6 Benefits of Playing Under Sandlot Rules
Let me start by acknowledging that today’s ballplayers are far more technically skilled and athletically knowledgeable than they were when I was young lad, and even when I started coaching more than 25 years ago. If you go out to a ballpark this weekend, even to a local B-level or C-level 10U tournament, you’re likely to see a higher level of overall performance than you would have even 10 years ago.
Don’t even get me started on how crazy good high school and college softball players are today.
We can attribute a lot of that growth, in my opinion, to the tremendous amount of information that is available to coaches today as well as the tremendous amount of time teams and individuals invest in structured, organized training sessions and practices. With competition levels already high and improving each year, you’re either getting better or getting left behind.
Yet for all their technical prowess, I think today’s players may be missing out on a few things that are equally important to their level of play – and probably more important to their development as human beings: the benefits of playing under what’s called “sandlot rules,” i.e., unstructured playtime.
Following are some of the benefits that could be gained by downsizing the organized team activities (OTAs) and giving players more time to play under “sandlot rules.” And not just softball but whatever games those players want to play at the time.
1. Acquiring decision-making capabilities
In OTAs, coaches or other adults decide what players are going to do pretty much every minute of every practice or game. They determine who’s going to play where, what order they will bat in, what strategies they’re going to follow, even what uniforms to wear, right down to the color of socks.
Under sandlot rules all of those decisions have to be made by the players themselves. They pick the teams (if teams are needed), agree on the rules, determine what equipment is needed, set the boundaries for play, etc.
Whatever needs to happen to get game or activity going, players get to decide on them. If they can’t decide, that leads to the benefit of…
2. Learning conflict resolution
Let’s say the players want to play a game of softball, but there are no lines on the field. A batter hits a ball down the line and the defense says it’s foul while the offense maintains it was a fair ball.
With no umpire to look to, the players on both sides will have to come to a conclusion. If neither side can convince the other of its position, the likely outcome is the ol’ do-over.
No matter what they determine, however, they will have worked the problem and decided on an outcome. Or they won’t agree on one, in which case the game is probably over and no one gets to play anymore.
Either way, they will have learned a valuable lesson about the value of cooperation and compromise to achieve a higher goal (in this case continuing to play).
3. Developing problem-solving skills
Certainly the situation in point #2 also involves an element of problem-solving too, but I’m thinking of more general problems for this benefit.
For example, let’s say there are enough players to have 7 on each side. But a full team requires 9 on each.
When I was a kid and that was the case, we would close an outfield section (usually right field except for me, who hits left-handed) and have the team on offense supply a catcher. It was understood that the supplied catcher was obligated to perform as if he was a member of the defensive team and do all he could to get the out if there was a play at home, or backup any plays out on the field.
If you only had 4 or 5 kids available to play, you’d switch to a different game such as 500, which incidentally is where most of us learned to fungo, helping build hand/eye coordination and bat control. Whatever the issue is, under sandlot rules there are no adults to solve the problem even make suggestions so it forces the players to work together to overcome any obstacles themselves.
What a concept.
4. Improving athleticism
There is a lot of talk these days about the benefits of playing multiple sports instead of specializing early, especially in terms of cross-training muscle groups. Heck, I’ve written about it myself.
But you don’t need OTAs to get that benefit. It’s all available on the sandlot, or at least your local park.
Want to improve speed, quickness, and agility? Playing tag is a great way to do it, especially if you have two people serving in the “it” role. Nothing brings out competitiveness and causes people of all ages to run fast, cut hard, and move their bodies in impossible ways like trying to avoid being tagged. Remember, though, to let them set the rules.
Want to build some upper body strength? Go find some monkey bars or something else to climb and let them go wild.
They’ll do it with an enthusiasm you don’t usually see during formal pull-up sessions. Add a competitive element of some sort and they’ll drive themselves to exhaustion.
Just be sure to avoid the temptation to tell them what to do. Simply put them in the situation, or better yet encourage them to do it in their free time, and you’ll all reap the rewards on and off the field.
5. Elevating their mental health
Mental health among young people has reached a crisis level, and the decline of independent activity is often cited as one of the leading causes. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 4 in 10 high school students (40%) said they had a persistent feeling of sadness or hopelessness, and 2 in 10 (20%) said they seriously contemplated suicide while 1 in 10 (10%) actually attempted it.
This was a significant increase over the same questions asked just 10-15 years prior. And even more younger students are exhibiting these tendencies at the same time school days and years are getting longer, homework is increasing, and recess time is being cut to just 29.6 minutes a day on average – if they get recess at all.
Giving players of all ages more unstructured free time to “just go and play” may help turn this trend around, resulting in happier, healthier, more well-adjusted, and more productive young people – and adults.
6. Letting them have fun
Always remember that fastpitch softball is a game, and games are meant to be fun. Nobody signs up thinking “boy, I hope we do a lot of work today.”
In pretty much every survey of young athletes you’ll find, the #1 reason they quit sports (often around the age of 13 or 14) is that they’re not fun anymore. Inject more fun in their lives and we can keep more of our players playing longer.
Back to the sandlot
The game of fastpitch softball requires a lot of learning, both on the mental and physical sides, so it’s easy for coaches and parents to not want to “waste time on nonsense.” But that nonsense may be exactly what your players need to perform their best.
Give them the opportunity to get back to the sandlot now and then and you’ll help enhance their overall experience with sports – and help them become the adults they’re meant to be one day.
A Quick Primer on Fastpitch Pitching Rules
When you go to a game it often seems there are two kinds of people when it comes to the rules of fastpitch softball in general. One group feels like they know absolutely nothing and are often confused about why umpires made the call they made.
The other group is absolutely certain that they know everything there is to know about the rules and that, like the royalty, their word is sacred and indisputable. This post is for both of them.
It was actually spurred by a note from an old coaching friend who told me that after 10 years out of the game he is coming back to coach an 8U team and wanted to be sure he’s up-to-date on the latest pitching rules. Kudos, Ted, on looking before you leap.
We’re not going to get into the entire Rule 6 from the USA Softball rulebook, which covers everything. Instead, we’re going to focus on some of the recent changes as well as misconceptions that even some umpires may have.
Here we go.
Starting position (aka Start Back Rule)
Back in the old days of fastpitch, female pitchers were required to start with both feet in contact with the pitching rubber. That is no longer the case.
Pitchers must start with the foot on the throwing hand side (often referred to as the “pivot foot” or “drive foot”) in contact with the pitching rubber. That doesn’t mean it has to be sitting squarely on it; a heel barely in contact with the rubber is still considered to be in contact both by the rules of softball and the rules of physics.
But the other foot, popularly referred to as the “stride foot,” can be anywhere the pitcher wants as long as it is behind the rubber and within the 24 inch width of the rubber. That said, pitchers need to be careful about how far they set it.
Some will take this ability to the extreme, placing it far back even though it’s not right for them (although that placement can be correct for others). The easy way to figure out a good starting point is to step on the rubber and place your feet like you’re going to steal a base or run a race. Then make any minor adjustments from there.
Step Back Rule
Here’s a quick quiz: once pitchers place their feet and go into their motion are they allowed to take a step further back with the stride foot? The answer is it depends which rules body they are playing under.
A step back IS allowed under National Federation of High School (NFHS), USSSA Softball, Little League, National Softball Association (NSA, but Great Lakes Region only) and often many local rec leagues that are not affiliated with any national organization. If you are playing under a sanctioning body not listed here you may want to check their rulebook to see what is permissible.
A step back IS NOT allowed under USA Softball, PGF, Alliance Fastpitch, and some other organizations (check your local listings). If the pitcher steps back to begin the pitching motion an illegal pitch will be called.
So what does this mean for your pitchers? I teach my students to use a “start back” rather than “step back” technique. “Start back” is legal everywhere, so there are no issues with it.
On the other hand, if your pitcher is used to stepping back and then gets called for it when you play somewhere it’s not allowed, it’s totally going to mess her up for the rest of the game. She will be thinking about not stepping back instead of throwing the pitch, and even if she can block that out it will mess up her rhythm and her timing, resulting in a lot more balls and meatballs than you’re used to seeing.
Have her learn the “start back” and you’ll both be a lot better off.
Leaping (two feet in the air)
This is a fairly recent change. If you’ve been away for a while you remember when fastpitch pitchers were required to drag their pivot away from the rubber; if it came off the ground it was technically an illegal pitch, although this rule violation was rarely called for the most part. At least until you got into an important game and your pitcher was doing it.
This rule was changed a few year ago. Now it’s ok if the pivot leaves the ground and both feet are in the air. I don’t know this for sure but I have little doubt the change was made to eliminate coaches and parents from complaining constantly about an opposing pitcher their players couldn’t hit off of.
It was designed to get rid of all the ticky-tacky chirping when a pitcher’s foot was off the ground by a few inches so the kids can play the game. A good thing by my estimation, as I talked about here.
Of course, you know the story of “give a mouse a cookie.” Rather than simply being grateful that a minor irritation has been removed, some folks have decided to try to take advantage of the new rule by teaching their pitchers to leap like Johnny Lawrence in Cobra Kai.
The problem here is that when you leap that way you’re most likely to land on the foot you pushed from originally, particularly if you plan to maintain front side resistance when you land. If you push again, that’s a crow hop – which is still illegal.
Those who are teaching it claim there is no second push, they’re just landing on it. Either way, now an umpire once again has to watch closely to determine if a rule is being violated – the very thing the original rule was designed to eliminate.
That leaves us with a dilemma. Either the various governing bodies need to crack down on anything they even suspect is a crow hop or they need to eliminate the rule entirely so umpires can focus on the actual game action again. We’ll see what happens going forward.
The hands when taking your position on the rubber
Sometimes in their enthusiasm to throw a pitch young pitchers will develop a habit of stepping on the rubber with their hands together. This is illegal everywhere.
When a pitcher steps on the rubber she needs to have her hands separated. The ball can only be in one hand.
What some umpires don’t seem to understand is that it doesn’t have to be in the throwing hand. It can be in either hand when she steps on the rubber.
Unfortunately if you come across one of those rare folks in blue who don’t know the proper rule there isn’t a whole lot you can do about it. Bringing out the rulebook to prove you’re right is a big no-no.
Basically have your pitcher put the ball in her throwing hand to step on and get through the game. And secretly roll your eyes until next game.
Presenting the ball
I’m not quite sure what “presenting the ball” actually means, but whatever it’s supposed to be let me assure you there is no such rule. Case closed.
Moving the pivot foot prior to the pitch
While some people interpret the rule about keeping the “pivot foot” on the pitching rubber prior to the pitch as meaning it can’t move once it’s in place, that’s not true.
USA Softball rules (which all other rule sets are based on) specifically state the pitcher can slide her foot along the pitching rubber as long as said foot remains in contact with it. That also goes for other little wiggles or motions, including rocking back onto the heel – again, as long as contact is maintained.
What you do have to watch out for is the pitcher lifting her foot off the rubber (even slightly), or stepping forward off it (aka a “gym step”). In the case of the former it’s best to learn not to lift off, but there’s no need to go crazy if it’s coming up a little.
That’s really hard to spot from behind the plate or even from behind first base unless it’s egregious, and even then the umpire has to be inclined to watch for it and call it if he/she sees it. Most of them have more important things to do on the field than watch for that.
Read it, know it, live it
There are plenty of other rules in the rulebook, but these are probably the key ones every coach, parent, and player should know. That said, if you’re a coach playing in leagues or tournaments it behooves you to know ALL the rules, including any specialty rules that are specific to a particular tournament, so you can make sure your pitchers are prepared to succeed.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
Checkmate! Why Fastpitch Hitting Is Like a Chess Match
Ok, before we begin I am going to flat-out admit I am not much of a chess player. I never liked it as a kid – too slow and boring for me – and can’t remember the last time I played a full game.
Probably when I was in high school, which was a very looooooong time ago.
But I do know enough about it to understand how it’s played from a macro level. Especially after watching The Queen’s Gambit series.
At its core, chess is a game of strategy and anticipation. You don’t go for the kill right away.
You make certain moves in a particular order to put yourself in a position to strike when the chances of success are highest. And you anticipate what your opponent is going to try to do to disrupt that strategy.
In that way it’s a lot like hitting.
The instinct of many young hitters (and more than a few older ones if we’re being honest) is to attack the ball with their bat as soon as it’s pitched. In other words, they initiate the swing with their hands and let the body follow that lead.
That can work sometimes. After all, a broken clock is right twice a day (unless it’s digital, in which case it probably doesn’t work at all) and a blind monkey can find a banana now and then.
It is not, however, an approach that is going to yield regular success, especially in higher levels of play.
Just like in chess, the first move shouldn’t be the main attack. It should be to get the pieces in place so when you do attack the ball you stand a better chance of hitting it.
That’s why a sequence of hips-shoulders-bat after the front foot lands is so important.
The hips have two jobs. The first is to generate power.
The largest and strongest muscles in the body are located in the lumbar-pelvic-hip complex (LPHC). The rotational movement of the hips and core muscles get the body moving in a manner that accelerates as it goes, creating power that can then be transferred up the chain when those same muscles suddenly decelerate the hips.
By delaying the shoulders momentarily, instead of allowing them to ride along with the hips, you create a stretch from the front hip to the back shoulder that acts as a rubber band, helping accelerate the shoulders and ultimately the bat forward rather than using the arms to do it. This frees the arms and hands to focus on directing the bat to the ball rather than yanking it wildly to try to increase the energy.
But it’s not just about power. That same movement also helps position the upper body, bringing it to the launch position without having to commit the arms and bat to the ball.
This delay give the hitter more time to see the ball and brings the bat closer to it so the actual launch of the bat occurs over a shorter distance, increasing the chances of making good, hard contact. After all, it’s easier to hit a target from close-in than far away, particularly if it’s not exactly coming in on a straight line.
And that’s where the chess analogy comes in. Rather than rushing the swing, an effective, quality hitter will first get all the pieces in place, then unleash the swing with a controlled explosion when the time is right.
Whereas a weaker hitter will place all her focus on simply getting the bat to the ball from the beginning of the swing.
The other part is the strategic element, the cat-and-mouse game between the hitter and the pitcher. A good pitcher will either be trying to pitch to her strength or the hitter’s perceived or known weaknesses so the hitter must understand what those are and adjust accordingly.
For example, if the pitcher is heavily dependent on her riseball to get hitters out, the hitter must have a strategy to deal with it. That can be to try to stand a little taller and stay on top of it, or look down and lay off those riseballs entirely while hoping the umpire doesn’t have a high strike zone.
The hitter can also look for patterns in the pitch caller’s pitch sequences. For example, if the pitcher is throwing changeups consistently in 0-2 counts, the hitter should be looking for a changeup if she goes 0-2.
In fact, against a tough pitcher she may concede the first two strikes to get to that easier to hit changeup. I’ve seen that work.
Hitters need to be aware of their own weaknesses as well. If a hitter has trouble with outside pitches, and is playing against an opponent who knows that, she should expect a steady diet of outside pitches until she proves she can hit them.
In that case, the strategy might be to crowd the plate and turn the outside pitch into more of a middle pitch – particularly if the hitter is strong on inside pitches. Doing that might even bait the other team into throwing inside to try to handcuff her – at which point she can turn on a pitch she likes and send it off like a rocket.
This is what makes fastpitch softball hitting so interesting and challenging. While it definitely requires a high element of physicality, there are also strategic elements built in that will affect and are affected by the physical components.
No wonder hitting has been called the most difficult feat in all of sports.
So keep that in mind when you’re working with hitters of all ages, levels, and abilities. Have a strategy for how you’re approaching each pitch, and a plan for how you’ll move the pieces in place to execute that strategy, and you’ll greatly increase your hitters’ chances of success.
Checkmate!
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
Chess photo by Gladson Xavier on Pexels.com
The Path to Improvement Is Rarely Linear
So you decided to start taking your daughter to private lessons, or to buy an online package, or do a bunch of research and teach her yourself. That’s terrific – way to step up and help your daughter get better at the sport she loves.
Now it’s time to set some realistic expectations. In my experience, when people think of improvement in sports through lessons, more practice time, etc. they tend to expect it will look like this:
When the reality is it’s far more likely to look like this:
So why can’t it be more linear in the classic “hockey stick” style, especially if you’re putting in the work? Why does it seem like it always has be be two steps forward and one step back?
A lot of it comes down to two things: human nature, and how the human body (and the brain that controls it) works.
Humans are amazingly adaptable to their environments. We can learn how to accomplish incredible things based on what our goals are.
Once we’ve learned how to do those things, however, we tend to internalize the movements that got us there. Which means we stick with them even if the goals have changed.
Let’s take a young pitcher, for example. All her coach really wants from his/her young pitchers is for them to get the ball over the plate, i.e., throw strikes.
“We can’t defend a walk,” the coach keeps calling out, so the pitcher starts using her body in a way that allows her to accomplish the #1 goal – throwing strikes. Doesn’t matter if the movement to do so is efficient, or yields a pitch velocity that makes everyone say “Wow!” or even results in many strikeouts or weak hits.
As long as there are no walks the coach is happy, and the pitcher is a star who gets the bulk of the innings.
Sooner rather than later, however, that strategy is no longer good enough. The pitcher is getting pounded by hitters who can blast a meatball coming over the heart of the plate, so she needs to learn to throw harder, hit spots, and eventually spin the ball too if she wants to continue getting innings.
Unfortunately, the movement patterns that made her so effective at age 9 or 10 are not very conducive to throwing hard or hitting spots or spinning the ball. So she now has to learn new movement patterns.
Only she’s kind of locked into the old ones, and since her body and brain remember that those patterns were great at accomplishing the goals associated with the pitching motion at that time they’re having a hard time giving them up. We are a product of our habits, after all.
As a result, the pitcher’s performance could drop down for a while as she attempts to replace old movement patterns with new ones. Sure, the new patterns will yield more success in the long term by making her movements more efficient and effective, which will make it easier to perform at a higher level.
But it could be discouraging as she sees that temporary performance dip while her body re-learns how to move to accomplish something that used to seem easy and familiar.
The same is true with every aspect of fastpitch softball – hitting, overhand throwing, fielding, even running and sliding. Because before you can achieve any type of improvement you first have to change what you’re already doing, no matter how successful it has been in the past, and change is hard.
At this point you may be wondering if there is a statute of limitations on the backward steps. After all, once you get to a certain level of competence, or even excellence, shouldn’t it be easier to just keep going up without hitting a plateau or (gasp!) seeing performance go down?
No, for the same reasons it’s a problem in the beginning stages. In order to drive improvement, even for those at the highest levels, you have to change something you’re doing, because as the adage says, if you do what you always did you get what you always got.
In fact, it may be tougher at the higher levels because there is more to lose. A player has to decide if the potential improvement to be gained is worth the risk of a temporary loss of performance – especially if that performance has been serving the player well.
Doing something different in a high-pressure situation is likely to result in at least a slight loss in confidence due to its unfamiliarity, which leads to not putting in the same level of effort as the player would with the more comfortable movements. She may also lose some energy temporarily because she now has to think about what she’s doing rather than simply executing the movements at 100% effort with no thought involved.
That’s why high-level players usually make these changes in the offseason.
A high-level player won’t take on that risk, though, without a clear view of the rewards on the other side. She will also have been through the process before too, so should understand the ups and downs of continuous performance improvement.
Sure, it would be great if making changes automatically resulted in an immediate improvement in performance. While that can happen sometimes, more often than not it takes some time (and some missteps) before the benefits of all that work show up on the radar or in the box score.
But just like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, if you put in the work on the right things, and remain patient, the reward will be there on the other side.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
Butterfly Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
A Tribute to the Parents Who Show Up Just in Case their Daughter Plays
You see them at every high school (and sometimes college) ballfield. In cold weather climes they are bundled up in parkas, blankets, quilts, wool hats, mittens, and whatever else they can find to keep them warm, sitting in their camp chairs either alone or maybe in pairs, steeling themselves against March and early April winds that cut through all their layers like a knife.
In warmer climes they might have rain ponchos or even makeshift shelters to protect them against the showers that can crop up out of nowhere and drench them in a matter of minutes if they’re not prepared.
They do all of this without the assurance of a reward for their efforts. Because these aren’t the parents of the starters or regular players.
No, they’re the parents who show up game after game, putting up with the elements and the difficult conditions, hoping against hope they will get a chance to see their daughters get into the game for an inning or two.
I remember watching them when my daughters were playing high school softball. When I was at a game, no matter how cold or wet it was, I knew I would get the opportunity to see my daughters play the game they loved.
I could count on seeing them pitch, hit, play the field in just about every inning.
But then I would look at these parents and admire their fortitude. They had no such assurances their daughters would get into the game.
They could go days or weeks at a time and never see their daughters so much as pinch run. Their only real hope of seeing their daughters on the field was for their to be a blowout, i.e., their daughter’s team getting either so far ahead or so far behind that the coach would take the starters out and give an inning or two to the bench players.
But you know what? They showed up anyway, game after game, braving the cold, the wind, the occasional rain or even sleet, cheering for the team and just being there supporting their own daughters.
That, my friends, is love.
While honestly I was glad I wasn’t one of them, and even felt a little bad for them in a way, I also couldn’t help but be impressed by their dedication and their quality of character. It would have been easy for them to figure there’s not much point in going, especially when the team was playing against a close conference rival where one run might be the difference between winning and losing.
They could have easily thought, “She’s never going to get in so I might as well use the time more productively.” But they didn’t.
Instead, they showed up before the game started and hung around until the end, supporting their daughters in their sport of choice.
So here’s to all of you who make that choice and sit through all the weather and other challenges just on the off-chance your daughter gets an opportunity to play, even if just for an inning. You are good people, and your dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Dress warm (if needed), keep dry, and I hope your patience is rewarded sooner rather than later.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
Top photo by Yakup Polat on Pexels.com
Easing Young Arms Into the Season
On our From the Coach’s Mouth podcast yesterday, Jay Bolden (St. Xavier University, BeBold Fastpitch) and I discussed several topics related to the start of the high school and outdoor travel season. During that conversation Jay brought up a topic that I believe is critical to both the health of the athletes and the success of the team over the long haul: the importance of easing young arms into the season.
I get how challenging that can be, especially for high school (or college, for that matter) coaches. You get a couple of weeks with your athletes and then you have to start playing games.
In that couple of weeks, you have a mountain of things you feel you need to go over or get done to be prepared for the start off the season, and many of them involve overhand throwing. In the heat of those preparations it’s easy to lose track of just how much stress is being placed on those arms and shoulders – stress they are not ready for even with the best of arm care programs.
Let’s start with your athletes who are softball-only. During the offseason they have probably been practicing 1-3 times per week, which is very different than the six times per week a high school or college team will practice/play. Or a travel team will play in the summer.
Within that time they may or may not have done some arm care exercises as part of their warm-up and cool-down, but kids being kids they probably didn’t approach it with the same level of intensity they would in-season. Even if they did, though, there’s only so much an arm care program can do.
For example, one of my students is very diligent about her arm care program. But one weekend in the fall she went to a college camp where they spent three hours doing non-stop overhand throwing.
She came back with a sore shoulder that ended up requiring her to take some time off from overhand throwing and pitching while she did physical training to relieve the pain and repair the damage. Fortunately she was able to recover but it definitely set her back some.
Now imagine all the players who didn’t do that much arm care, or didn’t put in the effort to do it right when they did it. They’re not prepared to suddenly start throwing intensely in speed drills or distance drills day after day after day.
It won’t take long before they’re in some level of pain. Keep it up and by halfway through the season you may have a few athletes on the IR list and others who are gritting their teeth just trying to make it through the end of the season. Not exactly the formula for a long run to state.
Another complicating factor for many teams is the transition from indoor to outdoor practice. If you live in California, or Arizona, or Florida, or another area with warm temperatures during the winter it may not be a big deal.
But for those going from throwing in a cage or a small practice are to a full-size field it can be a huge risk factor. A little over-enthusiasm on the part of the coach can have even the best cared-for arms dragging in short order.
Then there are the athletes who come to softball after playing another overhead sport such as basketball or volleyball. Whether it was a school team or a club team, those other sports with their intense schedules have probably put a lot of stress on the shoulder joints.
There is a high risk for labrum tears, bicep tendonitis, and other issues even before you start lengthy practices involving throwing. You could easily lose a couple of your best overall athletes before the season starts even if the softball-only players are doing ok.
So what can you do to avoid these issues while still getting your team ready to play? Jay had a great suggestion that he uses with his teams.
For starters, during fielding practice have buckets available near the fielders on some days, especially early in the pre-season. When you hit fly balls or ground balls, instead of having your players throw the ball back to the fungo hitter have them toss the ball in a bucket.
When the fielder’s bucket is full, have one of them run it back in to the hitter and take the empty bucket out. That way you get the fielding work done while reducing the strain on the arms and shoulders.
You can also spend time working on short tosses, the type you would do when one player is close to another and doesn’t need to make a full through. This part of the game is probably under-practiced by most teams, so it has the added benefit of shoring up a potential problem area while saving wear-and-tear.
It can also be fun if you work on a variety of throws. Jay mentioned hearing a coach at a clinic suggesting you can also work on crazy situations such as the glove scoop and toss or throwing behind your back.
Not all the time, obviously, but every now and then just to spice up practice a little. Think Savannah Bananas.
Dailies are another great way to get fielding practice in for infielders without stressing arms. You can get a lot of reps for straight-in, forehand, and backhand fielding in in a short amount of time – and with no stress to arms or shoulders. Although it can be a little tough on the knees.
Along the way, do your best to address throwing mechanics as well. If you’re not sure how to teach good mechanics ask a more experienced coach or check out programs such as Austin Wasserman’s High Level Throwing program to learn how to set up an organized, structed throwing program designed to ensure your athletes’ long-term arm health.
Finally, as with any other type of strenuous exercise program, be smart about what you’re doing. Start with low intensity activities and lower reps, then build your way up to more reps and longer throws.
A commonly quoted statistic is that 80% of all errors in baseball and softball are throwing errors. I couldn’t find a source to absolutely confirm it, but based on my experience it certainly sounds correct.
While some of those errors are no doubt just flat-out mistakes, I’d bet if you looked under the surface a fair percentage could be attributed to arms that are sore or just plain tired. Help your players go into the long season with healthy (or at least healthier) arms and you’ll be far more likely to make a deeper run into the postseason.
A Quick Guide to Working With the Littles
Congratulations! You missed your rec league’s organizational meeting and somehow got volunteered to coach an 8-10 year old team.
Or maybe you were once a player and thought it was important to give back to the game you loved so much growing up so you volunteered yourself. Or you’ve started doing private lessons and were looking to fill up your schedule.
Whatever the situation, you’re now faced with the challenge of trying to help one or more kids who just learned how to tie their shoes a couple of years ago now use a windmill motion to throw a ball 35 feet into a strike zone that feels like it’s the size of a baby’s shoe box, hit said pitch with a bat, throw a ball more than 20 feet and get it in the general vicinity of the target (who is hopefully paying attention), catch a ball thrown at them without running away screaming, and learn all the rules, strategies, and general requirements they need to know to play this complex game. Whew!
As someone who has done this for more years than some of the parents of those kids have probably been alive, I can tell you it can be quite challenging. But it can also be quite rewarding, especially when you see those kids’ eyes light up as they do something they’ve never done before, and hear them asking their parents when the next practice is because they can’t wait to come back.
So with that in mind, here are a few suggestions that can make your path to working with the littles a little easier and more comfortable – for you and for them.
Get used to stooping down or kneeling
There is a scene in the movie Hook where Peter Pan first wakes up to the fact that he is Peter Pan. He looks at Captain Hook and says, “I remember you being a lot bigger.”
To which Hook replies, “To a 10 year old I’m enormous.” Or something like that.
That’s how you look to the littles. Even if you’re considered to be short or even very short in the adult world, you’re still likely to loom tall over most of your players, which can make you seem scary. Double that if you’re male.
Squatting, stooping, or kneeling down can put you at their eye level, making you seem less intimidating and more friendly. It can quickly put your players at ease.
On the other hand, when you squat down don’t be surprised if at least some of your players do it too, thus taking away the purpose of squatting down in the first place. Just enjoy the cuteness overload of it and know that if they are reacting that way they’re already starting to see you as one of them.
Try to understand how they see the world
This goes double if you were a college player in my opinion, because like any human being your perspective of something is most likely to be colored by your most recent experience with it.
The most important takeaway you can have here, and probably from this entire blog post, is that kids are not just short adults. That is true of any kids, but especially the littles.
Some probably still believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy. They’re barely out of their Paw Patrol phase and may still play with dolls or unicorns or trucks or simple video games, or have rich fantasy lives full of imaginary adventures.
In other words their life experiences are very limited, as are the reasoning skills for most of them. You really need to get out of your own head, with all you have learned over a lifetime, and see things from their perspective.
Assume they know nothing about fastpitch softball or its skills and strategies, not to mention life for the most part, and proceed from there.
Speak in words they understand
You may have a great vocabulary and lots of technical knowledge about softball, human anatomy, movement patterns, etc. Good for you, great job on improving your education!
But if you’re going to work with the littles you need to set all of that aside and speak to them in a way they understand. Use small words and keep explanations short and simple.
Instead of saying “Move on the frontal plane” tell them to go sideways. If you’re instructing them on throwing, call the upper arm the upper arm instead of the humerus. Say “see it in your head” instead of “visualize it.”
The more you talk to them with words or concepts they already understand the faster they’ll learn – and the less frustrated you will get.
Fit the drills to their skills – and size
You may be all excited about teaching your players your favorite hitting drill from high school or college, or a new throwing drill you learned from a college coach at a coach’s clinic. But before you trot it out, take a good look at your players and see if it’s a fit, figuratively and literally.
Here’s an example of NOT doing that. At a facility where I give lessons, the last two weeks I’ve watched the cutest little 8U (I presume) team doing hitting drills where they get down on one or both knees and hit off a tee.
Nothing wrong with that in theory. But in practice the problem is when they are on one or both knees the ball is about nose-high even with the tee all the way down. So all they’re really being taught is to swing at pitches out of the zone.
Making things worse, at times they are doing one-handed drills. Most of those girls can barely hold their bats up with two hands, much less one. And yes, they are choking up on the bat when they’re doing it.
They’d be much better off standing up and learning the basic sequence of how to move first. Then, when they get a little bigger, stronger, and more accomplished, they can work on isolating different parts of the swing.
The same goes for many other parts of the game. Think of it as a pyramid.
Start with the very general as the foundation, then work your way up to more narrow and advanced components as they master the basics. They’ll learn better, and your team will perform better while having more fun.
Exercise – or learn – patience
This is probably the most important skill you can develop as a coach. Not just for the littles; for everyone, but especially for the littles.
Remember their brains are still in the process of forming, and it will be a long time before they’re fully formed. Like their mid-20s.
Also remember that everyone is an individual, so the pace of their development in various areas will be different. Some will be able to do things right away, others will struggle, no matter how hard they try.
Be patient with all of them and meet them where they are. Praise progress, not just success.
When you get frustrated, take a deep breath and maybe try to explain things in a different way. Find something they can relate to and use that to help explain what you want to them. A great coach will have 100 different ways to say the same thing.
You’ll also need patience when it comes to their attention spans. Some littles are really good at paying attention. Others have a circus going on in their heads at all times so it can be a little tougher to keep them on-task.
I’ve had some of those. One in particular I can think of is a girl named Katie, who was a pitching and hitting student.
She was a good athlete, even at that age, but at any given time her brain could turn on a dime and she’d be far away from what we were trying to do, and I’d have to try to corral her back again. Her mom was a teacher, too, so she’d get aggravated when Katie wouldn’t pay attention.
I, on the other hand, chose to find it amusing and would laugh at her flights of fancy, which I think helped build the relationship.
As she got older, her focus got better and she turned out to be a terrific pitcher, the kind that typically didn’t need to throw more than 10-12 pitches to get through an inning. Although she eventually gave up pitching she went on to play high-level travel ball and become a high school varsity starter as a freshman in both softball and basketball. (I had nothing to do with basketball, just pointing it out for accuracy’s sake.)
Again, everyone develops at their own pace, and the weakest or least attentive player today may go on to become the best player on her team down the road. With a little patience you can help get her there.
CAVEAT: The one area where that doesn’t work is the kid who is purposely being disrespectful or disruptive or uncooperative. I have no patience for that. If they clearly don’t want to be there nothing wrong in my opinion with telling them to get on board or get out. It’ll save everyone a lot of heartache.
Be kind
I shouldn’t have to say this but again, based on my extensive experience watching how the littles are treated in games and practices, it needs to be said anyway.
None of your players are purposely trying to walk every hitter, strike out, drop easy pop-ups, boot grounders, forget to tag up, throw the ball into the parking lot, or commit any of the other basic softball sins. That stuff just happens.
When it does, you don’t have to scream at them or berate them or call them names. Instead, help them learn from their mistakes in a kind and respectful way.
Be encouraging. Tell them you believe in them, and that they should believe in themselves.
Give them corrections when and where needed without belittling them (no pun intended). You may have to do that a few times before it really sinks in, but keep doing it.
Years down the road they will remember you fondly, and may even invite you to their wedding! Help them feel good about themselves, even when you’re secretly mad as heck at them, and you’ll not only help them become winners as ballplayers; they’ll become winners as human beings.
Have realistic, age-appropriate expectations
Even though I’ve been doing this a long time I’m still shocked at some of the stories I hear about the expectations coaches can have of their littles.
Pitching is a good example. There are coaches of 8U and 10U teams that insist their pitchers have to “hit their spots” or throw a certain velocity if they want to pitch for the team.
First of all, at those ages “hit your spots” should mean throwing strikes enough of the time to keep the game moving. To expect kids who are just learning how to pitch to throw to an exact spot with precision is simply ludicrous.
Expecting certain velocities is silly too given how much of a size difference there can be as kids develop. To think a pitcher who stands less than 5 feet tall and weighs 70 lbs. will throw as hard as a pitcher who is 5’4″ and weighs 120 lbs. is unrealistic, to say it kindly.
These ages (and I will include 12U in this one as well) are about development and gaining experience, not meeting certain “minimum standards.” That extra small little will grow someday, in her own time, and my actually pass by all the girls who started with greater physical advantages because she wanted it more.
You just never know. Your job as the coach is to encourage and create opportunities for every kid on the team so they develop a love for the sport and go on to become the best they can be. The rest will sort itself out down the road.
The rewards are there
I won’t kid you. Working with the littles isn’t easy; it definitely has its challenges with coordination and attention spans being at the top of the list.
(On the other hand, when they get to be teens with attitudes and petty squabbles you may long for the days when your biggest coaching challenge was getting them to keep their elbows up when they throw.)
Just keep in mind you have the unique opportunity to shape the next generation of fastpitch softball players, and perhaps coaches after that. What you do matters than you may realize.
Thank you for taking on this important challenge. Now go get ’em, coach!
The Best Tryout Advice You’ll Ever Receive
Tryouts are beginning soon for high school fastpitch softball in many parts of the U.S., and with them comes all the anticipation, hopes, dreams, and yes, anxiety typically associated with trying to earn a spot on a team.
Plenty has been written about things you can do to improve your chances of making the team you want, such as hustling, going out of your way to talk to the coaches, taking chances by doing things like diving for balls and so on. Heck, I’ve written a few of them myself.
Today, though, I want to tell you about a secret most players don’t know that can help free them to show the coaches (or evaluators at an open selection event) what they can really do. If you’re a parent, guardian, or friend of a player, please be sure to pass this tip along to them.
Okay, are you ready? Here it is:
The coaches doing the evaluations want you to do well. In fact, they’re really hoping you do.
That’s right. They’re not standing there waiting for you to mess up or looking for things they can criticize to make you feel bad. Instead, they want you to look good.
How can that be, you ask? Why would they care one way or the other?
It’s simple: they have a need to fill or a problem to solve, and if you come out looking great they can fill the need or solve the problem without having to worry about it anymore. In other words it’s in their best interest for you to be awesome.
I actually had this epiphany while listening to the SmartLess podcast with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett. It’s very entertaining as the three of them interview other celebrities and interesting people; it’s perfect for those long car rides to far-flung games and I highly recommend it.
They were talking about how nervous they would get as young actors auditioning for roles in movies or on TV shows. Then they started directing and producing, putting them on the other side of the audition table, and they realized their main thought there was “I hope this guy/gal is what we need for this role so I can move on to other things.”
It’s the same in fastpitch softball tryouts or evaluation events. The folks with the clipboards have X number of slots to fill.
They want to fill them with quality players as quickly as they can – players about whom everyone will say, “I see why they were selected.” So when you step onto the rubber or into the cage or on the field, they want you to be good.
They need you to be good. They are basically rooting for you to be good.
While I don’t coach teams anymore I can personally confirm from past experience that this approach is true. I never thought about it that way but yes, I hoped every girl I looked at would be awesome because it would make my job easier, especially when it came time to take the field in a game.
Now, I will say in many high school situations the term “tryouts” can be a misnomer. Often most of the team is already selected before the first day.
Still, there is usually a need somewhere, an open slot that needs to be filled for the team to be complete. The coach isn’t trying to eliminate those who can’t fill the spot; he or she is looking for the one person who can.
So when you step into the spotlight, don’t think or worry about the outcome. Focus on the process, which is going out there and showing the coach why you are the solution he/she is hoping to find today.
If you perceive the coach or evaluators as rooting FOR you instead of AGAINST you, you’ll stand a much better chance of setting any nervousness aside and performing to the best of your abilities. With the result of greatly increasing your chances of being selected.
Now go out there and show them what you can do! Good luck to all.
My good friend Jay Bolden and I have started a new podcast called “From the Coach’s Mouth” where we interview coaches from all areas and levels of fastpitch softball as well as others who may not be fastpitch people but have lots of interesting ideas to contribute.
You can find it here on Spotify, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re searching, be sure to put the name in quotes, i.e., “From the Coach’s Mouth” so it goes directly to it.
Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And be sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to Life in the Fastpitch Lane for more content like this.
Lead photo by Liza Summer on Pexels.com
Preparing for the Inevitble Storms
On this week’s episode of the From the Coach’s Mouth podcast, Jay Bolden and I spoke with Shawnee Harle, 2X Olympian with the Canadian Basketball National Team and now a Mental Toughness Coach with her own business called Winning Matters. While Shawnee had a lot of great insights into the mental game, there was one concept in particular that has been on my mind today: preparing for the storm.
Shawnee said that what most athletes and coaches miss is that there is always a storm coming – kind of like Florida during hurricane season. It’s not a question of if, but rather than of when.
Through experience, most people in Florida have learned that when a hurricane is on its way it’s best to put up the plywood over the windows, lock down anything that can be easily lifted (such as patio furniture), and lay in supplies such as food, water, toilet paper, and bandages so they’re ready for when the storm hits.
If it’s not that bad that’s ok – all they lost was a little time and a little storage space for supplies they didn’t need after all (but can use later). If it is bad, however, they have what they need to get through it until the storm passes and things get back to normal.
Unfortunately, many coaches and athletes like to pretend that the storm isn’t going to hit them. “I’ve put in the work,” they say, or “the negatives won’t hit me if I just stay positive.” But that’s a fool’s position.
According to Shawnee, the storm hits everyone sooner or later. Pitchers have a rough outing or two, or suddenly lose their best pitch for no apparent reason. Hitters go into slumps out of nowhere.
Catchers suddenly can’t throw baserunners out or start having pitches they’d normally catch glance off their gloves. Fielders start making fielding errors or sailing balls high instead of throwing to the base.
No one knows why the softball gods suddenly become angry and throw their wrath at a particular player. They just do, and it happens to everyone.
So knowing that, the question is what are you doing to prepare yourself (or your players)? Have you thought about how you’re going to deal with it and get back on track or are you going to allow yourself to get caught by surprise and then try to ride it out?
Now, some coaches will take the “Suck it up buttercup” approach. They see a problem and think if they tell players to “toughen up” or to “get your head in the game” they will solve the problem.
In reality, they will most likely make it worse.
The better approach is to heed the old saying “In times of peace, prepare for war” and start getting your mental game toolkit together before you need it. Just like smart Floridians gather up their supplies ahead of the hurricane rather than during the middle of it.
There are plenty of resources out there that can help you learn how to prepare for the coming storm. A mental toughness coach such as Shawnee is certainly a good one, especially if you’re playing on a bigger stage where the pressure is extreme.
But there are plenty of self-help options out there. The book Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time is a great starting point in my opinion. It’s easy to follow, with great exercises that help you learn to control yourself and understand what else you can or cannot control.
There are many other books, videos, and training tools as well, all designed to address the storms that are inevitable in sports as well as in life.
The key, though, is not to wait until you’re facing the storm but to get out ahead of it. You wouldn’t suddenly try to learn how to hit or pitch or perform any other skill in the middle of a season.
You shouldn’t wait until you’re in the middle of a crisis to try to develop the skills you need to get out of one either.
If you polled 1,000 coaches and athletes and asked them how important the mental game is to success, I’d bet the overwhelming majority, like 90%+, would say “very important.” Ask that same 1,000 how much time they spend on it, though, and you’d probably get an answer of 5% of their time or less.
Face the facts: the storm is coming. It might not be today, or even tomorrow, but sooner or later it will hit. Start preparing for it now and you’ll find you’ll get through it faster and stronger.
A $500 Bat Won’t Fix a $5 Swing
Softball bat technology has certainly come a long way from the days when an $80 Louisville Slugger burgundy bottle bat was what every fastpitch hitter dreamed of owning. (Linda Lensch I’m looking at you.)
The materials and construction of today’s bats are designed to maximize distance and power, turning even so-so contact into a potential dinger. At least that’s the promise.
Yet while it’s true that the stiffness of advanced carbon fiber or other materials and “trampoline effect” of the specially engineered barrels do tend to yield better results (all else being equal), there’s one thing they can’t make up for: a poorly engineered swing. That’s something to keep in mind as you start to look at where to spend your money to try to create better results at the plate this season.
I know that $500 bat sure looks tempting in the online ads. These days bat manufacturers are doing a great job of making their bats not only powerful but beautiful.
Heck, a lot of them will let you customize the colors and graphics yourself, which is a wonderful option if you have an eye for that sort of thing and can be a disaster if all your taste is in your mouth, as an old boss of mine used to say. Still, as long as it’s beautiful to you it’s the stuff dreams are made of.
But while they may make your socks roll up and down when you look at the bat, all the pretty colors and cool graphics in the world won’t help when you take it up to the plate and are staring down a pitcher. At that point you’d better know how to swing it.
It comes come down to which you think will work better: a great swing with a cheap bat or a great bat with a terrible swing.
Sure, it’s possible with today’s technology that you can get a few great or at least decent hits with any ol’ swing. All you need to do is get the bat on the ball and the bat will do the rest, right?
That, however, is more of a “hope” or a “law of averages” strategy. Swing it enough times and you’re bound to hit something sometime – or at least you’d assume so.
But the reality is you’ll probably do a lot better making sure your swing itself is in order – that it is sequenced properly, you understand how time a pitcher, you are capable of making the fine adjustments to the swing once you get a better look at the pitch, etc. – before you go spending your limited budget on the shiny new bat.
Think of it like a guitar player. If you go to hear someone play who hasn’t been at it that long, he or she may have a $20,000 Martin acoustic guitar but it’s still going to sound like someone hacking away at an instrument they don’t really know.
But if you go to hear a great guitarist, he or she will draw amazing, mesmerizing sounds out of a $200 special from Sweetwater. Because the tone and technique is in the hands of the player, not the instrument.
It’s the same with that $500 bat you’re coveting. The only way to get the results you want from that big ticket expenditure is to first make sure you know how to use it.
Rather than investing in that fancy new bat, first make sure you’re investing in yourself. Get some lessons from a qualified hitting instructor.
Put in time in the cages to work on what the instructor is telling you. Get comfortable with your swing mechanics and your approach at the plate.
See someone about your mental game if you find you’re great in the cage but struggle in games. In other words, get your house in order.
Then, when you’re sure you’re ready, have at it. Search the Internet or better yet go to a local store or facility where you can try out various bats to see which one feels and sounds best to you – there can be a huge difference even between bats with similar specs.
Then make your purchase knowing you not only have a $500 bat but a $1 million swing to go with it.
By the way, this thought also applies to pitchers and fielders too. Before you go spending money on new gloves or shoes or gimmicks, invest in yourself and what you’ll do with those things first.
You’ll probably like the results a whole lot better.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 