Blog Archives
A quarter for the release of a back of the hand changeup
There are all different types of changeups. Some are more effective than others, and some suit a particular pitcher better than others. 
Most of the time I teach a backhand change, which requires the pitcher to drag the ball through the release zone knuckles-first. But sometimes that one doesn’t work. So the backup plan is the back of the hand change.
With this pitch, you bring it down normally, then spin the hand around so the little finger is facing the plate, with the back of your hand facing your thigh.
One of the challenges of the back of the hand changeup is learning to get the hand spun around at the proper time so the ball actually does come out the other side. If you don’t it just becomes a bad fastball, or maybe a handshake change at best.
Young pitchers in particular don’t always understand how quickly the hand needs to turn, so here’s an activity they can do to get the hang of it. All they need to do is take a quarter (or a half dollar or a silver dollar, anything round and decently sized) and spin it counter-clockwise on the table (for a right handed pitcher; a lefty spins it clockwise).
The idea is to get the coin spinning as fast as you can while turning the hand in the proper direction. Pitchers can challenge themselves to see how long they can keep the coin spinning with a tight rotation.
A little time spent indoors on a rainy day can make a huge difference out on the field.
Congratulations to Kirsten Stevens on her record-setting win
Saw this little news item as I was checking some scores tonight and couldn’t let it go by without a special shout-out. Congratulations to Kirsten Stevens on not only opening the SoCon tourney with a 9-0 shutout, but also for setting the Mercer University all-time record for wins in a season at 24. My guess is 24 isn’t going to hold up any longer than it takes 
Kirsten to pitch her next game.
I’m excited about this because Kirsten was a former student of mine. I’m pretty sure she was in 8th grade when I first started working with her. She came to me through the recommendation of her coach Rick Cartright (I was also teaching his daughter Stephanie at the time).
I had a feeling she’d do well from the first time I saw her. Her technique was raw, but you didn’t have to be an expert to see there was thunder in her left arm. I remember catching for her a couple of times and she was definitely the poster child for throwing a “heavy” ball – the kind of pitch that when it hits the glove you feel it.
More important, though, Kirsten is a quality human being – kind, humble and funny. We always had a good time in our lessons. But of course she also worked hard in and out of them. I’m sure that has carried on to make her the outstanding pitcher she is today.
So congrats Kirsten and keep up the good work! Maybe we’ll finally have that lunch this summer when you get back. Oh, and sorry about the photo – it was the only one I had!
Update 5/7/15: I was right about that record. She added another shutout today. The record is now 25!
A lesson for softball pitchers everywhere
Today after teaching some lessons I came home and settled in front of the TV to watch a couple of college games. First was Arizona and Oregon State, followed by UCLA and Oregon. (Gotta love the PAC12 network.)
Anytime I have a chance to watch college teams on TV is a good day. But this day was particularly interesting, and not just for the games themselves. It had to do with the number of pitchers I had a chance to watch.
You see, when I first got involved in softball, the standard was pretty much each team had an Ace, and they road that arm for better or for worse. I’m sure top teams had other pitchers, but you rarely saw them or even heard their names mentioned.
Today, however, there was an opportunity to see several pitchers. In the first game Arizona ended up winning 22-2. Oregon State went to the bullpen a couple of times trying to put a stop to the pain. Then in the second game, both UCLA and Oregon used three different pitchers (and UCLA brought back their starter) in a game Oregon finally won 6-4.
Entertaining as it was, it also provided a good lesson to young pitchers (and their parents): everyone has a tough day now and then.
It’s easy to forget that sometimes. A young pitcher walks a couple of hitters, or gives up a few hits, and it’s easy for her to get discouraged. Or for her parents to get upset with her. (You hear parents yelling “c’mon!” at youth games all the time.) I’ve seen pitchers reduced to tears as a result of a tough outing.
Then you watch today’s games. Plenty of walks (including runs walked in), a couple of hit by pitches, and some pretty big hits. Arizona alone hit two grand slams, and hit for the home run cycle – solo, 2-run and 3-run on top of the grand slams. The second game had plenty of struggles on both sides as well.
I’m pretty sure every pitcher who took the circle is getting all or at least much of her college education at major institutions paid for. Theoretically they’re among the best in the country. Yet there they were – walking hitters, hitting batters, serving up meatballs.
And there’s the lesson. It happens to everyone. While you never want to be in that position, sooner or later you probably will. You just need to pick yourself up and remember it’s not the end of the world. Instead, go back out the next time and do better.
And if you’re a parent, try not to live and die by every pitch. You could end up dying a thousand times. Instead, remember your daughter is still learning, and will have bad days now and then. Keep today’s pitchers in mind and give your daughter a break. As long as she keeps working she’ll be okay. The faster you can help her put it behind her, the better off she’ll be.
The Way It Ought To Be
The other night when I got out to my fastpitch softball lessons I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me. My first lesson was with a high school senior pitcher, and her high school coach was there to observe.
I couldn’t have been more pleased! All too often it seems the relationship between private coaches and team coaches – either in high school or travel ball – is contentious. I’m not sure why but it’s not uncommon. 
It’s much smarter for there to be a sense of cooperation. Private coaches work with players on an individual basis far more than a team coach ever will have the time for. They teach specific skills and learn what cues trigger performance and success for those players.
If the player (or her parents) have chosen wisely, that player comes onto the team with an advanced skillset built over many hours of practice. At the same time, there will be players who have put little effort into learning their skills. That is where the team coach can make a difference. Focusing their limited time on raising the skill levels of those players will pay the best dividends. Because, of course, the chain will only be as strong as its weakest links.
In this particular case, I invited the coach into the cage with us so he could hear the instruction and ask questions if he had any. He brought his iPad in with him and shot video as we went along. I periodically asked if he had any questions, and he had the opportunity to see how I interacted with my student/his player.
It was a very pleasant half hour. I left the coach with an open invitation to come back any time. Kudos to the pitcher’s parents for setting it up, incidentally.
Of course, it’s easy for me to take this position as a private coach. But I have also experienced it from the other side. While I wasn’t able to attend an actual lesson, when I was a team coach and had pitchers who were not my students, I would contact their pitching coaches to learn what to look out for, what cues they used and what they were teaching those pitchers. It may not have been what I taught, but that’s ok. I wanted to work with what they had learned and what they were supposed to be doing rather than trying to re-make according to what I teach.
Presumably, everyone – team coach, private coach, parents and the player – want the same thing. They want the pitcher to be successful. Working together is far more likely to make that happen than constant territorial battles.
Pitching, conditioning and mental toughness all in one drill
First of all, let me admit that I haven’t actually used this drill yet. But I was thinking about it the other day and thought it might be a good idea for that softball pitcher who wants to take her game to the infamous “next level.” I have a few girls in mind who I think would benefit from it.
Here are the basics. The pitcher throws a pitch as per usual. It can be any pitch – fastball, change, drop, whatever. After she throws it, rather than the catcher throwing it back the pitcher sprints to the catcher, the catcher hands her the ball, and the pitcher sprints back to the pitching rubber.
Once she is back she can follow her usual routine to throw the next pitch. You don’t want to rush that and risk poor mechanics.
Continue until the pitcher is winded – or maybe one more pitch beyond that.
This drill will do several things. Obviously, it will help the pitcher with conditioning and building up her endurance in a sport-specific way. Pitching is basically a one-step sprint. Having the pitcher sprint down and sprint back (rather than conditioning with long runs) will help encourage that quick burst and quick recovery. It will also help her build length strength to drive off quicker and more powerfully.
It will also help the pitcher gain experience with pitching when she’s tired. All too often in lessons or practice sessions the pitcher goes for a half hour and is done. It’s not too tough to maintain good mechanics in that timeframe, especially if there are water breaks or chats in-between.
But in a game, or especially at a tournament, fatigue can set in quickly. If the pitcher isn’t used to pitching through it she can struggle. Her mechanics can break down and she’ll be doing anything she can to chuck the ball at the plate. Including things that could hurt her physically. But if she learns to pitch through fatigue in a controlled environment she’ll be much better prepared for the afternoon or evening of the last day of a tournament.
Finally, it will help her mental game, showing her that she can push past her normal breaking point and learn to focus even when she’s sucking wind. Especially if, as you should, you insist that her control, speed and movement remain consistent no matter how tired she gets.
Now, this is not the sort of thing I would recommend for every practice session. But every now and then – maybe once a week if she’s practicing regularly – it can make a huge difference.
If you want to give your pitcher a good workout, especially after the holidays as many are preparing for the high school season or the summer, give this drill a try. And be sure to let me know how it goes.
That “Moses” kind of feeling
Ok, so what does a Bible story have to do with softball? Bear with me – I swear it has a point.
Pretty much everyone knows the story of Moses – either directly out of the Bible or the over-the-top Cecil B. DeMille movie TV runs every Easter, starring Charlton Heston. The key part here is what happens to Moses at the end. After leading the Hebrews out of Egypt they wander the desert for 40 years. When they finally reach the Promised Land, Moses is not allowed to enter.
That’s the feeling I get sometimes when I go out to watch my students play in games. I’m wondering how many of you who teach but don’t coach a team feel the same way.
What I mean is I will hear about how great one of my students is doing. If she’s a pitcher, she dominating the hitters, giving up only a couple of runs and maybe one walk. If she’s a hitter, she’s pounding out extra base hit after extra base hit – even going yard now and then.
But when I come out to the game to watch, something happens. I don’t know if they get nervous when I’m there or it’s just bad timing, but suddenly the pitchers are getting hammered, or having trouble finding the strike zone. And the hitters are popping up, grounding out or even striking out.
Hence my Moses reference. I seem to be able to get them to the Promised Land of great play ok. I just don’t get a lot of opportunities to enjoy it with them. It’s gotten to the point where I sometimes try to hide when I go to a game so as not to throw them off.
Of course, when I am coaching a team this phenomenon makes things a bit worse. Tough to win games when your players aren’t playing the way you know they can play.
So now I throw it out to you. Am I the only one who has experienced the “Moses effect?” Or have you seen it as well?
The three-pitch challenge
One of the continuing challenges of learning the game of fastpitch softball is transferring skills from practice to a game. That’s because they’re often two different experiences.
In practice, you get multiple repetitions to execute the same skills. If you miss one, no worries – you have the opportunity to try it again. That makes for a (generally) more relaxed atmosphere.
In games it’s a different story. You fail, and you often pay the consequences for it. That adds a lot of pressure, which makes it even more difficult to execute the skill correctly.
So how do you add game-like pressure to practice? I’ve written about that before here and here and I’m sure in other areas too. You just have to be creative. Here’s another way.
I call it the three-pitch challenge, and it’s a great way to end a good session. Here are the basics: You tell the pitcher you’re going to call three pitches. If she executes all three in a row properly – i.e., right location, right break on a breaking pitch, right speed for a change, etc. – she’s done for the day. But she can’t stop until she gets three in a row. Throw two good ones and blow the third and you start back at zero.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it can get in a pitcher’s head pretty quickly.
One of the pitchers I like to do this with is a very talented girl named Katie. I like doing it because she hates it, by the way, so I know it’s accomplishing what I want it to do. I will say she has gotten better at it over time, which has also translated into her on-field pitching. She is so driven and such a perfectionist that she’d get herself all wound up if a couple of pitches didn’t go right. Now she’s learned to re-channel that energy into making the next pitch better rather than worrying about what the last pitch didn’t do.
When I do this with pitchers I often try to get them an early win. I’ll pick a pitch that I’m pretty confident they’re going to throw properly. I might even go with two high-confidence pitches for the first two. Then I’ll select one that was either a struggle or perhaps was the focus for the day.
For example, let’s say she’s been spotting her fastball for a strike, but wanted to work on her drop ball because it wasn’t working the last game. I’ll go with fastball low and out for pitch one (must be a strike to count). Then perhaps a change for the second pitch, assuming it’s been working pretty well. Then I’ll ask for the drop on the third pitch. That’s going to tell us whether the gains she made that day are going to hold up under pressure.
As a variation you can let the pitcher choose which pitches she’s going to throw. The only caveat is she can’t throw the same pitch twice in a sequence of three. That may seem like it’s easier for the pitcher, but it actually adds more pressure. Since she made the decision of what to throw, the sole responsibility is on her. You’d be surprised what that can do to confidence. Or maybe not if you’ve experienced it.
No matter who is calling the pitches, you have to watch for the point of no return – that point where the pitcher is too deep in her own head. At that point I’ll change the pitch calls to presumably make it easier to get out of this particular session without giving up totally, and be a little liberal on what I’ll accept for the pitch – such as a drop that drops a little, or a fastball that’s a borderline strike.
Three pitches doesn’t sound like much, but when there’s something at stake (like being done with a lesson) it can have a significant impact. Next time you’re looking for an exclamation point on a pitching session, give the three-pitch challenge a try.
Farewell to Ernie Parker
Last week the softball world lost one of its greats – pitching coach Ernie Parker. While he hasn’t been tremendously visible the last few years – which means younger readers may not recognize the name – he was extremely influential in the careers of a lot of pitchers and coaches. Including this one.
Back in the pre-Internet days it was difficult to find quality information on anything softball-related. Which is likely one of the reasons there was such a disparity between teams in Southern California and everywhere else in the country. Ernie’s video series was one of the first to explain the techniques for “California-style” pitching, i.e., explosive speed with dynamic ball movement.
Most of us non-Californians, especially those of us in the Midwest, hadn’t seen anything like it and had no idea how it was done. But through his videos (at that time on VHS) Ernie gave the rest of us some valuable clues on what the techniques should look like and ideas on how to teach them.
Not to say he necessarily got everything right. In those early videos he talked about the importance of “slamming the door,” or bringing the hips around, to finish the pitch. I spoke to him by phone a couple of years ago about that and he said he had long since changed his stance on that, like any good pitching coach would. He also focused a lot on developing the purposeful wrist snap. That aside, though, there was enough great information to help those of us who knew nothing begin to learn.
For me, Ernie was particularly influential in learning to teach the backhand changeup and the curve. His video was the first place I saw a well-disguised changeup, and I still use several of the tips he provided. For the curve, his video was where I learned to use a Frisbee to get a pitcher started. Again, that is something I still do today.
Despite his stature and accomplishments, Ernie always had time for anyone who contacted him, and he would always give you a straight answer. I remember emailing him years ago, lamenting about the lack of effort from a couple of students with good potential and commenting on how nice it must be to be Ernie Parker and have all your students work hard. He responded that he wished it were true, but he had the same issues as everyone else. Some students worked hard and did well, others put in little effort – I supposed counting on his name to make them great.
I have to admit it made me feel a little better about my own efforts, and helped me to understand there’s only so much a coach can do. The player has to want it.
Ernie had a passion for the game, and for helping players become the best versions of themselves they could be. He will be missed by those of us who knew him and/or learned from him. Thanks and farewell, Ernie.
Helping young softball pitchers build consistency
Last night I was working with an 11U beginning pitcher named Alex. She’s a great kid, always smiling, always giving 100 percent. You can see a real love of the game in her, and a love of the opportunity her parents are giving her to learn how to pitch.
Being young, though, she has been struggling a bit to find the consistency that leads to control. Kids develop fine motor skills at different times, and it seems that Alex hasn’t quite gotten there yet. As a result, she was throwing balls all over the place.
Now, I am a believer that control is a result, not a goal. If you do the right things mechanically the ball will go where it’s supposed to go. But sometimes pitchers need a little help to push them toward that consistency.
You don’t want them to aim the ball, or do whatever it takes to get it to the catcher. That often leads to poor mechanics and slow pitches, which defeats the purpose of learning to pitch. But you do want them to start honing in on where they need to be. That’s when I got an idea.
I happened to have a Jugs Quick Snap pitching screen set up for hitting lessons that were happening after Alex’s pitching lesson. It’s the type with the hole in it. I use it so I can put the screen close to the hitter without giving my wife the opportunity to cash in the insurance policy she has on me – especially when I’m working with older hitters. That hole seemed like the perfect way to help Alex start working her way toward control.
So, I dragged it over and set it up a couple of feet in front of her and had her pitch through the hole. It’s large enough that it provides some leeway for the pitcher, yet small enough to make it something they have to work at. She struggled with it at first, but after a few minutes was able to get the ball through the hole (and toward her dad, who was catching) pretty regularly.
We then moved the screen to a distance of about 10 feet in front of her. She struggled again, but even when she didn’t get the ball through the hole she was getting a lot closer to that area than she had been.
What I liked about using the screen over having her pitch at close distance to the backstop (which we have also done) is it gave her context. It was regular pitching, but with a goal right in front of her.
As I write this it occurs to me we could even make a game of it – scoring points for getting the ball through the hole (with a full, 100 percent motion) and earning prizes depending on the score. Or maybe a prize for each time through, just to keep it fun. Hmmm, I’ll have to keep that in mind if we do it again.
I realize everyone doesn’t happen to have a Jugs protective screen handy. But if you do have access to one (or a similar screen) and are working with a pitcher who doesn’t quite seem to be able to lock in her mechanics, give it a try. Just be sure to let us know how it works for you.
As for Alex, it seemed to help. She’s still not quite there yet – it’s not a miracle cure by any means – but I have a feeling her brain will process it and she’ll be in a lot better shape the next time I see her.
Pitching: hitting your spots not the be-all and end-all
Back to focusing on softball with something that’s been on my mind for a little while. It never ceases to amaze me how obsessed coaches often are with whether their pitchers hit their spots. Especially at the younger ages.
It’s almost like that’s the only thing they know about pitching. Anytime a pitcher gives up a hit (or even comes close to it) some coach is likely to yell “you need to hit your spots.”
There are a couple of flaws in that thinking. The first is that the value of hitting a particular spot when it’s called is directly proportional to how good the person calling the pitches is at setting up hitters.
I’ve known of coaches who basically call low and outside fastballs 90% of the time. I’ve heard about coaches that call screwball after screwball because, well, they saw screwballs work on TV. I’ve seen coaches refuse to call the changeup because they prefer that their pitchers throw heat.
The problem with that is predictability. If you’re throwing to the same location all the time it probably won’t take long for hitters to figure it out and adjust. Speed kills, but as we saw in the last WCWS, even a 70 mph pitch isn’t enough alone to overcome good hitters. So sure as shootin’ a 45 or 55 mph pitch won’t be. You need a mix of speeds and locations.
There’s also an art to setting up a hitter. It takes time and effort to learn how to do it. For example, when a hitter fouls a ball straight back, a good follow-up pitch is a changeup. Of course, if you do it every time you become predictable.
When you get ahead in the count 0-2, you don’t want to throw a strike – you want to throw a ball that looks like a strike. Maybe a curve, maybe a high fastball or rise. But again, you need to mix it up to keep hitters from settling in.
An inexperienced coach often doesn’t know that. So they’ll call that favorite pitch even when it isn’t appropriate. The pitcher would actually be doing the coach a favor by missing the spot, truthfully. I’ve seen more than one coach saved by a pitcher who didn’t throw what was called.
The other reason hitting spots is often overrated is that it isn’t the best measure of a pitcher. Coaches like it because it can be quantified. They also like it because they can use it as justification for elevating one pitcher over another – i.e., pitcher A hits her spots and pitcher B doesn’t, so A must be better than B.
But the truth is the single best measure of a pitcher is whether she can get hitters out. She may not put the ball exactly where the coach called it, but if she’s getting hitters out what difference does it make? Hitting spots alone doesn’t get hitters out. You get no credit for that from the umpire, just as having a perfect swing doesn’t entitle you to get on base. I’ll take a sloppy pitcher who can get hitters out over a precise one who can’t any day of the week.
That’s not to say pitchers shouldn’t work on hitting their spots – they should. If for not other reason than they may play for a coach who actually does know how to call a game – or better yet how to teach a catcher to call one. If they can put the ball right where they want it they can really take command.
But coaches, don’t let it become your determining factor. See the whole picture and give some space to the pitchers who can get people out.
Life in the Fastpitch Lane 