Taking a Chess-Like Approach to Softball Skills Development
Every couple of decades or so, something comes along that increases the general public’s interest in chess.
In the 1970s it was Bobby Fischer and his rise to become World Chess Champion. His victory was important because it was during the Cold War, at a time the Russians were dominating the chess scene.
In the 1990s it was the development of Deep Blue, IBM’s supercomputer that became the first to win a chess game and a chess match against a reigning world champion, this time Garry Kasparov. If you like all the processing power you now get in a mobile phone, you can thank Deep Blue for some of it.
Of course, right now it’s the Netflix original series The Queen’s Gambit that is making chess cool. Well, maybe not cool. Being captain of the high school chess club still isn’t nearly as good for your social standing as being captain of the football team or the cheerleading squad. But at least the show makes it a little less nerdy.
But whether you like chess or not (and you can count me in the “not” category for sure, since my idea of playing chess as a kid was to line up the big pieces and throw the pawns at them until they were all knocked off the board) there is a valuable lesson to be learned from how great players approach the game. The lesson is that to be successful in the long term in softball you have to have the right approach.
Beginners and your basic amateurs tend to be very transactional in their approach. They see a piece that’s vulnerable and they take it. If there’s nothing there, they make a move and hope something better shows up on their turn. It’s all about making something happen now.
Chess masters, however, take a different approach. They patiently work to get all the right pieces in all the right places so they can mount a powerful attack at the right time and win the game.
Sometimes that means sacrificing the most powerful piece on the board to gain an advantage. (That’s the queen for those who know even less than I do about chess.)
But that process of putting all the pieces in place before striking is what makes them successful.
That same philosophy applies to improving softball skills. In our sport, we love to measure things. So, say, if a pitcher is increasing her speed on a regular basis there is a temptation to believe all is well. It’s a transactional approach based on immediate gratification.
But the success she’s experiencing right now may end up leading to long-term failure, or at least some unnecessary limitations, if she’s not improving her actual skills. Because poor technique, even when combined with great athleticism, can only take you so far.
To experience real growth and development, sometimes you first have to put all the pieces in place, i.e., break down the movements and replace them with better movements. That can be difficult for some, because it might actually mean regressing in terms of performance measures for a little while.
Take our pitcher again. She’s a big, strong girl who has managed to throw 55 mph by just muscling up and chucking the ball in there.
But she eventually wants to play at a higher level, against better competition, and knows she’s reached the limits of what she can do with what she has, so she decides she needs to improve her technique. What she will probably find, however, is that before her numbers go up they may go down some.
The reason, of course, is that when she was doing what she used to do, she was able to do it with all the enthusiasm and energy she could muster. Now that she’s trying to make changes she can no longer do that.
Her pitching motion may feel awkward and uncomfortable for a little while as she gets used to the new technique. Or maybe the only way she can learn to relax and execute the new motion is go at 70% energy for a little while. Either way, she goes from 55 to 51 and no doubt begins to wonder if she’s doing herself a favor.
If she’s done her homework, however, and selected a coach who knows what he/she is doing (not always a given, unfortunately), the payoff will come – once all the pieces are in place and she can once again put 100% into every pitch.
This approach isn’t just limited to pitching. It’s the same for pretty much anything in softball, and any athletic movement in any sport for that matter.
Making substantive changes is hard because we all want to fall back into our old habits. It takes time and repetition to replace old habits with new ones.
Yes, it would be nice if someone could just say “do this” or “do that” and improvement would come instantly. But it would be a whole lot less satisfying.
If you’re looking to make real improvement in your softball skills, follow the lead of great chess players. Get all your pieces in place, i.e., fix everything that needs fixing, then go for it with everything you’ve got using your new skills.
By keeping your eye on the long game you’ll ultimately experience far more success – and have a lot more fun in the process.
Chess pieces photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com
Nerd photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
Right Now Is A Great Time to Work on the Mental Game
Ask any coach, especially one whose teams play at a high level, how important the mental game is on a scale from one to 10 and you’ll probably get an answer of between eight and 10. Of course if you then follow up by asking them what percentage of practice time they spend working on their team’s mental game, the answer will likely be 10% or less.
Because while everyone will agree the mental game is important, spending practice time fielding ground balls and doing hitting drills, or doing anything physically active, just “feels” more like practice.
Now that Zoom sessions have replaced physical practices in many areas, however, it may be time to re-think what you’re doing. It’s the “making lemonade out of lemons” approach.
When you think about it, Zoom (or whatever communication tool you use) sessions actually lend themselves even better to the mental game than the physical game. With the physical game you have to set up a camera or phone and hope the players stay in range as they move around, doing drills. But with the mental game, most of what you need to do can be accomplished while sitting comfortably in a chair.
For example, you can quiz your team to see how well they understand the rules. The quiz can be an oral quiz on the spot, or you can email a document to all your players, have them fill it out in advance, and then go over the answers on the call. Some technologies even have polling features that can be adapted to a live quiz.
Another way to work the mental game is by doing a screen share of diagramming software such as this one or this one or this one to go over various plays. You can show new plays, or describe the situation and the hit and then ask your players what their responsibilities are.
A Zoom call is also great for helping players learn how to manage stress. There are all kinds of techniques, such as those found in Heads Up Baseball (one of my favorite books on the subject) that you can go over and have your players practice applying. For example, you can teach them the stoplight analogy and how to do it to keep themselves from getting out of control.
Another way to use a Zoom call to good advantage is to have them work on visualization. Studies have shown that visualization can be as powerful as physical practice in helping players improve their physical skills, yet when was the last time you took time out of practice to help your players learn to visualize success? Now you can.
If you need more ideas, just do a quick Internet search on “mental game exercises,” or follow this link to the search I did. There are tons of ideas out there that can help you develop mentally tough players, even from a distance.
Of course, in addition to developing your players’ mental game you can also use Zoom calls to build cohesiveness within the team. There are plenty of games and exercises you can use to help your players get to know each other better and create the sort of bonds that keep high-level teams performing at a high level.
As Steve Martin says in the underrated movie My Blue Heaven, “You guys see a problem. I see an opportunity.”
Take some of those Zoom sessions where you’re struggling to find a way to run a regular practice and focus instead on the mental game. You’ll be amazingly pleased with the results come next spring – or whenever you start playing regularly again.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
The Importance of Developing a Pitching Staff
Today’s post was inspired by a Zoom session with Rick Pauly of Paulygirl Fastpitch and High Performance Pitching. Always important to give credit where it’s due!
The overall topic of the session was on keeping pitchers healthy. But one of the points covered, in my mind, was of particular importance – the need to develop a pitching staff.
We’ve probably all heard the statement that fastpitch softball’s windmill pitching motion is “safe” and “natural.” Implied within that message is “therefore you can pitch the heck out of your pitchers, every inning of every game, without having to worry about them getting hurt.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Just because something is “natural” doesn’t mean it’s “safe.” Mushrooms are natural. But there are whole species of them that are anything but safe.
Pitching a softball, at least when done correctly, requires a series of violent, ballistic movements. Over time, especially when there isn’t enough rest in-between sessions, those movements no matter how mechanically sound can take their toll on bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, etc.
When they do, you end up with injuries, some of which can be severe or even career-threatening. Even if they’re not bad enough to sit a pitcher down they can cause enough pain for her to change her mechanics to prevent that feeling, which can have further effects downstream.
The key to avoiding these types of overuse injuries is to abandon the old school approach of riding one pitcher’s arm for the entire season and instead developing a pitching staff. There are different ways you can do that.
The simplest is to bring on 3-5 pitchers who rotate starts, with the assumption they will pitch the whole game. In a travel ball weekend with seven games, where you have three pitchers, each would pitch two and the three could split the third one. Your choice whether that happens at the beginning or the end of the tournament.
In a high school season with one game per day Tuesday-Friday and two on Saturday, each would get two. In a college season with games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday or two on Saturday and one Sunday, each would get one game.
That, of course, assumes that all three pitchers are fairly comparable. If you have one Ace and two others who are just ok, you may have to look at splitting games between the two who are ok while letting the Ace pitch complete games.
But that’s not the only approach. You can also look at it more like baseball does, with pitchers who fill different roles depending on how the game goes.
You might have a girl who can throw unhittable gas for two innings then gets gassed herself. She might better serve the team as the “closer” who can protect tight leads toward the end of the game.
Your fair-to-middlin’ pitchers might do well as a bridge between a high-quality starter and the closer. You’re not expecting those pitchers to win the game for you; you just want them to keep the game manageable until it’s time to either bring in the closer or bring back the Ace, who now has more innings available without the risk of injury.
You can also do it by who matches up best to a particular team. While it’s probably less effective in the highest levels of D1, in many other levels throwing a pitcher who’s a little slower than average, or relies on movement rather than overpowering speed, might be enough to throw off a team that just finished a week and/or weekend facing high heat in every game. It all depends on the hitters’ ability to adjust.
I’ve seen that one work with my own daughter Stefanie back in the day. Her team was playing an opponent her coaches expected to blow them out. They even came over to where the parents were and warned us the game would be a rough one. (I was merely there as a parent for this game, by the way.)
So of course, rather than waste who they thought was their best pitcher on a blowout, they gave the game to Stefanie. Only instead of getting blown out she confounded them with a mix of drops, curves and changes and held them to two runs as I recall.
Unfortunately, sensing blood and a possible upset the head coach, who clearly had no idea why Stefanie was being effective decided to replace her with their Ace in the fourth inning. As you can probably guess, the Ace got lit up quickly and that was the end of that.
Which brings me to an important reminder: when your pitcher is doing well, just go with it. Don’t question it, don’t get clever or think you’re going to put something over on someone. As the saying goes, ride that horse ’til he bucks you.
Another good reason to have a staff is even if you have an Ace, somewhere out there is a team that practices hitting the way your Ace pitches. In other words, they’ll be all over her like stink on batting gloves.
If you have no other options it’s going to make for a long afternoon. And it could damage your Ace’s psyche a bit too, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season. But throwing in a change of pace pitcher might throw your opponents off while saving the Ace for a game where the other team doesn’t match up so well.
The days of riding one pitcher’s arm for the season are long gone. Everyone plays too many games, and the hitting has improved considerably in our sport since it first started getting population.
Develop a staff and give yourself options. It’s better for the pitchers (and their health). And it’s better for the team’s chances of success too.
Mushroom photo by Visually Us on Pexels.com
Chutes and Ladders…and Softball
Not too long ago I talked about how I love this time of the year because you have the ability to make big changes without the pressure of performing in games.
Pitchers can work on speed without worrying about accuracy. Hitters can work on driving the ball without worrying about striking out. Catchers can work on pop times without worrying about throwing the ball to the center field fence. And so on.
What’s not to like, right? With all that unfettered ability to go full bore at improvement you should be able to make tremendous improvement in a short time. Right?
Well, not exactly. The thing is, improvement isn’t always a straight line up. In softball, as in most sports, it’s more like the old children’s board game Chutes and Ladders.
You remember that one. You roll the die and move your piece the number of spaces shown on the space.
Sometimes it results in nothing. You just move forward that many spaces.
Sometimes it brings you to a ladder, and you get to skip a whole bunch of spaces by climbing the ladder. That’s great progress, and a quick shortcut to winning.
But sometimes, your roll of the die brings you to a chute. When that happens, you fall back down the board, a little or a lot, and then have to claw your way back to where you were before you can continue moving toward a win.
The same can happen with softball skills, especially if you’re trying to improve something fundamental.
Whether your mechanics are right or wrong, when you get comfortable with them you can use all your athletic ability to execute them. You’re at maximum energy and maximum speed.
All that goes out the window when you start making a fundamental change. You have to think about what you’re doing and it slows you down.
It probably feels a bit awkward too. Because if what you were doing before didn’t feel natural you probably would not have been doing it.
The result is your performance may go down the chute temporarily. If you’re a pitcher you may lose a little speed, or a pitch that was working pretty well may not work as well anymore.
If you’re a hitter you may swing and miss a little more, or might lose some bat speed.
But that’s ok. It’s normal and natural. You need to be patient and trust the plan.
Because one day, when you have internalized the changes, the payoff will be there. If you’re pursuing the right changes all the chutes you have to endure will be worth it. Because eventually you will hit a ladder and get that much closer to your goals.
Take the Time to Grind
Take a look at any list of what champions supposedly do (such as this one) and somewhere on there you’ll see something about how they do the things others aren’t willing to do. What those lists don’t tell you, however, is a lot of those things they’re referencing fall into the category of “grinding.”
This isn’t the flashy stuff. They’re not spending hours on the Hit Trax machine, playing more games, participating in fancy clinics, etc.
Instead, they are working over and over to correct even the tiniest flaws, perfect their mechanics, and learn to get everything they can out of themselves.
If that sounds boring it’s because it is. That’s why most players don’t do it – especially if they are already experiencing success.
A player who is the best hitter on her team, or maybe even in her league or conference, may hear that she needs to work on improving her sequencing. But she also wonders why bother since she’s already leading in most offensive categories.
Sure, there’s always that story that it won’t work at “the next level.” But there’s no guarantee that’s actually true, so until she experiences failure she may decide that’s just the softball version of the Krampus – a myth created to scare people into doing what you want.
True champions, however, don’t do things because they’re afraid of failing at the proverbial “next level.” They do them because they want to be the best they can be, at which point everything else will take care of itself.
Here’s an example. A typical pitcher will look at her speed numbers, and as long as they are where they need to be they’re happy. Someone willing to grind, however, will actually allow her speed to slip a little to improve her drive mechanics or her arm circle. That way, when she has internalize the change she will be even faster and more accurate.
For a field player, it could be learning to throw better by learning a better throwing pattern.
For a hitter it could be reworking the structure of her arms to prevent her back elbow from getting ahead of her arms. That’s not sexy, and it’s certainly nothing most people would notice if they weren’t watching high-speed video.
But the champion knows she’ll hit the ball a little harder, and with greater consistency, if she makes the change so she spends the time to do it. As opposed to average player who tries it a few times, gets bored with it, and goes back to trying to hit bombs off the tee.
And there’s the key difference. Grinding on mechanics can be mind-numbingly boring. It can also be incredibly different, especially as the things you’re grinding on become more nuanced.
It can also feel risky, because there’s a good chance that you will get worse before you get better – especially if what you’re changing is a fundamental process. If you’re in the middle of your season, that’s a huge risk to take (if you’re already experiencing success; if you’re failing, not so much).
That’s what makes the months between fall ball and the new year the perfect time to take on a grinding effort.
Early in the learning process you’re probably looking to make big changes that have a profound effect on your success in a game. It’s a bit easier to stay with it when that happens.
In other words, if you’re used to hitting weak ground balls and pop-ups in-between strikeouts, you have a lot of incentive to work at improvements. When you start hitting line drives to the outfield on a consistent basis it can be downright inspiring.
But if you’re already hitting line drives to the outfield, and you are now trying to hit more of them, it doesn’t feel quite as rewarding. Going from hitting .110 to .330 is a lot more noticeable than going from .400 to .440. Going from hitting zero doubles in three tournaments to four in one tournament is a lot more remarkable than going from four to six in one tournament.
That, however, is what those who are willing to grind do, because their reward is internal instead of external. For many, their goal is to be perfect. They want an extra base hit on every at bat, or a shutout for every game they pitch.
They know that goal is unrealistic, but they go for it anyway because they are driven to contribute as much as they can to the team and deliver the best results of which they’re capable.
The funny thing is, this is an individual decision. There are 100 ways to fake it, or to make it look like you’re grinding when you’re really not.
But for those who want to be the best they can be there’s no substitute for the grind. They make the effort to make smallest and even seemingly most insignificant improvements, because if they can gain an edge that will help them perform better and win more ballgames, they’re going to take it.
It’s really up to you. With a lot of teams shut down right now, either deliberately to give their players some time away or as a result of state orders, it’s the perfect time to grind away at something that will make you better.
Find something and put in the effort. You never know where it will lead you.
Helping Young Players Get Away from Bow & Arrow Throwing
Anyone who has been around fastpitch softball, even for a little while, has seen it – what I call the “bow and arrow” or “Katniss” style of throwing. (Although I will admit the Katniss reference used to work a lot better a few years ago.)
The player will bring glove and throwing hand together, then draw the ball and her elbow straight back, like she is pulling back on a bow string, and finally bring the hand forward, essentially pushing the ball out of her hand.
Over a short distance that can work. But if you want to throw hard, or over a long distance, or both, that throwing pattern is not the way to go.
At some point the hand and ball need to continue moving backward past the elbow before it reverses course and comes forward. For some players, that can be a challenge.
So, I came up with the little drill you see here.
Instead of trying to throw the ball forward, the player focuses on trying to throw it backward instead. In order to do that she can’t just draw the ball back like a bowstring. She has to let the hand pass the elbow before flicking the ball away.
It’s all about finding a way to give the player the “feel” of what you want her to do in a way that breaks ingrained patterns. Giving her something different to work on – especially something she’s unlikely to do otherwise – helps overcome those previous patterns.
One thing to be careful of is not to let the player toss it backward like you would do a backhand toss from the ground. That’s not going to set up a repeatable pattern either, and could end up replacing one bad habit with another.
Instead, you want the new pattern to resemble the desired outcome as closely as possible. The backward flip will do it.
If you have a player who is having trouble learning to take the ball back properly give this a try. If you have a team full of them you can even have them try playing catch this way.
Either way, you’ll start them on the road to better throwing patterns.
The “Whack-A-Mole” Approach to Coaching
The other night as I was setting up for lessons at an indoor facility where I teach, there was what I presume was a dad and his son in the next cage over. The dad was pitching to his son, who appeared to be about 10 years old, and chucking them fairly hard at him.
Dad was kind of loud in his instruction – not a crime in my book because the place was pretty noisy and you had to talk loud to be heard – but because of that I couldn’t help but overhear what he was telling the boy.
With each pitch, Dad offered some helpful critique. “You dropped your hands.” “Your front foot stepped out.” “You’re dropping your shoulder.” “You were late.” “Gotta get your hips through.” And so on. You get the picture.
I felt bad for the poor kid because while all the things Dad was saying may have been true (I didn’t stop to watch because I had other things to do) I doubt the boy could make much sense of them.
The problem was there was so much scattered information coming at him at once it’s unlikely any of it was getting through. The kid probably felt like this.
It was a prime example of what I call the “Whack-a-Mole” style of coaching. (It could also be called the “Magic Pill” style. My friend and pitching coach extraordinaire Anna Nickel from ElevatePitching calls it “Firefighter Coaching” because you’re constantly running from issue to issue trying to put out fires.)
You see an issue come up and you point it out, although you may or may not say how to correct it. On the next repetition, while the player is trying to fix whatever issue you pointed out, something else crops up so you immediately jump on that.
This pattern continues until the session comes to a merciful end. At which point the player is no further along, and perhaps even behind, where she was before.
There’s no doubt this is an easy pattern to fall into, especially if you’re personally invested in the player’s success. You see a problem and you want to fix it.
That’s human nature. I know I can be guilty of it myself (just ask my students), and constantly have to tell myself not to do it.
The problem with this approach is that even though everything being said is true, it’s not like you can fix an issue with one attempt. That’s where the magic pill concept comes in.
Just because a coach points out a flaw doesn’t mean a player can fix it right away. It takes many, many focused repetitions to replace an old habit with a new, better one.
Yet when you’re playing Whack-A-Mole, that whole focus thing goes right out the window. If you tell a player she’s dropping her hands, on the next swing she will (hopefully) work on keeping them up. Whack!
But then if you tell her she was late on her next swing (Whack!), her focus will switch to her timing. Since she hasn’t had time to fix the first issue, however, her hands will drop again as she concentrates on her timing (Whack!). Introduce a few more issues (Whack! Whack! Whack!) and her mind is probably somewhere else – quite possibly thinking she must be awful because there are so many things wrong with her, and maybe she should just give up the sport entirely. It happens.
A better approach is to choose one thing and work on that. Then, after the player gets the hang of it, you can try moving on to something else. But if the first issue crops up again immediately, you need to go back to working on that instead.
If you’re already aware of what needs to be fixed you can game plan ahead of time. Take the thing you believe to be the most glaring flaw, i.e., the one that is most likely to keep the player from having success, and work on that.
Only when it seems like the player can execute the new skill without having to hyper-focus on it should you try moving to the next one on the list.
If you don’t know the player that well, you’ll have to do the prioritizing on the fly. In that case, you should know what the most important issues are in general, in descending order, and just work through the checklist until you find what needs to be done.
For a pitcher, for example, you may see she has a very stiff arm from trying to make the circle too big. You might have her work on learning to loosen up the arm to allow it to work the way it should.
That approach will be much better than trying to have her learn to loosen up her arm, improve her drive mechanics and learn to hit her spots reliably.
The good news is, if you choose your priorities correctly, often fixing one issue will help with others as well. In the pitching example, loosening up the arm will enable the arm to whip, which will increase speed. It will also allow the momentum generated in the pitch to help guide the arm, impacting accuracy as well.
One other thing to keep in mind is that fixing skills such as hitting or pitching properly and permanently often requires you to focus on pieces rather than the full skill.
In the case of hitters, that might mean putting the player on a tee for a while rather than taking full swings. For a pitcher that may mean having her move up close and throwing into a wall or net rather than performing full pitches. The same with players who need to work on throwing.
For fielders, it could mean having balls sitting on the floor or ground, or rolling balls to them rather than hitting them. Some players may have a tough time with that approach at first, but they will benefit far more from it in the long run versus trying to fix problems within the full skill.
Whack-A-Mole may be a fun game to play at a carnival – especially if you have some pent-up aggression to work out, as we all seem to these days. But as a coaching approach it isn’t very effective.
Pick one thing to focus on and give your players time to learn it before moving on to something else. You’ll find you generate much better results – in far less time.
Outfield Is Not a Punishment
Let’s play a little fastpitch Jeopardy! Here’s the answer: the Eastern Front, Siberia, and the outfield. What’s the question?
Name three things no one wants to get banished to.
During WWII, the Eastern Front (the losing war in a horrible winter in Russia) was the threat used to keep German soldiers and officers in line. At least it was on Hogan’s Heroes.
Throughout much of the tenure of the Soviet Union, Siberia was a place dissidents were “disappeared” to when the government didn’t want to outright kill them.
And to many in fastpitch softball, the outfield serves a similar function. They believe it’s where players are sent when they’re either judged (incorrectly) as not being not good enough for the infield, or they’re not part of the “in” crowd.
Sometimes that may be true. I won’t pretend there isn’t favoritism in where players are assigned on some teams, or that coaches don’t think some kids have the skillset to play the infield and have to put them somewhere else.
But there are a whole lot of reasons a perfectly good infielder may get assigned to the outfield instead. Beginning with the fact that she can actually catch a fly ball.
For those who have only observed it, catching a fly ball may seem like a pretty simple skill. It isn’t a quick reaction time thing like a sharp ground ball, and you have plenty of time to get into position – even if you have to run for the ball. How hard could it be?
Actually, plenty hard. It’s sort of like doing instant geometry.
You have to judge how hard the ball was hit, where its trajectory will take it, allow for the winds aloft as well as on the ground, avoid looking into the sun or lights for too long, and make your way through all the little divots and moguls no one has ever bothered to clean up. Not to mention the drainage grates and other knee-and ankle-destroying obstacles field designers who have obviously never played outfield might build in to keep the grass looking nice.
Then, quite frankly, there is the attention factor. With a top-quality pitcher in the circle, an outfielder may not see a ball hit her way for three or four innings. Sure, she has responsibilities to back up a base on every batted ball, but on many infield plays she can mentally be on a beach in Maui and still have time to realize something is happening in the game and then run to her spot.
Not saying she should, but she can. But then when the ball does come her way, she has to make all the calculations we just discussed and get there in time to make the play. It can be tougher than you think.
While the story about Gen Z’s attention span being shorter than a goldfish’s may be just a myth, it is definitely difficult to remain highly focused when A) not much happens around you for a long time and B) when it does happen it’s not likely to cause a significant injury (like a hot line drive in the infield will). An outfielder’s Spidey-sense just doesn’t need to be that acute.
Here’s the thing, though. Hits to the outfield tend to have larger consequences when they get through. You have no doubt heard of an “infield single,” which is either defined as A) a ball hit so sharply that even though it was fielded in time the runner made it to base safely or B) an error by the scorekeeper’s daughter.
But you never hear about an infield double, triple or home run. The fact is, a ball between infielders, or just over their heads, causes only minimal damage. A ball between outfielders, or just over their heads, often results in extra bases.
You also have the factor that a ball that gets by an infielder can and should be backed up by an outfielder, at least in most cases. A ball that gets by an outfielder is generally backed up by a fence – or a whole lot more grass on a fenceless field.
Then there’s the fact that outfielders have a much greater area of responsibility just in terms of square footage. An infielder overall is responsible for about three feet to either side for the most part, anywhere from five to about 60 feet forward, and maybe 20 feet backward. In most cases it’s more like a 3′ x 5′ box.
Outfielders, on the other hand, have their areas of responsibility measured in square yards. They could have a good 80-100 feet from the fence (real or imaginary) to the edge of the infield grass, and roughly 1/3 of the total area of the outfield. More if you count backing up other outfielders and balls that land fair and roll into the far corners of the field.
That’s a lot of open space to cover. Oh, and no one goes out and grooms the outfield before or between games. You’re lucky if someone picks up the poop left behind when the ballfield was used as a doggy park or as a rest stop for the local goose population.
You see where I’m going. While infielders may get more action throughout the course of a game, it doesn’t mean they are more important. In fact, I would argue just as many if not more games probably turn on poor outfield play than infield play.
I can think of a particular case in point. I remember watching the Olympics all those years ago when softball was still in it. Team USA and Japan were playing in the Gold Medal game, and it was a tight contest.
Late in the game, with runners on base, a Team USA player lofted a lazy fly ball to left field. The Japanese left fielder – who in all fairness probably played shortstop normally on whatever other team she played for – started backpedaling, tripped over her feet and fell down, allowing what would be the winning run to score. Had there been an actual outfielder out there, the outcome may have been different.
I also remember one of my students, who was playing at a D3 university in the Midwest, complaining about the lack of outfield play on her team. She would induce an easy fly ball that a semi-competent 14U travel ball outfielder could have caught and it would end up falling for a double. She couldn’t believe that a college softball player couldn’t handle a fly ball hit directly to her, but there you are.
The point of all this is that, outside of 10U travel and probably most rec league ball, the outfield isn’t simply the equivalent of the reject couch in the first scene in Animal House.
It’s a valuable position that requires speed, agility, mental acuity, mental toughness and a willingness to lay yourself out when the game is on the line.
Being put in the outfield doesn’t mean you’re bad. It actually means, as Liam Neeson would say, you possess a particular set of skills.
Any coach who has ever experienced a major, heartbreaking loss because of poor outfield play, which is pretty much every high-level coach, knows just how important that position is. Instead of lamenting that you’re not in the infield, embrace your role in the outfield and give it all you’ve got.
You may just find that you love it. And even if you don’t, it could end up being your portal to where you want to go.
Goldfish photo by Chait Goli on Pexels.com
My Favorite Time of the Year
We are now in the process of entering my favorite time of the year. Not because the leaves are turning, pumpkin spice-everything is available and hoodies and sweaters can once again hide the fact that I didn’t achieve any of my summer weight loss goals.
Instead it’s because this is the time of year when fastpitch softball players are free to focus on making the major structural changes that will set them up for future success.
During most of the year, at least with the current obsession with playing more games more of the time, you have to be careful about making fundamental changes – at least with players who are already experiencing success. If you try to change the way a pitcher pitches, or a hitter hits, or a fielder throws, etc. there is always the risk that you might make the player worse before you make her better.
That is true even if the change is for the player’s long-term good. Let’s take a pitcher, for example.
She is doing well, racking up a K an inning and doing a good job of getting hitters out. She doesn’t give up many runs or walks, and overall is considered successful.
At the same time, however, you notice that her drive mechanics are weak. If she had a better push-off she’d be more stable when she lands, with better posture, giving her better control while enabling her to throw harder. All good things.
But you also realize that if you spend your time working on drive mechanics, two things will happen. First is she will probably lose a little speed and accuracy because now she has to think about pitching rather than just doing it, and there’s a good chance it will throw off the timing of the rest of her pitch because she’s not used to it. In other words, you will likely make her worse before you make her better.
Second is while you’re working on drive mechanics you’re not looking at the pitches (change-up, drop, rise, etc.) that enable her to mix things up and keep hitters off-balance. If anything is a little off on those pitches you won’t have the opportunity to tweak them and get them back on track – which means she could have some unusual trouble on game day.
That’s why I love this time of the year. With no pressure to perform tomorrow, or this weekend, you have the opportunity to flip the risk/reward ratio.
In-season, with a player who is already performing well, the risk of taking her off-track is significant while the reward is off in the distance since the types of changes I am talking about don’t happen overnight for the most part.
At this time of the year, however, the risk is pretty much non-existent while the potential for a long-term reward is huge.
Of course, the exception to all of the above is the player who is not performing too well to begin with. If you have a hitter who is leading the team in striking out, and whose “best” contacts don’t get out of the infield, there is really no risk in making big changes.
She really can’t get any worse. But if you can turn that around and help her start making more consistent, hard contact and getting on base, the reward is huge – and often paid in smiles and confidence that will serve her well in the future.
For everyone else, however, making changes in-season (and make no mistake, fall ball is now considered by most as a legitimate season instead of an add-on to the summer) must be done thoughtfully. In our instant gratification world, taking a player who is performing well and degrading that performance temporarily, even if it’s for her long-term good, will be a tough sell for everyone.
Which brings us back to now. The next few weeks are an opportune time to get started on the types of major changes that will pay off HUGE next spring.
So grab a pumpkin spice latte, take a few pictures of the fall colors, and get to work. Your future self will be happy you put in the effort now.
Fall leaves Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
“Palm Eye” Helps Hand Orientation for the Curve
It seems like these days for me the “eyes” have it. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Over the past few weeks I have talked about the use of the shoulder eye and the hip eye for hitting. But now I have a new one – this time for pitchers.
Unfortunately, given the nature of pitching my little stickers don’t work so well, I had to resort to a hand-drawn eye using a Sharpie. But it still got the point across. Here’s the story behind it.
Makayla is working on developing a curve ball, but was having trouble getting the proper spin orientation. (For those who don’t know, the spin axis should be on top, with the seams revolving around the ball horizontally, like a globe.)
Both the spin she was getting and the video I shot showed the palm of her hand was pointed out toward third base going into release rather than being cupped under the ball and pointing to the sky. She would try to get her hand into the proper position right before release but by then it was too late, and the ball would either have a bullet spin or the spin axis would be severely tilted. Either way, not good.
So, I brought out my trusty Sharpie, drew the eye on her hand, and told her to make sure as she approached release that the eye was pointed to the sky.
This is going to sound like I am making it up for the sake of the story, but I swear the very next pitch not only had the proper spin direction but a much faster, tighter rotation that it had previously. She proceeded to throw several in a row that were in the right range before I had to remind her again to keep the eye pointed toward the sky.
The smile on her face was beaming as she got good spin. I then asked her if the palm eye had helped and she said yes, absolutely. She didn’t know why (and neither did I), but that simple cue registered in her brain and helped her get into the position she needed to get the right spin.
The curve is still a work in progress for Makayla, but it took a giant leap forward that evening. So if you have a pitcher struggling to her hand under the ball, give your artistic skills a try and draw a palm eye. It just may work for her too.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 