Category Archives: Pitching
Great article from Cindy Bristow on pitch calling
Just had to share this article from Cindy Bristow at Softball Excellence. It’s about the four biggest mistakes you can make when calling pitches.
Cindy really hits the nail on the head! No surprise there – she’s brilliant. And very realistic when it comes to the subtleties of coaching fastpitch softball.
I have certainly seen all of the mistakes she mentions made at one time or another. The first two in particular – not knowing your pitcher’s capabilities overall and THAT DAY, and calling YOUR favorite pitches instead of the pitcher’s best ones.
One major example was what happened to a former student of mine when she went to pitch in college. The team’s pitching coach (who was maybe a second-year coach) didn’t seem too interested in helping the pitcher become the best she could be. Instead, it was almost like she went out of her way to make her look bad.
The two biggest mistakes were 1) not calling the girl’s best pitch (a dynamite curveball) because the coach preferred screwballs and 2) calling almost nothing but screwballs, thereby making the pitches predictable. This pitcher had a great screwball too, and could survive on it for a couple of inning. But after a steady diet of them college hitters figured out if they backed off the plate a little bit they could feast on them.
And even then the PC wouldn’t call a curve, or a rise, or change, or a drop. Instead she’d let her get pounded, then have the coach take her out because “she wasn’t effective.”
I don’t know of any pitcher anywhere who can throw the same pitch time after time and be effective. Even the greats mix it up. But when you insist on making a pitcher one-dimensional it doesn’t take long for good hitters to make them look bad.
Absolutely check out this article, if for no other reason than to make sure you (or your PC) isn’t falling into one of these traps. And be sure to sign up for Cindy’s newsletter while you’re there. Tons of great information lands right in your email every couple of weeks.
The chicken/egg of breaking in a new pitcher
One of the toughest things in softball from both sides of the equation (player/parents and coach) is what it takes to break in a new pitcher. She can practice and prep any way she wants, but pitching in practice isn’t the same as pitching in a game.
For one thing, now every pitch counts – and the pressure of bad pitches builds. When a pitcher is in learning mode, she can throw a few bad pitches in order to get better without suffering any real consequences. In a game, of course, bad pitch one becomes ball one. Bad pitch two becomes ball two. And if that pitcher is still finding herself, the next pitch will likely have
less to do with the mechanics she’s been working on and more to do with getting a strike some way, some how.
After all, she may fear letting the team down, and not getting a chance to try again for a good, long while. Still, parents realize the only way she’s going to get better is to get innings in. Even if they’re rough ones.
On the other side, there’s the coach. He/she may want to give this pitcher an opportunity, especially if she’s been working hard to learn. But he/she has to balance that against the needs of the rest of the team. You don’t want to fall too far behind due to walks and wild pitches just to develop a pitcher. On the other hand, if he/she will need her in the future (or the coach thinks she has potential), it’s important to give her those game reps now. Even if it hurts.
Sometimes the best situation for that developing pitcher is for the coach to have no choice. If you only have one, or at least one who’s working at it, you have to go with what you’ve got. That means taking some lumps early-on and hoping that pitcher gets better quickly as a result. Of course, that may make the rest of the team unhappy, and in this day and age the coach may find a couple of the better players looking for another team to play on rather than suffering through the losses.
One thing coaches can do is start by giving that pitcher one inning, and staying with her no matter what – unless she has clearly had a mental breakdown (at which point it’s cruel to leave her in). Let her get that one good inning in, and then put in someone with more experience. Try to build up to two, then three innings and so on.
By the time she gets up to three good innings in a row you should be able to put her in a game with the intention of leaving her in for however long you normally leave pitchers in. If she gets into trouble you can still take her out, but now she has a solid foundation and an idea that you want her to go more.
The hard part, of course, is getting to that point. It can get ugly at times. But it’s kind of a chicken/egg thing. To develop she needs to pitch in games. But to pitch in games, she needs to develop. At some point you’re just going to have to decide to go for it.
I’ve known (and worked with) plenty of pitchers who started out rough but through determination, persistence and a lot of hard work went on to blow away the kids who were ahead of them initially. At some, point, though, someone believed in them enough to give them a shot. And then another one. And then another one. And along the way, they saw the improvement and encouraged those pitchers to keep going. At which point those coaches reaped some pretty big rewards.
What have you found as far as breaking in a new pitcher? Do you have any rules you set out or processes you follow? Do you start with practice games/friendlies, then move them into pool play? Let us know what’s worked for you in the comments below.
A quarter for the release of a back of the hand changeup
There are all different types of changeups. Some are more effective than others, and some suit a particular pitcher better than others. 
Most of the time I teach a backhand change, which requires the pitcher to drag the ball through the release zone knuckles-first. But sometimes that one doesn’t work. So the backup plan is the back of the hand change.
With this pitch, you bring it down normally, then spin the hand around so the little finger is facing the plate, with the back of your hand facing your thigh.
One of the challenges of the back of the hand changeup is learning to get the hand spun around at the proper time so the ball actually does come out the other side. If you don’t it just becomes a bad fastball, or maybe a handshake change at best.
Young pitchers in particular don’t always understand how quickly the hand needs to turn, so here’s an activity they can do to get the hang of it. All they need to do is take a quarter (or a half dollar or a silver dollar, anything round and decently sized) and spin it counter-clockwise on the table (for a right handed pitcher; a lefty spins it clockwise).
The idea is to get the coin spinning as fast as you can while turning the hand in the proper direction. Pitchers can challenge themselves to see how long they can keep the coin spinning with a tight rotation.
A little time spent indoors on a rainy day can make a huge difference out on the field.
Congratulations to Kirsten Stevens on her record-setting win
Saw this little news item as I was checking some scores tonight and couldn’t let it go by without a special shout-out. Congratulations to Kirsten Stevens on not only opening the SoCon tourney with a 9-0 shutout, but also for setting the Mercer University all-time record for wins in a season at 24. My guess is 24 isn’t going to hold up any longer than it takes 
Kirsten to pitch her next game.
I’m excited about this because Kirsten was a former student of mine. I’m pretty sure she was in 8th grade when I first started working with her. She came to me through the recommendation of her coach Rick Cartright (I was also teaching his daughter Stephanie at the time).
I had a feeling she’d do well from the first time I saw her. Her technique was raw, but you didn’t have to be an expert to see there was thunder in her left arm. I remember catching for her a couple of times and she was definitely the poster child for throwing a “heavy” ball – the kind of pitch that when it hits the glove you feel it.
More important, though, Kirsten is a quality human being – kind, humble and funny. We always had a good time in our lessons. But of course she also worked hard in and out of them. I’m sure that has carried on to make her the outstanding pitcher she is today.
So congrats Kirsten and keep up the good work! Maybe we’ll finally have that lunch this summer when you get back. Oh, and sorry about the photo – it was the only one I had!
Update 5/7/15: I was right about that record. She added another shutout today. The record is now 25!
Beware of an over-reliance on gimmicks
You see them everywhere – in magazines, on websites, in YouTube videos and everywhere else fastpitch softball folks look for information. “They” are all the devices that promise to make your players better.
I call them “gimmicks” because often times that’s how they’re presented. The impression you’re given is that for $29.95 (plus shipping & handling), or $79.95 or $249.95 you can buy better performance. Gang, I can tell you that it just ain’t so.
I’m not saying these devices can’t help. Many of them can be useful in the right hands. But in order for yours to be the right hands, you first need to understand how a particular skill needs to be performed, and to a reasonably deep level.
A favorite example of mine comes from tryouts a few years ago. Three other coaches and I were observing pitching tryouts for a 16U team. One of the other coaches had a device that measures the spin rate of the ball and was using it to measure the revolutions per second of a pitcher’s curve ball.
“Ooooh” one of them exclaimed as a pitcher threw a pitch. “21.” “22.” And so on. They were all so focused on the device and what it supposedly told them that not a single one of them was watching the actual pitch. If they had, they would’ve noticed that the “curve ball” was spinning pretty close to 12 to 6 (fastball or drop ball spin) and wasn’t moving at all. Even down.
By the standards of the device, this pitcher was throwing an awesome curve. But in the real world, she wasn’t even throwing a decent one. And last time I checked, hitters hit pitches thrown in the real world.
As an instructor I see this all the time. Some coaches have an entire bag full of gimmicks, and they just move from one to the next. Especially hitting coaches for some reason. Some I’ve seen just love to bring out the devices.
But if you don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve, the effectiveness of the device is pretty much wasted at worst, or randomly effective at best. It’s like plopping down $300 for the world’s best hammer when what you really need is a $3 screwdriver.
If you really want to help your players/daughter(s) improve you don’t need a duffel bag full of stuff. At least not right away. Instead, first take the time to learn how those skills should be performed. Study college games on TV. Look for video on the Internet. Invest in DVDs and books. Attend training seminars/coaches clinics where an accomplished coach with a history of success breaks down the skill in detail. Go to http://www.discussfastpitch.com and read the discussions there. In other words, first seek out information.
Once you have a feel for what the skill should look like, and how it should be executed, you’ll be in a better position to decide which devices can really help you teach those skills and make improvements in your players and which ones will end up sitting on a shelf on in a duffel bag in your garage collecting dust.
What makes me say that? I have my own collection of devices that I bought when I started coaching, hoping to find the magic one. Some were worthwhile, many were not. The more I learned, the better I was able to see which ones might be helpful and which ones would be relegated to the Island of Misfit Softball Toys.
That goes for choosing a coach too, whether it’s a private instructor or a team coach. Someone who’s pulling out gimmick after gimmick instead of having your daughter work on actual pitching, hitting, fielding, throwing or whatever skill it is she’s trying to learn may not be your best choice. Devices are no substitute for knowledge.
Ultimately the value of a device goes up in direct proportion to your understanding what you’re trying to accomplish with it. Become competent at that first and you’ll make better decisions on how to spend the rest of your cash.
A lesson for softball pitchers everywhere
Today after teaching some lessons I came home and settled in front of the TV to watch a couple of college games. First was Arizona and Oregon State, followed by UCLA and Oregon. (Gotta love the PAC12 network.)
Anytime I have a chance to watch college teams on TV is a good day. But this day was particularly interesting, and not just for the games themselves. It had to do with the number of pitchers I had a chance to watch.
You see, when I first got involved in softball, the standard was pretty much each team had an Ace, and they road that arm for better or for worse. I’m sure top teams had other pitchers, but you rarely saw them or even heard their names mentioned.
Today, however, there was an opportunity to see several pitchers. In the first game Arizona ended up winning 22-2. Oregon State went to the bullpen a couple of times trying to put a stop to the pain. Then in the second game, both UCLA and Oregon used three different pitchers (and UCLA brought back their starter) in a game Oregon finally won 6-4.
Entertaining as it was, it also provided a good lesson to young pitchers (and their parents): everyone has a tough day now and then.
It’s easy to forget that sometimes. A young pitcher walks a couple of hitters, or gives up a few hits, and it’s easy for her to get discouraged. Or for her parents to get upset with her. (You hear parents yelling “c’mon!” at youth games all the time.) I’ve seen pitchers reduced to tears as a result of a tough outing.
Then you watch today’s games. Plenty of walks (including runs walked in), a couple of hit by pitches, and some pretty big hits. Arizona alone hit two grand slams, and hit for the home run cycle – solo, 2-run and 3-run on top of the grand slams. The second game had plenty of struggles on both sides as well.
I’m pretty sure every pitcher who took the circle is getting all or at least much of her college education at major institutions paid for. Theoretically they’re among the best in the country. Yet there they were – walking hitters, hitting batters, serving up meatballs.
And there’s the lesson. It happens to everyone. While you never want to be in that position, sooner or later you probably will. You just need to pick yourself up and remember it’s not the end of the world. Instead, go back out the next time and do better.
And if you’re a parent, try not to live and die by every pitch. You could end up dying a thousand times. Instead, remember your daughter is still learning, and will have bad days now and then. Keep today’s pitchers in mind and give your daughter a break. As long as she keeps working she’ll be okay. The faster you can help her put it behind her, the better off she’ll be.
The Way It Ought To Be
The other night when I got out to my fastpitch softball lessons I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me. My first lesson was with a high school senior pitcher, and her high school coach was there to observe.
I couldn’t have been more pleased! All too often it seems the relationship between private coaches and team coaches – either in high school or travel ball – is contentious. I’m not sure why but it’s not uncommon. 
It’s much smarter for there to be a sense of cooperation. Private coaches work with players on an individual basis far more than a team coach ever will have the time for. They teach specific skills and learn what cues trigger performance and success for those players.
If the player (or her parents) have chosen wisely, that player comes onto the team with an advanced skillset built over many hours of practice. At the same time, there will be players who have put little effort into learning their skills. That is where the team coach can make a difference. Focusing their limited time on raising the skill levels of those players will pay the best dividends. Because, of course, the chain will only be as strong as its weakest links.
In this particular case, I invited the coach into the cage with us so he could hear the instruction and ask questions if he had any. He brought his iPad in with him and shot video as we went along. I periodically asked if he had any questions, and he had the opportunity to see how I interacted with my student/his player.
It was a very pleasant half hour. I left the coach with an open invitation to come back any time. Kudos to the pitcher’s parents for setting it up, incidentally.
Of course, it’s easy for me to take this position as a private coach. But I have also experienced it from the other side. While I wasn’t able to attend an actual lesson, when I was a team coach and had pitchers who were not my students, I would contact their pitching coaches to learn what to look out for, what cues they used and what they were teaching those pitchers. It may not have been what I taught, but that’s ok. I wanted to work with what they had learned and what they were supposed to be doing rather than trying to re-make according to what I teach.
Presumably, everyone – team coach, private coach, parents and the player – want the same thing. They want the pitcher to be successful. Working together is far more likely to make that happen than constant territorial battles.
Pitching, conditioning and mental toughness all in one drill
First of all, let me admit that I haven’t actually used this drill yet. But I was thinking about it the other day and thought it might be a good idea for that softball pitcher who wants to take her game to the infamous “next level.” I have a few girls in mind who I think would benefit from it.
Here are the basics. The pitcher throws a pitch as per usual. It can be any pitch – fastball, change, drop, whatever. After she throws it, rather than the catcher throwing it back the pitcher sprints to the catcher, the catcher hands her the ball, and the pitcher sprints back to the pitching rubber.
Once she is back she can follow her usual routine to throw the next pitch. You don’t want to rush that and risk poor mechanics.
Continue until the pitcher is winded – or maybe one more pitch beyond that.
This drill will do several things. Obviously, it will help the pitcher with conditioning and building up her endurance in a sport-specific way. Pitching is basically a one-step sprint. Having the pitcher sprint down and sprint back (rather than conditioning with long runs) will help encourage that quick burst and quick recovery. It will also help her build length strength to drive off quicker and more powerfully.
It will also help the pitcher gain experience with pitching when she’s tired. All too often in lessons or practice sessions the pitcher goes for a half hour and is done. It’s not too tough to maintain good mechanics in that timeframe, especially if there are water breaks or chats in-between.
But in a game, or especially at a tournament, fatigue can set in quickly. If the pitcher isn’t used to pitching through it she can struggle. Her mechanics can break down and she’ll be doing anything she can to chuck the ball at the plate. Including things that could hurt her physically. But if she learns to pitch through fatigue in a controlled environment she’ll be much better prepared for the afternoon or evening of the last day of a tournament.
Finally, it will help her mental game, showing her that she can push past her normal breaking point and learn to focus even when she’s sucking wind. Especially if, as you should, you insist that her control, speed and movement remain consistent no matter how tired she gets.
Now, this is not the sort of thing I would recommend for every practice session. But every now and then – maybe once a week if she’s practicing regularly – it can make a huge difference.
If you want to give your pitcher a good workout, especially after the holidays as many are preparing for the high school season or the summer, give this drill a try. And be sure to let me know how it goes.
The three-pitch challenge
One of the continuing challenges of learning the game of fastpitch softball is transferring skills from practice to a game. That’s because they’re often two different experiences.
In practice, you get multiple repetitions to execute the same skills. If you miss one, no worries – you have the opportunity to try it again. That makes for a (generally) more relaxed atmosphere.
In games it’s a different story. You fail, and you often pay the consequences for it. That adds a lot of pressure, which makes it even more difficult to execute the skill correctly.
So how do you add game-like pressure to practice? I’ve written about that before here and here and I’m sure in other areas too. You just have to be creative. Here’s another way.
I call it the three-pitch challenge, and it’s a great way to end a good session. Here are the basics: You tell the pitcher you’re going to call three pitches. If she executes all three in a row properly – i.e., right location, right break on a breaking pitch, right speed for a change, etc. – she’s done for the day. But she can’t stop until she gets three in a row. Throw two good ones and blow the third and you start back at zero.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it can get in a pitcher’s head pretty quickly.
One of the pitchers I like to do this with is a very talented girl named Katie. I like doing it because she hates it, by the way, so I know it’s accomplishing what I want it to do. I will say she has gotten better at it over time, which has also translated into her on-field pitching. She is so driven and such a perfectionist that she’d get herself all wound up if a couple of pitches didn’t go right. Now she’s learned to re-channel that energy into making the next pitch better rather than worrying about what the last pitch didn’t do.
When I do this with pitchers I often try to get them an early win. I’ll pick a pitch that I’m pretty confident they’re going to throw properly. I might even go with two high-confidence pitches for the first two. Then I’ll select one that was either a struggle or perhaps was the focus for the day.
For example, let’s say she’s been spotting her fastball for a strike, but wanted to work on her drop ball because it wasn’t working the last game. I’ll go with fastball low and out for pitch one (must be a strike to count). Then perhaps a change for the second pitch, assuming it’s been working pretty well. Then I’ll ask for the drop on the third pitch. That’s going to tell us whether the gains she made that day are going to hold up under pressure.
As a variation you can let the pitcher choose which pitches she’s going to throw. The only caveat is she can’t throw the same pitch twice in a sequence of three. That may seem like it’s easier for the pitcher, but it actually adds more pressure. Since she made the decision of what to throw, the sole responsibility is on her. You’d be surprised what that can do to confidence. Or maybe not if you’ve experienced it.
No matter who is calling the pitches, you have to watch for the point of no return – that point where the pitcher is too deep in her own head. At that point I’ll change the pitch calls to presumably make it easier to get out of this particular session without giving up totally, and be a little liberal on what I’ll accept for the pitch – such as a drop that drops a little, or a fastball that’s a borderline strike.
Three pitches doesn’t sound like much, but when there’s something at stake (like being done with a lesson) it can have a significant impact. Next time you’re looking for an exclamation point on a pitching session, give the three-pitch challenge a try.
Farewell to Ernie Parker
Last week the softball world lost one of its greats – pitching coach Ernie Parker. While he hasn’t been tremendously visible the last few years – which means younger readers may not recognize the name – he was extremely influential in the careers of a lot of pitchers and coaches. Including this one.
Back in the pre-Internet days it was difficult to find quality information on anything softball-related. Which is likely one of the reasons there was such a disparity between teams in Southern California and everywhere else in the country. Ernie’s video series was one of the first to explain the techniques for “California-style” pitching, i.e., explosive speed with dynamic ball movement.
Most of us non-Californians, especially those of us in the Midwest, hadn’t seen anything like it and had no idea how it was done. But through his videos (at that time on VHS) Ernie gave the rest of us some valuable clues on what the techniques should look like and ideas on how to teach them.
Not to say he necessarily got everything right. In those early videos he talked about the importance of “slamming the door,” or bringing the hips around, to finish the pitch. I spoke to him by phone a couple of years ago about that and he said he had long since changed his stance on that, like any good pitching coach would. He also focused a lot on developing the purposeful wrist snap. That aside, though, there was enough great information to help those of us who knew nothing begin to learn.
For me, Ernie was particularly influential in learning to teach the backhand changeup and the curve. His video was the first place I saw a well-disguised changeup, and I still use several of the tips he provided. For the curve, his video was where I learned to use a Frisbee to get a pitcher started. Again, that is something I still do today.
Despite his stature and accomplishments, Ernie always had time for anyone who contacted him, and he would always give you a straight answer. I remember emailing him years ago, lamenting about the lack of effort from a couple of students with good potential and commenting on how nice it must be to be Ernie Parker and have all your students work hard. He responded that he wished it were true, but he had the same issues as everyone else. Some students worked hard and did well, others put in little effort – I supposed counting on his name to make them great.
I have to admit it made me feel a little better about my own efforts, and helped me to understand there’s only so much a coach can do. The player has to want it.
Ernie had a passion for the game, and for helping players become the best versions of themselves they could be. He will be missed by those of us who knew him and/or learned from him. Thanks and farewell, Ernie.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 