Using the front knee
Like most other pitching coaches, I have always put a lot of emphasis on having a strong push off the pitching rubber. I encouraged pitchers (and continue to do so) to bend that pivot leg knee, get into the ground, and fire out hard.
But when I videotaped my students and watched them back in slow motion I noticed an interesting phenomenon. Despite their working hard to drive off the rubber with the back leg, it seemed more like they were simply reaching out with their front legs until the back leg pushed them off. In other words, the legs were getting spread pretty far apart, and they really didn’t come off the pitching rubber until the arm was past the 12:00 position. So even though some of them were getting out 6′ to 7′, it still didn’t look like it was as powerful a drive as I was looking for.
There were a few exceptions, though. I notice a few, especially the older girls, were already coming forward off the rubber by the time their arms reached the 12:00 position. Determined to figure out what the difference was, I dutifully sat in front of my computer, running video clips back and forth, until the light bulb came on.
The difference was in the stride leg knee. On the girls who were coming forward before or at 12:00, the stride leg knee was firing out like a front snap kick in karate, with the foot following afterwards. On those who weren’t getting out there, the foot was leading, creating more of a reach than a pull.
Seeing that, I stood up to try it. My family is used to me throwing pitches on the field in my mind so they barely take interest, except my wife who has noticed some banana-shaped marks in the carpeting in the family room and on the new tile floor in the basement. The things we do for fastpitch softball!
In any case, what I found when I worked harder on driving the knee out is that it engaged the muscles in my ample behind and helped pull me off the pitching rubber more quickly and powerfully. The more I drove that front knee, the faster and more powerful the movement became. I had to speed up my arm circle in order to keep up, and that’s usually a good thing.
Since I liked it I started introducing the concept of driving the front knee to my students. While it sometimes actually makes them slower at first because they’re not used to it, once they get the hang of it they show speed improvements — both visibly and against the radar gun. Driving that front knee out there can add 2 mph almost instantly, and probably more as it becomes a habit. It definitely helps engage the entire body more.
This is not anything I’ve seen taught anywhere specifically. About the closest I’ve seen is Michele Smith talking about stepping over a box as you go forward. But I have seen a few pitchers execute that instruction without adding to their power. The nice thing about talking about driving the front knee is that it is something you can demonstrate.
Tell the pitcher she needs to drive her front knee out and then up. Then grab behind her knee and gently but quickly pull it in that direction. They’ll get the idea soon enough, especially when they feel their whole body go forward when it goes out.
The middle joint is the key to many athletic movements. Looks like this is one more.
A book every player and coach should read
Often times on this blog and other sites we talk about various physical skills and how to execute them. That’s important, of course. But nothing can get in the way of one’s mechanics faster than a player’s own head.
Anyone who has played fastpitch softball or baseball knows it’s a game built around failure. There are many, many ways and opportunities to fail, and as they say a hitter who fails 70% of the time is an All-Star. Knowing that, the objective isn’t to avoid failure — you can’t — but instead learn how to deal with it when it inevitably occurs.
Years ago at the National Sports Clinics I had the opportunity to see a presentation by Ken Ravizza. The book he wrote with Tom Hanson, Heads Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, is probably the single best book on the subject. Sports psychologists such as Jeff Janssen refer to it often. In the book you’ll find a discussion of what happens in our little brains to make us go all goofy. More importantly, though, you’ll find a series of techniques to deal with them. Techniques, by the way, which have been adopted by many of the top-level athletes.
I had the opportunity to put these principals into action just the other night. I’d watched one of my students pitch in a game where whatever could go wrong did go wrong. Her high school team is not very good, even by high school team standards. She started having some control trouble, and as will often happen that’s about the time her teammates decided to go brain dead. I could see her getting more and more uptight, which caused her to lose both her mechanics and her rhythm, which of course caused her to get wilder and wilder. When she did get the ball over and it got hit, easy outs turned into baserunners, further adding to the frustration. Every pitcher, and every pitcher’s parent, has been there.
So we worked some on her mechanics the other night, but since they were looking pretty good overall I really shifted the focus on her mental game. I showed her how to determine where she is mentally (relaxed, confident, uptight, worried, out of control), and then gave her some of the Heads Up Baseball techniques to use when she’s feeling the pressure. We then applied them in the course of the lesson. If she threw three pitches in a row for balls I would make her use a relaxation technique. Darned if the next pitch wasn’t a strike every time.
Heads Up Baseball costs just $10.17 in paperback at Amazon.com. Most of us spend more than that on a pair of batting gloves. If you’re at all serious about the game, use the link above to go there directly and purchase this book. It’ll do more for you or your players than the most expensive gear you can buy.
The sacrifice bunt is overrated
Just got done checking out another article over at Girls Fastpitch Softball. This one was on the sacrifice bunt and how hitters aren’t being taught to bunt anymore.
Now, I like Dave over there, even if he does get a bit long-winded, and most of the time I agree with what he has to say. I even agree with a lot of this article — particularly on the need to develop the short game all the way up and down the lineup. But I do have to say I disagree with his evaluation of the sac bunt v. bunting for a hit.
Personally, I think it is one of the most over-rated and over-used tactics in softball. It causes you to lose something with not all that much advantage in long run. The thing you’re losing is an out.
If you’re playing for a 1-0 win, or even a 2-1 win, runs themselves aren’t really the key. Opportunities to score runs are the keys. And the currency of the game is outs. Just ask Billy Beane, or anyone who has really looked at the stats.
In a seven inning game, you have 21 outs to work with. No more, no less. If your first runner gets on base in all seven innings and you sac bunt her over in all seven innings, you’ve just given up 1/3 of your precious outs to move that runner to second — assuming you are successful each time. Statistically, you have now increased your chances of scoring that runner by 2%. (IIRC, the difference in scoring a runner from first with no outs v. a runner from second with one out is 43% v. 45%.) That seems like a bad trade to me.
Let’s break it down into one inning. You sac bunt that runner over to second, and now have two outs left to get her home. Unless she’s fast enough to steal third, somehow you have to advance her to third with a base hit or another bunt. There aren’t always a lot of base hits in softball, so you may have to bunt her over again, especially against a dominant pitcher. That’s two outs. All it takes is a strikeout, a popup, a weak ground ball, or a towering fly ball that gets caught to lose that chance. Even with the base hit, a strikeout and a pop-up kill your inning.
If you bunt for a hit, though, you can have runners on first and second with no outs. Now, a sac bunt can move both runners up and you have two chances to score at least one run. Even a ground ball to the infield could mean a run with only one out if you’re aggressive.
The key, of course, is being able to bunt for a hit. And that’s where I do agree with Dave. It seems like that ability to get the bunt down when it’s needed is being lost. A top-level player should be able to sit back until the last moment, get into position, and bunt the top of the ball to get it down. If she’s out she’s out, but at least she made the attempt to preserve that out and put her team into a better position.
One of the most interesting examples of a sac bunt backfiring came in the 2005 World Cup championship game. It was USA v Japan. The USA had runners on first and second with no one out. Stacey Nuveman, their best power hitter, came to the plate. Stacey was the DH because of an ankle or foot injury which limited her mobility.
Coach Candrea gave her the sac bunt sign to everyone’s surprise, and she fouled the first one off. The sign came in again and this time she executed it perfectly. The trouble was, the third baseman committed to fielding it early and practically caught the ball off her bat. She got the ball, wheeled and fired to the SS covering third to get the lead runner. The SS then fired across the diamond to first, where they easily doubled up the hobbling Nuveman. So with their best power hitter at the plate, USA went from runners at first and second with no outs to a runner at second with two outs. Not a very good exchange in my book.
Rather than “playing it safe” by having the hitter give herself up, I’d say put more emphasis on successfully executing the surprise bunt and give yourself the opportunity to save an out. You may find you need that out by the time the game is over.
The Season of Miracles
To most of the world, the Season of Miracles occurs in December, when Christmas, Channukah, Qwanzaa, and other offshoots of the Winter Solstice come together to fill all us with peace on earth, goodwill toward men (and women), too much turkey, and an overwhelming desire to save an extra 5% by waking up at 4:30 for an early bird sale.
In the softball world, though, we are currently in the midst of the Season of Miracles. It’s that time when players (and their parents) realize they haven’t touched a ball since last July or August and suddenly seek out private lessons in the hopes that three weeks of instruction will make up for all those nights spent IMing friends and watching One Tree Hill reruns.
The official start of the Season of Miracles is late February, just before high school tryouts. It generally lasts through mid-May, by which time pretty much all decisions about playing levels and time have been made and the season is pretty much a done deal. Even the ones that haven’t started yet.
I have said this before and will say it again: no coach has any magic pills that will suddenly make a player better. None that I know of can simply perform a “laying of the hands on your head” and drive vast improvement (although I’ve known a few who thought they could). The truth is learning any skill takes hard work and time. The more you use of the former, the less you will need of the latter. But it’s rare that an athlete can take several months off and then make vast improvements in three weeks. Instead, what actually happens is that the athlete is working hard and 90% of the way there already, and just needs a little redirection to maximize what she is doing.
I always say I wish I could impart all the knowledge a pitcher or hitter needs in one lesson. If I could, I would charge $1,000 or more a lesson and there would be a mile long line down the street waiting to see me. Unfortunately, such is not the case.
If you’re looking for a sudden miracle, my recommendation is to head out to Lourdes, France, where allegedly such things occur (although I have yet to hear of a fastball going from 50 to 60 mph as the result of a visit there; I don’t think the Virgin Mary fancies herself a softball coach). If you really want to get good, start making your plans now to get into lessons beginning in the fall. You’ll be amazed at what a difference a year makes.
What it takes to succeed
Everyone likes to talk about what it takes to succeed, whether in softball or in life. One of the words used frequently is dedication. Yet does dedication really mean? Does that mean you attend all team practices and games? Do you work on your own? Is it something else?
Last night I saw a great example of what dedication truly means. My last pitching lesson of the night was at 9:30. It was for a high school sophomore named Erica. She was there on time, but there was something in the way she was warming up that made me ask a question. I asked if she’d had a game earlier in the evening.
Yes, she and her dad responded. Then they told me the game ran nine innings, resulting in a 1-0 loss on a throwing error. I have to admit I did a double-take before asking them, “And you still came here?”
“Yes,” the dad replied, “although we did talk about not doing it.” Ultimately, though, I’m sure the decision was left to Erica, and she decided she wasn’t satisfied with a nine-inning two-hitter. She wanted to come in and work on her screwball, and this was her only chance for the week.
Not a lot of players in the same situation would’ve made that decision. You could certainly justify blowing off a pitching lesson after throwing nine innings in falling temperatures already. I wouldn’t have blamed them. But those who really want more will look at the options, fight through the fatigue, and work on getting better.
She hasn’t been my student for long, but I can see why Erica has achieved the success she has. Makes me proud to be a part of her softball education.
Prior knowledge
Back in January I posted a comment about Cubs pitcher Mark Prior and his gall in asking for a raise. Yesterday I read that his rehab isn’t coming along as expected and he is being optioned to the Cubs’ AAA farm club in Iowa. Amazing isn’t it?
He had to know he wasn’t doing very well when he asked for more money. Guess he was trying to get as much out of the gravy train he’s been riding since 2003 before the Cubs’ organization figured out that there was no one behind the curtain anymore. At least the Cubs will be able to get an occasional inning out of Kerry Wood before he finally becomes a memory as well.
It’s time to face the music. Prior is done. Don’t count on him coming back to be your fifth starter, much less your first. In the five stages of death the first is denial. Time for the Cubs organization to move past that stage and into anger — anger that they’ve wasted this many years waiting for a rehab that’s never going to happen. In fact, Robert Downey Jr. has a better chance of rehab being successful than Prior. Sad, but true.
The difference determination makes
Had another one of those experiences last night that goes to prove once again that it’s not the teacher, it’s the student that makes the success.
One of my pitching students, a young lady named Rae Ann, has been working on learning the screwball all winter. She actually has the spin down, and has had it for a while. But she has been unable to get her arm to go along the right path to get it over the plate. She has consistently been well inside on her throwing side (lefty pitcher).
Last night the pitch was 95% there. A few missed inside still, but she was getting a lot of them over with good movement. Her dad told me she went out for three hours to work on it one day over the weekend, then spent another hour outside the next day doing the same thing. She had decided that she was going to get this pitch, come hell or high water, and darned if she didn’t!
Learning new things, whether it’s a pitch, hitting, playing a musical instrument, or even riding a bicycle doesn’t happen overnight. It only happens when you are determined to make it happen. Once you make that decision to achieve a goal, and that nothing will stop you, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It was exciting to see Rae Ann throwing that pitch. I’m sure it will serve her well this summer. More importantly, though, the lesson she learned about working at something you really want will serve her well long after her softball days are done.
Going from the cage to the field
One of the most frustrating things for both coaches and parents is watching your player kick butt in the batting cages, ripping balls left and right, only to go into a game and wimp out. You know they can hit. You’ve seen it. But they don’t. Why?
A lot of it comes down to consequences. In the batting cages, there are no consequences. If you miss a ball, you get another one. There’s no runners on base to be brought around, no coaches or parents screaming encouragement and/or advice, no win or loss at stake.
In the game, however, there are all kinds of consequences. And of course, with softball being a game built on failure, those consequences can be dire. You can strike out leaving runners on base. You can pop up, or ground into a double play. The more a player thinks about it, the more fearsome it becomes. And the more fear of consequences there is, the more players start tensing up, swinging to avoid a mistake rather than make a play.
It can be difficult to overcome, but not impossible. The key is to encourage hitters to be aggressive and not worry about outcomes. Instead of trying to avoid mistakes, they need to go into each at bat with the intent to hit the ball hard, consequences be damned. Coaches need to be sure they create an atmosphere where hitters can focus on doing their best without worrying about being yelled at for “failing.” Remember that even a strikeout can be a great at-bat if the hitter has taken the right approach.
Keep hitters focused on swinging the bat, and playing the game one pitch at a time. Soon you’ll see that great batting cage swing out on the field.
Getting a better follow-through on throws
Throwing is one of those odd things that seems like it should be natural, but for many girls it’s not. For whatever reason they tend to use their arms only instead of following through completely for maximum power. When they do receive some instruction on following through it gets somewhat better, but often it is awkward as well.
One way to try to get a better follow-through is to have them replace the front shoulder with the back shoulder. In other words, when they throw, their throwing-side shoulder should finish where the glove side shoulder started. This is assuming, of course, that they turned sideways to begin the throw.
Once they get the idea of shoulder follow-through, you can also have them bring their back leg in line with the front leg. This complete use of the body should have them gaining more power and speed, and better accuracy too.
The biggest thrill an instructor can have
Well, at least this instructor. Every time I teach someone a new pitch and they get it to work consistently I have to admit I get a little charge out of it.
The latest example was last night. I’ve been working with a girl named Shannon for a couple of (or maybe a few) weeks now on developing a curve ball. She’s throwing a good drop and an excellent change, both with very good mechanics, so it seemed like a pitch that would break off the plate when she’s ahead would be just the ticket.
We went through the usual learning steps — starting with the spin (using the frisbee, then a ball), drilling it from close range, then getting back into a full pitch. She’s been working a lot on getting it to spin correctly, which is a combination of wrist movement and overall body control.
Last night we started up on it again, and at first we were getting either bullet spins or more of a 12 to 6 spin like a fastball or drop. Then all of a sudden it clicked for her. She started getting side spin, then faster side spin, and before you knew it she had a pitch that looked like it was going to be an outside fastball until right before the plate then bam! Off it goes, about a ball and a half off the corner. It was a thing of beauty.
I’m not sure who was the most excited — Shannon, her dad Randy, or me! But it was pretty cool. I love it when a plan comes together — and the student actually works on what we do in between lessons!
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 