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The Pitcher Who Threw the Golden Softball
Why high performers don’t always perform at a high level by the end of the season.
Stop me if you’ve seen this scenario before. You have a pitcher who has been performing at a high level from the beginning of the spring (or high school) season all the way through the summer.
Yet now, as you’re getting to the most important part of the year, i.e., those big 4th of July tournaments and the Whatever Nationals, she’s suddenly starting to struggle. The speed is a little down, but worse the pinpoint accuracy she used to display has gone away, replaced with pitches in the dirt, over the catcher’s head, and/or wide of the plate.
Her movement pitches have lost their sharp movement, her knee-buckling changeup looks more like an easier-to-hit version of her fastball, and all the while her Ks are going down as her Ws are going up.
You wonder how could this be happening? What could have caused Ms. Ace to be replaced by someone who looks like her but definitely doesn’t throw like her?
There could be a few causes, but one that few people think about (or are willing to admit) is just plain fatigue. She’s still giving all the effort she always has, but at this point there’s not a whole lot left in the tank.
It’s a lot like the fable of the goose who laid the golden egg. Let’s take a high schooler because it’s the most extreme example.
For those who play in the spring, high school softball probably started sometime in February or at the latest the beginning or March. During that time she either pitched bullpens or in games six days a week for at least three months, possibly more if her team did well in the state tournament.
Her high school coach may have tried to split the work between Ms. Ace and one or two others, but let’s face it: everybody loves to win. So if Ms. Ace was the most reliable path to winning, her innings started to increase as the season wore on.
Once it got to conference championships and the State playoffs, the workload increased even more. She probably threw every inning of every game – even the ones that went 12 or more innings – because at that point if you lose you’re done, and no one wants to be done if they don’t have to be.
She may have been hurting, or tired, or feeling like her arm was going to fall off or her legs had turned into Jell-O, but she sucked it up and pitched anyway in a valiant effort to attain glory for the school with a State championship.
Then one way or the other the high school season finished. And did she get a chance to rest?
Nope. She no sooner turned in her high school uniform than she was putting on her travel team uniform. Heck, she might have done that in the locker room at her school.
And then came the grind of the summer. She probably got some breaks early on, as the coach split the time between different pitchers.
In the meantime, the summer got hotter and more humid. Those turf fields that make it easier to get in games when the weather is colder and wetter have suddenly turned into a hot box from a WWII movie, with temperatures running anywhere from 100 degrees to 130 or more (or so I’ve been told; never measured it myself).
And just about the time the hot weather really set in, the tournaments got more serious. Again, the situation started turning into win or go home on a big stage, and Ms. Ace was called upon more and more to lead the team to victory, keep the team in games until the offense catches up, or close out a close game by pitching another inning or two.
Throw in a college camp or a showcase event where she’s trying to look her best for her dream school, or any qualifying school for that matter, and/or maybe a tryout for next year here or there, and it’s a lot. Especially when the schedule doesn’t allow for any days off.
You see where this is headed. All that work all that practice, all that heat, all that everything begins to take a toll Not just physically but mentally.
Even if Ms. Ace is feeling ok physically, she may be mentally exhausted after putting so much energy into softball-critical situations, game after game, weekend after weekend.
At some point she’s like that mobile phone that you keep throwing on the charger when the battery indicator shows red and taking off as soon as the low battery goes off. She may have a little more energy than she did, but it’s really not enough to carry the team like she could a few weeks – or a few months – ago.
And that, my friends, is why her performance may be suffering a bit at the end of the season. It’s not that her mechanics are off, or that she’s not trying, or that she’s forgotten how to pitch.
She just may be exhausted and running on fumes, still doing all she can to help the team win, even if she’s no longer at her best.
So don’t be too quick to hit the panic button if Ms. Ace isn’t quite looking like herself. With a little rest, even if it’s just a couple of days in a row off, she’ll power back up, and before you know it she’ll be kicking butt and taking names again.
Hopefully in time for a nice run at Nationals.
Tryouts – No Rest for the Weary
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
As someone who has been around fastpitch softball at the travel level for more than 20 years, I can’t help but shake my head at how early tryouts are these days.
It’s hard to believe today but back when I first became involved, as the parent of a player in her first year of travel ball, travel ball tryouts were in the spring. You would play out the summer, the last regular tournament would be at the end of July, then the various “nationals” would happen the first 10 days or so of August (depending on how the calendar laid out).
I remember, because that first year we had to leave for a family vacation on Saturday after playing Friday. (My daughter and I wanted to stay through the end of the tournament but my wife put a big “no” on that idea.)
As time went on and I became a coach, tryouts kept moving up earlier. First we held them at the beginning of December. Then in September. And finally, the organization I was with started doing tryouts the week after nationals finished. We had to, because everyone else was doing them then and if we didn’t all our players would’ve been settled in somewhere else.
Still, I was shocked in mid-July as various students and their parents told me they were going to tryouts the following week. Many nationals hadn’t even occurred yet, but here they were already trying out for next year.
It’s gotten to be like a reality TV show – “Tryout Wars.” Every program is trying to get a leg up on the others in its area, and so schedules its tryouts a week earlier than everyone else to try to secure the best players before others can get to them.
Of course, if they want you they expect a decision (and a check) on the spot. That way you’re less likely to go somewhere else.
It just seems like madness to me. Pretty soon, you won’t be trying out for the coming year in August. The timeline will have pushed back so far that you’ll be trying out for two years from now.
The people that get hurt the most by all this are the families. They can’t fully enjoy the end of their season, and the nationals experience, because they’re too busy planning for (or worrying about) the next season. Instead, they hear the music of The Clash in their heads:
What’s the answer? I don’t have one. Even if all the national sanctioning bodies got together and declared “no tryouts allowed until September 1” I doubt anything would change. There’s no way to enforce it.
So instead, when teams should be focused on making a run for whatever year-end title they’re going for, or families would like to take a break from the hectic schedule of the summer, they instead find themselves thinking mostly about next year.
Oh, and there’s no advantage for the top teams in each age bracket either. Players can’t afford to wait, because if they don’t make those teams and haven’t committed elsewhere they may find themselves without a place to play the next year.
It’s a shame. It would be nice if families (and coaches for that matter) could get a week or two off before beginning the whole process again. They could all come into it fresh and energized instead of tired and burdened. But unless there’s a groundswell movement, it looks like the only advice is “suck it up, Buttercup.”
Oh, and fall ball starts in two weeks.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 