softball as it used to be. Everyone digs the long ball these days, but there are still times when the ability to perform a suicide squeeze or lay down some other type of bunt can make the difference between winning and losing a big game.
If you try it in the fall and it works, you’ll have more confidence trying it next spring. And if it doesn’t, well, that practice plan kind of writes itself.
The same goes for unusual defensive sets. If you’re facing a speedy slapper maybe you want to try pulling your second baseman or shortstop in closer, like up next to the circle, to see if you can take away her speed.
Or if you’re facing a situation where you’re pretty sure the offense is going to try a bunt, bring your first and third basemen in about 15 feet away from home to give them a better shot at making the play. You can even try having them shift into that from a more traditional set once the pitcher is ready to throw the pitch so you don’t give it away.
You can also use the fall to try some trick plays, like those first and third plays you keep practicing but never call, or faking a throw to first on a ground ball to see if you can sucker the lead runner into a rundown. The possibilities are endless.
Sure, there are times when you’re going to have to go with what you know. If you’re trying to win an early bid to Nationals next year to get that out of the way you’re probably going to want to play to win. But if it’s a meaningless tournament, or a showcase where you’re just going to play X number of games and then go home, why not use it to find out what you don’t know?
Yes, it can be difficult to lose a game you might’ve won, and nobody likes losing. But taking that small risk now can pay big rewards down the road.
Don’t just take it from me, though. On our From the Coach’s Mouth podcast Jay Bolden and I have spoken to several college coaches who have followed this fall ball strategy to help them get ready for the spring. If it’s good enough for them…
Leaves photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
A Softball Lesson from General George S. Patton
When I was still working in the business world, I used to have this quote from WWII General George S. Patton hanging in every cubicle and office I worked in:
“A good plan, violently executed today, is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
I would also copy the paper I had it on and give it to new co-workers when they joined the company, especially the younger people who might be intimidated coming into their first big jobs.
I found them to be great words to live by for a variety of settings. And they definitely work for fastpitch softball.
Think about hitters. We’ve all seen hitters who let good pitches go by waiting to see the perfect pitch.
They wind up in an 0-2 hole, where their odds of seeing a perfect pitch go down substantially, and as a result their chances of getting a good hit drop significantly as well.
Or take pitchers who are working on a new pitch. They feel like they’re doing pretty well with it, but they (or their coaches) are reluctant to use it in a game because they don’t have full (perfect) control over it yet.
The result is they never gain game experience with it because none of us is ever going to be perfect. Instead of waiting for absolute reliability, I say pick a safe situation (nobody on, nobody out, 0-1 count for example) and give it a try.
Worst case the count goes to 1-1, but it could have done that anyway with a “safer pitch” that the pitcher doesn’t throw well or that the umpire misses. Throw that new pitch so you start getting used to it in game situations so you have it for later – not to mention maybe it works the way it should now even if it’s by luck and you start building confidence.
The words of General Patton don’t just apply to players either. Coaches, how many times do you work on a defensive play for when there are runners on first and third, or a special offensive play such as a suicide squeeze, only to be too afraid to try it in an actual game?
Your team’s ability to win an important game might just come down to its ability to execute one of these high-risk plays. But if you’re too worried it’s not ready when you’re playing a friendly or a non-conference game, you’ll never know if it’s ready when it counts.
I say give it a try now, when a screw-up doesn’t mean as much, and see what happens. Maybe you learn your team is close to executing it but needs a little more work; maybe you learn there’s no point in wasting valuable practice time because your team is never going to be ready to pull it off with any degree of certainty.
But at least you’ll know.
Remember that in softball, as in most things in life, the situation is changing constantly. Waiting until you have the “perfect” conditions or opportunity means you could be passing up a whole lot of other ones that, while they carry a little more risk, also carry a lot of potential rewards.
With fall ball coming up, this is the perfect time to trot out some of those special plays, or new pitches, or more aggressive approaches at the plate, or new fielding techniques, whatever else has been gathering dust in your back pocket.
Prepare as best you can in the time you have, then give it a try. You may just surprise yourself.
When Old Ways Become My Way or the Highway
I recently received a rather exasperating note from the mother of one of my catching students. She told me her daughter’s team coach is now insisting that their catchers rip off their hockey-style masks when going after foul balls and making other types of plays.
Neither her daughter or the other catcher is happy about it. They’ve both been taught (one by me, one by someone else) to leave the mask on.
But they are both concerned that if they don’t follow what the coach says they won’t get playing time. In my mind if they both band together and refuse what’s the coach going to do – pull in an outfielder to catch? But let’s table that discussion for now.
The coach’s admonition was, “You play for me and not your catching coaches,” thereby asserting the right of kings in making decisions regardless of the facts or the best information available. In other words, it’s the old coaching philosophy of “my way or the highway.”
From what I am told, this entire controversy cropped up when the other catcher missed a pop-up. The coach drew the conclusion the miss was caused by a lack of visibility within the mask without any real evidence to support it.
The reality is of the many things that could have caused the catcher to miss that pop-up, a lack of visibility caused by the mask is one of the least likely. That’s because the hockey-style masks are designed specifically to provide full visibility throughout the catcher’s field of vision.
Back when I was a catcher, in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, we used flat masks that were held in place by elastic straps on the back of your head. They provided good visibility straight ahead, i.e., in the direction the pitch would come from, but restricted your peripheral vision, making it difficult to locate pop-ups or see a ball coming in from the side on a tag play at the plate.
Additionally, those masks were easy to pull off and toss out of the way, so it made sense to remove them for anything that wasn’t a pitched ball coming from straight in front of you.
Today’s masks are large hunks of plastic designed to protect the catcher’s entire head. They are form-fitting and difficult to remove quickly. In fact, trying to remove the mask when doing something like chasing after a foul ball can become a huge and painful distraction if it gets caught on your nose or ears or forehead.
Ripping the mask off can also cause problems if you’re wearing sunglasses or even worse prescription glasses in order to see. The glasses get pulled off and now you’re far worse off than you would have been had the helmet remained in place.
Then there’s the problem of getting rid of it. The old flat masks were lightweight and easy to toss; a full-on hockey-style mask is much bulkier, making it harder to toss and creating more of a tripping risk because of its size. Tough to catch a pop-up when you’re lying flat on your belly, no matter how well you can see it.
Finally, we come to what happens on a play at the plate. When a runner is sliding into home (or worse, crashing into the catcher as she goes to apply the tag even though the runner is supposed to avoid contact) the catcher will be much better protected with the helmet on than the helmet off.
No cleats to the face, no banging your unprotected head on the ground if you’re knocked backwards.
By the way, this isn’t just me saying all this, although it is what I tell catchers. A quick Google or AI search will find pretty much all top-line catching instructors saying the same thing. Removing the catcher’s mask is both unnecessary and less safe.
So the only reason left to insist your catchers rip off their masks when making a play is because YOU ARE OPERATING OFF OF OLD AND OBSOLETE INFORMATION (saying it loud for the folks in the back), and you are letting your ego get in the way of doing what’s best for your players.
This is why it is so important for coaches to continue to seek out new information and learn. Not just about catcher’s masks but all aspects of the game.
The old ways may have worked, but there are a whole lot of smart people out there who have the time, tools, talent, and budget to research every aspect of the game more thoroughly. If new discoveries or information come along that can help your players do better why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of it?
I know some people hate to admit that they may have been wrong in what they were teaching, but they need to get over it. They need to understand it isn’t that they were wrong – it’s that they were using the best information they had at the time, and now they have new and better information.
As my buddy and podcast partner Jay Bolden says, as coaches we expect our players to be learning and improving all the time. Why shouldn’t we demand the same of ourselves?
The fact is we should be eager to learn more, because the smarter and more informed we are, the better chance we have of developing better players who will help us win more games. Sticking with something because that’s the way you’ve always done it is a very poor way to coach, and one that could hurt a player’s development – or even end up with her injured.
The catcher’s mask discussion is just a symptom of a larger issue. Before you insist on players doing something in cases where they’ve been taught something else, take the time to do a little research and see WHY it’s being taught differently.
You might just learn something that will help you not just now but in the future as well.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
7 Lessons from the 2025 WCWS
Like many coaches I’m sure, over the last couple of weeks I’ve been telling my students that they should watch the Women’s College World Series games. See what they do and how they do it, because in most cases
it’s a master class in how to play the game.
Students aren’t the only ones who can learn from it, however. There were a lot of lessons in there for coaches at all levels as well.
In some cases it was the strategies those coaches followed, whether it was using the element of surprise (such as a flat-out steal of home) or how they used their lineups. In others it was how they dealt with their players through all the ups and downs of a high-stakes series, or even their body language (or practiced lack of it) when things went wrong.
So with the WCWS now concluded and a champion crowned, I thought it would be a good opportunity to recap and share some of those lessons (in no particular order). Feel free to add any you think I may have missed in the comments.
WARNING: There be spoilers here. If you have games stacked up to watch and are trying to avoid learning the outcomes of those games stop reading now, go fire up your DVR, then come back afterwards.
Individual Greatness Doesn’t Guarantee Success
Ok, quick, think about who were the biggest names going into this year’s WCWS. Odds are most of you thought of three pitchers in particular: Jordy Bahl, Karlyn Pickens, and NiJaree Canady.
They have been the big stories all season, and for good reason. All are spectacular players who make a huge difference for their teams.
Yet only one of those names – NiJaree Canady – was in the final series, and her team did not win the big prize. This is not a knock any of these women, because they are all outstanding.
It is merely an observation that for all their greatness, it wasn’t enough in this particular series. To me, the lesson here is not to get intimidated by facing a superstar and fall into the trap of thinking your team simply can’t match up.
Teagan Kavan, the Ace for Texas had almost double the ERA and WHIP versus NiJaree Canady, almost double the ERA of Karlyn Pickens (although their WHIPs were close), and a somewhat higher ERA and WHIP than Jordy Bahl. Yet in the end Kavan was the one holding the champion’s trophy.
Get out there and play your game as a team and you can overcome multiple hurdles as well.
Riding One Pitcher Doesn’t Work As Well As It Used To
Back in the days of Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman, Monica Abbott, Lisa Fernandez, etc., teams used to be able to ride the arm of one pitcher all the way to the championship. That is no longer the case.
One reason for that is the change in format, especially for the championship. It used to be you only had to win one final head-to-head matchup to take home the prize. Now, it’s best two out of three, which extends how much a pitcher in particular has to work, especially if you’re the team coming back through the loser’s bracket.
It’s not that today’s athletes are any less than those of the past either. I’d argue they’re probably better trained and better conditioned that even 10 years ago.
But the caliber of play has continued to increase, and every one of the players is now better trained and better conditioned than they used to be, with science and data leading the way. That elevation in performance makes it that much tougher to play at an athlete’s highest level throughout the long, grueling road to the final matchup.
The stress and fatigue of playing on the edge takes it toll, especially on the pitchers who are throwing 100+ pitches per game. And while the effort of pitching in fastpitch softball may not create the same stresses on the body as overhand pitching, repetitive, violent movements executed over and over in a compressed time period are going to take their toll.
Smart teams will be sure to develop a pitching staff and use that staff strategically to preserve their stars for as long as they can. Yes, when you get to the end you’re going to tend to lean on your Ace more.
But the more you can save her for when you need her at the end, the better off you will be.
(NOTE: This is not a critique of either coach in the championship series. This is more advice for youth and high school coaches who over-use their Aces to build their won-loss record instead of thinking ahead to what they will need for the end of the season.)
In a 3-Game Series, Winning Game 1 Is Critical
Winning that first game gives you some luxuries that can help you take the final game.
When you win game one, you have the ability to start someone other than your Ace because worst-case if you lose you still have one more game to try to win it all. You can bring your Ace back fresher, and you won’t have given opposing hitters as many looks at your Ace as they would have had otherwise.
If you lose game one, it’s do-or-die. You need to do what you need to do to keep the series going so you will pretty much be forced to use your Ace. She gets more tired, and opposing hitters get more looks at her in a short period of timing, helping them time her up or learn to see her pitches better.
That makes it rougher to win game three for sure.
Even the Best Players Make Errors Under Pressure
So there’s Texas, sitting on a 10-run lead in the top of the 5th inning with three outs, then two outs, then one out, then one strike to go. One more out and the run rule takes effect, making them the 2025 WCWS champions. I’m sure their pitcher, Teagan Kavan, was looking forward to it all being done since she’d throw her fair share of pitches in the WCWS too.
But then disaster struck. Texas Tech put the ball in play and a throwing error by Texas put what should have been the third out on base. Another throwing error and a couple of hits later the score is now 10-3 and Texas Tech feels revived.
I’m sure the original error was a play they’ve practiced a million times. But in that situation the throw pulled the first baseman off the bag and kept Texas Tech in the ballgame.
That’s something to remember with your own teams. Even the best players make mistakes and/or succumb to pressure. The key is to not hit the panic button (or the scream at players button) and instead keep your cool so the players calm down and get back to business.
Also notice Texas coach Mike White didn’t pull his shortstop in the middle of the inning because she made an error. Instead, he put his faith in her and she made plays later that preserved the win.
It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over
Same situation but from the Texas Tech side. It would have been easy for them to say 10-0 was an insurmountable lead and begin to let up a little.
Instead, they battled to the final out, and played like they always believed they could still win it. While it would have been tough, if a few more things went their way who knows?
Every player on that side did their jobs to the best of their ability, always believing they could still take the lead. And for a while there it looked like they might.
Now, one thing they had was the luxury of time. With no time limits and no run limits, they had the potential to score enough runs to get back in the game.
It didn’t happen, but it could have. As long as you’re not restricted by time there’s always that chance you can come back. Keep doing your best and you never know what might happen.
Pay Attention to the Little Opportunities
You have to admit the steal of home by Texas Tech was both fun and a gutsy call. I don’t have any inside information on it, but I’m guessing Coach Gerry Glasco knew it was an opportunity long before he called for it. He just had to wait for the right situation.
In watching the replays, it looked to me like the catcher wasn’t paying attention when she threw the ball back, because who would be crazy enough to try to steal home like that? The Texas Tech runner, though, was on a flat-out sprint from the moment the pitch was released and she ended up scoring pretty much unchallenged.
The lesson her isn’t just to keep awareness of what’s happening when you’re on defense, although that’s important. It’s also to think ahead and see what’s happening on the field when you’re up to bat, to see if there are opportunities to advance baserunners or score without putting the ball in play.
It was a gutsy call for sure. But I doubt it was done without a lot of forethought.
Practice the Little Things Too
On the other side of the coin was the hit off the intentional walk in the first game of the championship series. After throwing the first three balls, NiJaree Canady apparently lost a bit of control on the last pitch and Texas took advantage of it, swinging on a pitch that was too close to the plate while the defense was relaxed knowing it was an intentional walk.
Again, I don’t have any inside information but I’ll bet Texas Tech didn’t spend much time practicing intentional walks. Why would they when they had the two-time NFCA Pitcher of the Year throwing for them? Why would she need to walk anyone intentionally?
So when the situation came up, perhaps she wasn’t quite as ready as she should have been. I know you may be thinking “how hard is it to throw a pitch to a spot off the plate for someone who has pinpoint control everywhere else?”
It’s actually harder than you think, and a skill that has to be practiced like any other. Your pitchers are used to throwing strikes. Throwing a ball on purpose may seem as foreign to them as throwing with the opposite hand.
If you think you might throw an intentional walk, or do anything else out of the ordinary for that matter, be sure you practice it first. The less you leave to chance the better chance you have of it working.
Murphy’s Law In Action
Cindy Bristow once told a clinic full of coaches “My girls make the same mistakes your girls do. They just make them faster.” Over the years I have found that to be true.
If things can go wrong they will go wrong. Nothing you can do will change that.
But you can be as prepared as possible, and remember that no one ever sets out to perform poorly. Those things just happen.
Even the best players and coaches make mistakes or have good intentions blow up in their faces. Hopefully we can all learn from them and use that knowledge to help us get better for the next time.
Welcome to the 2025-2026 Season – Wait, What?
A couple of weeks ago as I was busy wasting time scrolling through Facebook I came across something that made me think I must have fallen asleep in front of the TV and not woken up for three months. It was an announcement from a couple of teams about “open workouts” (translation: tryouts) for the 205-2026 season.
“Wait, what?” I thought. I mean, the high school season is still in high gear everywhere high school softball is played in the spring, and travel teams are still working their way through their “shake off the rust” tournaments in preparation for the travel season to begin in earnest.
So why in the name of Carol Hutchins are travel teams already looking for players for the next freaking season??? (You know I’m not happy because I used three question marks instead of one.)
This is just insane. Coaches should be focused right now on the players in front of them and helping each and every one of them reach their potential this season, not out looking for new players so they can unceremoniously dump anyone on their roster they don’t think measures up.
But of course, that’s one of the problems in today’s game. There aren’t as many coaches as there used to be, at least by what I would define as a coach.
Instead, they have been replaced by “managers” who, instead of developing the players they have, are always on the lookout to acquire players someone else has taken the time and effort to coach up. Like Pokemon cards, if you collect enough of those already-baked players you can just throw them on the field and watch them bring home the trophies/rings/banners/whatever is being given away to tournament winners these days.
So now it’s a race to see who can get to those high-level players first.
Now, admittedly, that’s nothing new. I remember when teams used to hold tryouts after the current season was over.
There were always a couple of programs that would try to jump the gun, either by playing in sanctions that ended earlier so they technically were into next season or by holding “special tryouts” maybe a week before their season ended. These organizations would pressure the kids who tried out to make a decision right then and there so they could lock up the talent before anyone else had a chance, although if someone better came along the original offer might be rescinded anyway and then those kids would have to scramble to find a new team.
But even those shenanigans occurred right around the end of the season for everyone.
Now they’re looking for next year’s team while this year’s team is just getting going with their season. And people wonder why players don’t seem to be as loyal to their teams or coaches as they used to be.
In my opinion, and the opinion of a lot of coaches I know whom I respect immensely, the focus during this season should be on helping the players you have now get better rather than finding their replacements. That’s the way to build a winning culture and create a positive experience.
Holding public workouts for next year’s team, before you even know what players or positions you may need, is a sure way to create divisiveness and negativity within the current team. It could even drive some of your current “good” players out because they’re not feeling valued or loved by the organization or the coaching staff.
It’s also a bad idea because you never know who is going to step up during this season and surprise you. If you listen to current high-level college players talk about their early days in the sport, you’ll find many of them were not studs right out of the gate.
Many, in fact, sat the bench a lot (although that’s a travesty in and of itself). Some of the best pitchers today were the #4 or #5 pitcher on their travel teams before they grew, or the mechanics from their lessons kicked in, or someone just gave them a chance to pitch some quality innings and it all came together for them.
It just seems wrong to me for teams and organizations to be ignoring who they have in front of them right now in search of some mythical team for the future. At least if they really believe in the stuff on their website that says they’re “in it for the girls.”
There will be plenty of time for tryouts or other events to convince top talent that they would be better served with a new team that’s “more at their level” than the one they’re on now. I wouldn’t even object so much if you did it right before the end of the season, although don’t be surprised if a few of your “lesser” players on the current team decide not to spend the time and money going to whatever nationals you’re heading to if they’re feeling like you’re planning to cut them once the last out is recorded.
But seeking out new players at the beginning of your primary season? That’s just ludicrous.
Run with the players you have now and help them finish the season better than they started. You just might find you don’t need as many new players as you thought.
Take One More Look Around the Dugout
I’m not sure if it’s just human nature or perhaps a cultural thing, but it certainly seems like it’s common for most people to be always looking ahead to the future.
As graduation approaches, high school seniors look forward to starting a new era of freedom in college or their careers; college seniors look forward to starting their first jobs; older adults look forward to their next jobs or even retirement.
Yet at this time of the year, it’s important for players, parents, and coaches who are leaving the sport of fastpitch softball to take one more look around the present to appreciate all the good things that have been a part of the experience for the last several (or many years).
Players and parents can think about the first time those players grabbed a glove or bat, put on a uniform with their team’s name on it, and stood in the dirt.
They probably had no idea about the journey on which they were about to embark; they just knew they were excited to feel the sun on their faces and the breeze in their hair as they stood there waiting for someone to teach them where to go and what to do.
Along the way they made friends and established rivalries – some of them friendly, some of them not so much. At times those friendships and rivalries shifted as they joined different teams or went to different schools.
But always, always, there was the thrill of competition and the quest to get a little bit better so they could feel the thrill of external praise or the inner satisfaction of a job well done.
From those first days where they could barely lift the ball or the bat or take it in the right direction to the days when others marveled at their skill, they kept at it, game after game, week after week, year after year. Sometimes that meant waking up at zero dark thirty in a strange hotel room to get to a distant field, spending 12, 14, 16 hours at the ballpark through chilly, damp, foggy mornings followed by blistering heat followed by cool, damp night air, all in search of a championship trophy, ring, bat, or other memento.
Then, when it was done, making that long car ride home.
Or it meant enduring an uncomfortable, noisy ride in a bus that smelled like sweat socks, stale snacks, and the occasional vomit to play in freezing cold temperatures on rain-soaked or snow-soaked fields for the opportunity to represent their school and perhaps earn a conference title or perhaps a state tournament berth.
On the coaching side there was all the preparation and planning and looking for new drills or new ideas or new techniques that could give your team an edge. There were the unseen hours taking care of a field, planning lineups, reviewing stats, pricing and purchasing equipment, taking part in live or online coaching clinics, all to have every move you made on the field questioned by everyone who hadn’t done any of that.
For the parents it was all the hours spent sitting on a bucket or hitting ground/fly balls or pitching batting practice or chasing after balls that had been hit or driving one child to practice or lessons while trying to manage everything for your other children. Then feeling your breath catch and your blood pressure soar every time your favorite player toed the rubber or had a ball hit to her or stepped up to the plate.
Sometimes it seemed like it would never end. Yet now it has, or is about to.
The last out comes to us all. Some experience it sooner, some experience it later, but we all experience it.
When that final out comes to you, my advice is not to just rush off like it’s another game in a long line of games, because it’s not. It’s the end of a part of your life that was probably pretty important.
Before you pack up, take a little time to look around the dugout and the sidelines and experience as many of the sensations as you can one more time.
The refreshing touch of a cool breeze on a hot, hot late spring or summer day.
The sound of cleats clattering on concrete and scrunching in the dirt as the team goes to take the field. The music of balls popping sharply into gloves or cracking off a bat. Someone yelling “heads up” as you frantically try to avoid being plunked by an errant foul ball from another field. Or the low din of dozens of camp chairs and pop-up tents all being folded up at once.
The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers grilling in the distance, that whiff of a quick afternoon rain shower making its way toward you, or that unmistakable aroma of a new glove or fresh ball. Not to mention the fragrance of freshly mowed grass intertwined with the morning or evening dew, lying like a comfy blanket over the entire area.
Mostly, though, take a moment to remember all the souls that touched yours, and that you in turn touched, along the way.
Some may have been along for the whole journey. Others may have been there for a fleeting moment.
In reality, though, most were only there in your life because you shared a common interest in fastpitch softball. How lucky you were to have spent time with each and every one of them – even the ones you didn’t particularly care for.
Because they all had an impact, large or small, on shaping you into the person you are today.
You will move on to other challenges and adventures happy times and sad times, triumphs and failures. You may even go on to play other sports. I hear pickleball is popular now.
But there will never be anything like the thrill of competing (or watching your child/team compete) for all the marbles on a fastpitch softball team.
Hope you enjoyed it while it was happening. And if you’re not quite to that point, you can also take heed to appreciate it now, in the midst of all the craziness, because one day you’ll miss it all.
To all of those who have played, watched, or coached their final out, or are about to, I salute you. Thanks for your contributions to this great sport, and good luck to you whatever the future brings!
Just remember to take that last look around before you leave. You’ll be glad you savored the moment.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
Dugout photo by Nelson Axigoth on Pexels.com
6 Benefits of Playing Under Sandlot Rules
Let me start by acknowledging that today’s ballplayers are far more technically skilled and athletically knowledgeable than they were when I was young lad, and even when I started coaching more than 25 years ago. If you go out to a ballpark this weekend, even to a local B-level or C-level 10U tournament, you’re likely to see a higher level of overall performance than you would have even 10 years ago.
Don’t even get me started on how crazy good high school and college softball players are today.
We can attribute a lot of that growth, in my opinion, to the tremendous amount of information that is available to coaches today as well as the tremendous amount of time teams and individuals invest in structured, organized training sessions and practices. With competition levels already high and improving each year, you’re either getting better or getting left behind.
Yet for all their technical prowess, I think today’s players may be missing out on a few things that are equally important to their level of play – and probably more important to their development as human beings: the benefits of playing under what’s called “sandlot rules,” i.e., unstructured playtime.
Following are some of the benefits that could be gained by downsizing the organized team activities (OTAs) and giving players more time to play under “sandlot rules.” And not just softball but whatever games those players want to play at the time.
1. Acquiring decision-making capabilities
In OTAs, coaches or other adults decide what players are going to do pretty much every minute of every practice or game. They determine who’s going to play where, what order they will bat in, what strategies they’re going to follow, even what uniforms to wear, right down to the color of socks.
Under sandlot rules all of those decisions have to be made by the players themselves. They pick the teams (if teams are needed), agree on the rules, determine what equipment is needed, set the boundaries for play, etc.
Whatever needs to happen to get game or activity going, players get to decide on them. If they can’t decide, that leads to the benefit of…
2. Learning conflict resolution
Let’s say the players want to play a game of softball, but there are no lines on the field. A batter hits a ball down the line and the defense says it’s foul while the offense maintains it was a fair ball.
With no umpire to look to, the players on both sides will have to come to a conclusion. If neither side can convince the other of its position, the likely outcome is the ol’ do-over.
No matter what they determine, however, they will have worked the problem and decided on an outcome. Or they won’t agree on one, in which case the game is probably over and no one gets to play anymore.
Either way, they will have learned a valuable lesson about the value of cooperation and compromise to achieve a higher goal (in this case continuing to play).
3. Developing problem-solving skills
Certainly the situation in point #2 also involves an element of problem-solving too, but I’m thinking of more general problems for this benefit.
For example, let’s say there are enough players to have 7 on each side. But a full team requires 9 on each.
When I was a kid and that was the case, we would close an outfield section (usually right field except for me, who hits left-handed) and have the team on offense supply a catcher. It was understood that the supplied catcher was obligated to perform as if he was a member of the defensive team and do all he could to get the out if there was a play at home, or backup any plays out on the field.
If you only had 4 or 5 kids available to play, you’d switch to a different game such as 500, which incidentally is where most of us learned to fungo, helping build hand/eye coordination and bat control. Whatever the issue is, under sandlot rules there are no adults to solve the problem even make suggestions so it forces the players to work together to overcome any obstacles themselves.
What a concept.
4. Improving athleticism
There is a lot of talk these days about the benefits of playing multiple sports instead of specializing early, especially in terms of cross-training muscle groups. Heck, I’ve written about it myself.
But you don’t need OTAs to get that benefit. It’s all available on the sandlot, or at least your local park.
Want to improve speed, quickness, and agility? Playing tag is a great way to do it, especially if you have two people serving in the “it” role. Nothing brings out competitiveness and causes people of all ages to run fast, cut hard, and move their bodies in impossible ways like trying to avoid being tagged. Remember, though, to let them set the rules.
Want to build some upper body strength? Go find some monkey bars or something else to climb and let them go wild.
They’ll do it with an enthusiasm you don’t usually see during formal pull-up sessions. Add a competitive element of some sort and they’ll drive themselves to exhaustion.
Just be sure to avoid the temptation to tell them what to do. Simply put them in the situation, or better yet encourage them to do it in their free time, and you’ll all reap the rewards on and off the field.
5. Elevating their mental health
Mental health among young people has reached a crisis level, and the decline of independent activity is often cited as one of the leading causes. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 4 in 10 high school students (40%) said they had a persistent feeling of sadness or hopelessness, and 2 in 10 (20%) said they seriously contemplated suicide while 1 in 10 (10%) actually attempted it.
This was a significant increase over the same questions asked just 10-15 years prior. And even more younger students are exhibiting these tendencies at the same time school days and years are getting longer, homework is increasing, and recess time is being cut to just 29.6 minutes a day on average – if they get recess at all.
Giving players of all ages more unstructured free time to “just go and play” may help turn this trend around, resulting in happier, healthier, more well-adjusted, and more productive young people – and adults.
6. Letting them have fun
Always remember that fastpitch softball is a game, and games are meant to be fun. Nobody signs up thinking “boy, I hope we do a lot of work today.”
In pretty much every survey of young athletes you’ll find, the #1 reason they quit sports (often around the age of 13 or 14) is that they’re not fun anymore. Inject more fun in their lives and we can keep more of our players playing longer.
Back to the sandlot
The game of fastpitch softball requires a lot of learning, both on the mental and physical sides, so it’s easy for coaches and parents to not want to “waste time on nonsense.” But that nonsense may be exactly what your players need to perform their best.
Give them the opportunity to get back to the sandlot now and then and you’ll help enhance their overall experience with sports – and help them become the adults they’re meant to be one day.
The Path to Improvement Is Rarely Linear
So you decided to start taking your daughter to private lessons, or to buy an online package, or do a bunch of research and teach her yourself. That’s terrific – way to step up and help your daughter get better at the sport she loves.
Now it’s time to set some realistic expectations. In my experience, when people think of improvement in sports through lessons, more practice time, etc. they tend to expect it will look like this:
When the reality is it’s far more likely to look like this:
So why can’t it be more linear in the classic “hockey stick” style, especially if you’re putting in the work? Why does it seem like it always has be be two steps forward and one step back?
A lot of it comes down to two things: human nature, and how the human body (and the brain that controls it) works.
Humans are amazingly adaptable to their environments. We can learn how to accomplish incredible things based on what our goals are.
Once we’ve learned how to do those things, however, we tend to internalize the movements that got us there. Which means we stick with them even if the goals have changed.
Let’s take a young pitcher, for example. All her coach really wants from his/her young pitchers is for them to get the ball over the plate, i.e., throw strikes.
“We can’t defend a walk,” the coach keeps calling out, so the pitcher starts using her body in a way that allows her to accomplish the #1 goal – throwing strikes. Doesn’t matter if the movement to do so is efficient, or yields a pitch velocity that makes everyone say “Wow!” or even results in many strikeouts or weak hits.
As long as there are no walks the coach is happy, and the pitcher is a star who gets the bulk of the innings.
Sooner rather than later, however, that strategy is no longer good enough. The pitcher is getting pounded by hitters who can blast a meatball coming over the heart of the plate, so she needs to learn to throw harder, hit spots, and eventually spin the ball too if she wants to continue getting innings.
Unfortunately, the movement patterns that made her so effective at age 9 or 10 are not very conducive to throwing hard or hitting spots or spinning the ball. So she now has to learn new movement patterns.
Only she’s kind of locked into the old ones, and since her body and brain remember that those patterns were great at accomplishing the goals associated with the pitching motion at that time they’re having a hard time giving them up. We are a product of our habits, after all.
As a result, the pitcher’s performance could drop down for a while as she attempts to replace old movement patterns with new ones. Sure, the new patterns will yield more success in the long term by making her movements more efficient and effective, which will make it easier to perform at a higher level.
But it could be discouraging as she sees that temporary performance dip while her body re-learns how to move to accomplish something that used to seem easy and familiar.
The same is true with every aspect of fastpitch softball – hitting, overhand throwing, fielding, even running and sliding. Because before you can achieve any type of improvement you first have to change what you’re already doing, no matter how successful it has been in the past, and change is hard.
At this point you may be wondering if there is a statute of limitations on the backward steps. After all, once you get to a certain level of competence, or even excellence, shouldn’t it be easier to just keep going up without hitting a plateau or (gasp!) seeing performance go down?
No, for the same reasons it’s a problem in the beginning stages. In order to drive improvement, even for those at the highest levels, you have to change something you’re doing, because as the adage says, if you do what you always did you get what you always got.
In fact, it may be tougher at the higher levels because there is more to lose. A player has to decide if the potential improvement to be gained is worth the risk of a temporary loss of performance – especially if that performance has been serving the player well.
Doing something different in a high-pressure situation is likely to result in at least a slight loss in confidence due to its unfamiliarity, which leads to not putting in the same level of effort as the player would with the more comfortable movements. She may also lose some energy temporarily because she now has to think about what she’s doing rather than simply executing the movements at 100% effort with no thought involved.
That’s why high-level players usually make these changes in the offseason.
A high-level player won’t take on that risk, though, without a clear view of the rewards on the other side. She will also have been through the process before too, so should understand the ups and downs of continuous performance improvement.
Sure, it would be great if making changes automatically resulted in an immediate improvement in performance. While that can happen sometimes, more often than not it takes some time (and some missteps) before the benefits of all that work show up on the radar or in the box score.
But just like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, if you put in the work on the right things, and remain patient, the reward will be there on the other side.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
Butterfly Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
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