Please resubscribe
One more little housekeeping detail. Because of the move to WordPress, I believe you will need to resubscribe to receive notifications of posts in your email. You can do that by going to the sidebar on the right and clicking on Follow Blog by Email. Those of you who were subscribers I will appreciate you doing it again. Those who were not, but would like to be, can do it easily. And now you’ll receive immediately notice when there’s something new posted. I promise I will never sell your email address or use it for any nefarious purpose.
Thanks for hanging in there! Next post will be softball-related. I promise!
Welcome to my new blog site
Surprised? So was I when I found out my former blog supplier (GoDaddy) was shutting down their blog product. I’m sure they supplied plenty of notice but they send so much spam I usually ignore the emails. Luckily I saw it today, the last day to do something about it.
So here we are, now on WordPress. Which is probably for the better because it’s the king of this sort of thing.
While the location has changed, I can promise you’ll still get the same quality fastpitch softball thoughts, musings and ideas. For better or for worse. 🙂
So welcome! I look forward to continuing to serve you.
Softball skills are analog, not digital
All of the players, and probably most of the parents by now, are too young to remember when radio dials were analog. Getting your favorite station tuned in was an art. You’d move the dial quickly to get it close, then move it very slowly until it sounded just right. Better radios also had a “fine tuning” knob that let you make smaller adjustments.
Where it really compares to softball is that once you had the station tuned in perfectly, there was no guarantee it would stay tuned in. The analog signal could “drift” a bit, at which point you’d have to re-tune it in. As compared to today’s digital radios where you set the correct numbers and they radio does all the work to lock it in and keep it locked in.
That’s why I say softball skills are analog. It would be nice if they were digital – you tune them in and they stay with you automatically. But the reality is your technique can slip just a bit, especially during the long season when there may not be time to practice and hone things as much as you’d like. You get off a bit, you start to worry and guess at corrections, and before you know it you’re further off than before. Soon it’s nothing but static.
That’s where a little in-season correction can help. Whether you do it yourself or go to see your coach for that particular skill, taking a little time to re-tune the skills can make a huge difference.
The value of using a private coach is he/she can take a look from the outside and compare what you’re doing to what you ought to be doing. It’s a little faster and easier than trying to diagnose it yourself. But the key is that comparison.
If you’re trying to do it on your own, don’t think about what you’re doing. Think about what you should be doing, and try to get back to that. Find the sweet spot on the “dial” and tune your skills to that. Before you know it you’ll be back on track.
Again, it would be nice if softball skills were digital. But they’re not. Everyone needs a little fine tuning now and then. Understand that they’re analog and make adjustments accordingly. You’ll have a much happier season.
Pitching around the big hitter
Tonight I was watching a high school softball playoff game. It was a great game – a real seesaw battle where the lead changed several times. Each time you thought one team was down something would happen and momentum would change.
While it was entertaining, it also brought up a situation worth discussing – whether or not to pitch to the other team’s big hitter.
As I recall, it came up three times during the game. The team in the field held a one- or two-run lead, while the offensive team had runners on second or second and third (depending on the inning) when their best hitter came to the plate. This is a girl who is a total gamer and can really put the bat on the ball.
I was standing with a few of the other spectators, and we all agreed the smart thing to do with first base open and less than two outs is walk this girl and pitch to the next one. Time after time, though, the coach decided to pitch to her. Each time the hitter went 0-2, then knocked a hit that score a run or two. The offensive team went on to win by three runs – which was fewer than the total number of RBIs that hitter had.
I can understand maybe taking a chance and pitching to her early in the game – match strength for strength. (Although in reality the defensive team wasn’t throwing their #1 pitcher, who I think was injured.) But after getting burned once, it seems that discretion is the better part of valor.
In my mind, if you’re going to lose, make someone else beat you. Not the other team’s best hitter, especially in a playoff game. If the bag is open, put that big hitter on and take your chances with the next one. It doesn’t always work out, but your odds are better. If you’re really worried, maybe even walk her with bases loaded. Better to give up one run than two or three – or four.
What do you think? Would you go intentional walk? Or would you gut it out and pitch to that hitter?
Softball poem by one of my students
Thought I would share this with everyone here. It’s a poem written by one of my students, who is currently a 14U player who will enter high school in the fall. It does a great job of explaining the “striving” aspect of our sport from a player’s point of view.
Take one extra moment
This is always a bittersweet time in the softball world. On the one hand, you have the excitement of post-school season tournaments, the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work in college and many high schools.
At the same time, you also have the ends of careers. High school seniors who play in the spring and who don’t plan to play in college (or the summer) are looking at their last high school games. College players who aren’t going pro, or playing in a women’s fastpitch league, are also getting ready to hang up their spikes – or more accurately leave them at home plate.
For both groups, it’s been a lot of years of going to practices, playing games, working on skills, rinse and repeat. Those who played travel ball also had endless summer weekends where they spent all day at the ballfield, then went back and crashed at a budget-rate hotel only to get up early and do it again. It all sort of runs together after a while.
But now, it’s coming to an end. That’s probably difficult to fathom – the end. Most probably haven’t processed yet what it really means. Sure, they know no more practices, putting up with angry coaches or the drama that often seems to accompany team sports. But it also means that they will no longer be doing something that once came as naturally as breathing.
Sure, they can join a local summer league and play slow pitch. But it’s not quite the same. The speed and competitiveness that comes with school or travel ball just won’t be there. It’s the difference between looking at a photo of the Mona Lisa and actually standing in front of it.
So to all those who are about to play their final games I have this bit of advice. When the last out is recorded and your fastpitch career is done, don’t just pack up your gear and rush to your cars. Take a moment to drink it all in.
Savor the sights, the sounds, and many of the smells of the field. Look at your well-worn glove, or the nicks and scuffs on your batting helmet. Take a good look at your teammates, and think of all those you played with in the past – especially when you were little and just trying to figure out what to do and where to go.
If there isn’t another game starting right away, walk out on the field once last time as a fastpitch player and look around. Think about all the good times you had, and all that you accomplished throughout your career. Because once you leave the field, you’ll never quite be the same.
And that’s true even if you plan to coach. A coach’s perspective is very different than a player’s. You’re a part of the team, but you’re still separate from it.
As they say in the movie Moneyball, we’re all told someday we can no longer play this game. We just don’t always realize what that means.
Be proud of what you did, and know that it was part of something special. Someday you’ll be glad you took those few extra minutes to realize how special it was.
Softball hitting: being early to be late
In the past I’ve written about the need to get your front foot down on time when hitting. It’s critical to ensuring you can drive through the ball, because if you’re late you end up defending against the ball instead of attacking it. Which is pretty common, especially when the pitcher can really bring it.
Funny expression
Today I heard a very funny expression from one of my students. She told me her high school coach says it all the time.
When they’re in practice, if they start overthrowing the ball back and forth he’ll yell “It looks like you’re having a snowball fight.” What a great description! Made me laugh when I heard it.
It may not be new to some of you, but it sure was to me and I just had to share it.
One other funny line I heard a while back comes from former Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks. When his players were struggling he’d yell, “You guys are getting worse every day, and right now you’re playing like it’s next month.” Again, very funny but it gets the point across.
As a coach it always helps to have a few one-lines handy to get attention and break the tension at the same time. So what are your favorite (serious but funny) things to say to your players when they need to be brought back on track?
Product Review: Pocket Radar Ball Coach
If you are into pitching at all, or work with pitchers, you’ve probably heard about the Pocket Radar. It’s a device about the size of a mobile phone that makes it easy to gun pitch speeds, overhand throws, exit speed of the ball off the bat and (allegedly) the speed of car w
hizzing through your neighborhood.
I recently upgraded from the original Pocket Radar to the new Ball Coach version. While it’s an $100 more expensive than the original, I feel like it’s worth the extra money. The Pocket Radar Ball Coach retails for $299, which is still considerably less that a Jugs or Stalker gun – and it does a very comparable job.
The thing that got me to upgrade (other than a $100 rebate being offered for sending the old one back) was the ease of use. With the original Pocket Radar you had to time pushing the button just right to get the maximum speed. It was as much an art as it was a science.
The new version takes that timing issue out of it. In other words, it’s radar speed measurement for dummies. With the Ball Coach version, you point the unit at the source of the pitch, hold down the big blue button (as opposed to a red button on the original) and keep holding it until you get a speed reading. Nothing could be simpler.
When I first got the new version I immediately tried it next to my Jugs gun. While they didn’t always match exactly, they were always within 1 mph of one another. Sometimes the Pocket Radar read higher, sometimes the Jugs gun did. But close enough for my purposes.
The real acid test, though, came this past weekend when I took it to a couple of games and (somewhat) discretely timed the pitchers from behind the backstop. In one case I was well behind it. But it seemed to give me good readings on all the pitchers.
Another advantage to the Pocket Radar Ball Coach is the ability to have it automatically take up to 25 reading in automatic mode. You can set it up on a tripod or a mobile phone holder, click through to automatic mode, and it will give you the readings. You can then page through to see what the player got – which is great for batting practice, pitching practice or whatever.
If you’re reading this in Canada, or anywhere else that uses the metric system, you’ll be glad to know the Pocket Radar Ball Coach can be switched to read in kilometers per hour. The instructions explain how.
The Pocket Radar Ball Coach comes with a handy soft shell pouch that clips onto your belt. That’s another nice upgrade over the original, which came with a hard shell case you had to keep in your pocket. I still kept mine in my pocket, but it takes up less space. In addition to the case it also comes with a wrist strap and a pair of AA batteries (Eveready alkaline batteries, not those cheap no-name ones that often come with many electronics these days.
If you’re at all interested in measuring speed I can highly recommend the Pocket Radar Ball Coach. With its (relatively) low cost, high accuracy and ease of use it’s a great investment.
What a difference a good bat makes
Last night I was working with a 12U player named Grace on her hitting. We’ve been working together for a while now and she has developed a very nice, powerful swing. But it wasn’t until last night that she really got to enjoy the fruits of her labors.
You see, her old composite bat has been on its last legs for the last few lessons. In fact, in the previous lesson she wasn’t getting much pop on the ball at all, despite using a technically solid swing. Her dad mentioned he thought it might be cracking, and sure enough when we looked at it there was a small crack that got larger as the lesson went on. The decision was made right there for Grace to get a new bat.
And there it was last night – a brand new bat, still in the wrapper. It was an inch longer than her old bat, and I also recommended she move from a -11 to a -10, mostly because no one should use anything lighter than -10 unless they’re really small or really young (in my opinion). So now in addition to having a brand new bat, she was swinging an extra couple of ounces.
The difference was immediately noticeable. On her very first swing she drove a line drive that, had we been outside instead of in a cage, would’ve gone into a gap in left center. She continued popping them that way – even catching me in the leg once when I didn’t jump behind the protective screen right away.
There’s no doubt that Grace and her dad feel like they got their money’s worth in investing in this new bat. The same swing mechanics are delivering much better results.
Can a new bat deliver better results even without a good swing? Sure, sometimes. But when you combine today’s technology with solid fundamentals you get the kind of hits that make it fun to go to the plate.
What about you? Do you have any new bat stories to tell? Have you ever experienced that instant upgrade in the quality of hits?
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 