With Thanksgiving coming next week it seemed like a good time to offer up a potpourri of things in the softball world for which I am thankful.

Now, this isn’t going to be one of those sentimental posts where I talk about how thankful I am for my understanding wife who lets me spend so much time working with other people’s kids, or my supportive family, or the opportunities I have to work with my students and their families, or all the people over the years who have and still continue to help me expand my knowledge of the sport and how to teach it, or you, my readers. That would be lame, right?

Instead, I thought I would talk about more tangible things that we can all appreciate. In other words, stuff.

After all, what good does it do you if my wife is awesome? But the items on this list are things that you can easily benefit from as well if you’re willing to put the time and/or money to take advantage of them.

So without further preamble, here are some of the softball things I am grateful for in 2024. If you have anything you’d like to add, please throw them into the comments below.

New GameChanger Home Page

This probably won’t mean much to a lot of you, but for me it was a literal game changer. If you follow multiple teams and haven’t seen it yet I’m sure you’ll love it too.

Most users probably only follow one or maybe 2-3 teams per season, so it was easy for them to keep track of when game were happening. I, however, typically am following dozens of teams where I have students playing.

When a team I am following is playing I typically receive a notification on my phone. On a typical summer or fall weekend my phone might get pinged 10-20 times an hour.

Prior to this fall, if I clicked on one of those notification I could see what was happening in the game. But if I forgot which team it was later I couldn’t check back on it until I received the notification the game was over.

This fall, GameChanger changed the home screen to list every game for teams I’m following that is currently happening at the top, upcoming games in the middle, and then final results for the day (I presume) at the bottom. So all I have to do to see what’s happening is open the app and click on whatever game I want to check out and the game tracker opens.

When I’m done and click the X to close the game, it goes right back to the game listings rather than that team’s home page. I can now check out a dozen games quickly. Brilliant!

If you’re a coach like me who wants to keep track of his/her students, a program director who wants to keep an eye on all of your organization’s teams, or even a grandparent whose children took the phrase “Be fruitful and multiply” to its logical conclusion, you’re going to love this great new way they’ve organized the info.

OnForm Video Analysis Tool

I’ve talked in the past about what a great tool OnForm is. OnForm makes it easy to capture, analyze, organize, and share videos and analysis to help coaches communicate with players so the players can get better.

I use it on a daily basis with my own students. But every now and then I receive a video from a parent looking for a little help or a coach looking for a second set of eyes on a player.

Often those videos are shot with the phone’s native video app. But OnForm makes it easy to import those videos into the app so I can provide slow motion or even stop motion analysis, complete with all the drawing and other tools it offers.

I can even do side-by-side comparisons to show what the player looks like compared to a more high-level player.

It’s just a great all-around tool whether you’re working with one player or 100 (although once you get past one it does get considerably more expensive).

Now, if they will just add the ability to superimpose a clock face over the video and give you the ability measure degrees of an arc from wherever you start to wherever you want to stop so you can check the angle (such as from the ground to where a pitcher’s humerus is at the time the front foot lands) I’d be a totally happy camper.

A Softball Bag with Wheels

This may seem like an odd thing to care about but in my opinion a bag with wheels that can store and transport up to four dozen softballs is one of the greatest inventions ever. Anyone who does outdoor practices in particular, like I do in the summer, should feel the same.

Consider you’re working with a hitter who did a good job of hitting the ball where it was pitched, which means the balls are sprayed all over the outfield.

If you have to carry the ball bag out to pick them all up, and you’re working for 2, 3, 4, or more hours, it gets awfully heavy and tiresome. But if your bag has wheels you can just roll it around with you like luggage to pick them up.

Or even wheel the bag toward second base, toss all the balls in near it, and then pick them up and put them in. Much more efficient.

Then there are the team coaches who need to (or need their players to if they’re smart) lug a ball bag from the furthest reaches of the parking lot to the part of the complex the parking lot is farthest from. Sure, you can toss a regular ball bag in a wagon, but if you don’t need a wagon full of stuff a bucket with wheels is a whole lot easier to manage.

The only problem with those buckets is they can be really tough to find. I’ve bought essentially the same bucket multiple times under five or six different brand names.

It’s like a company thinks, “What a great idea,” slaps their name on a standing design, sells a bunch, then decides to get out of the business. At which point you the consumer has to wait until another company thinks it’s a brilliant idea so you can buy a replacement when you ultimately forget to put the handle down only to see one of your power hitters smash a line drive into it and dent the handle so it won’t slide up and down again.

Once they’re off-market you have to keep searching for them until they finally pop up again. At least the last time that happened to me, when I finally found the latest company to offer this apparent loser of an inventory item I bought two.

So I’m covered for at least a while.

If you can find them, buy one. You won’t regret it.

I Still Own A Working Diamond Kinetics Ball

Right now, if you want to check out the spin direction, spin rate, spin efficiency, and other parameters on a pitch you pretty much have two options: You can either spend multiple thousands of dollars to purchase a Rapsodo set-up or find somewhere or someone that has one and is willing to rent it out for a couple of hours.

But there used to be another alternative. Diamond Kinetics (DK) used to sell a DK softball for $99 that would do everything Rapsodo did, right on your phone or tablet. It took seconds to set up (basically you’d open the app, spin the ball, and if the ball was charged you were ready to go) and didn’t require any special lighting or WiFi conditions.

Sounds like a dream, right? DK stopped selling those balls a couple of years ago.

I’m not sure why, although I’ve heard a few rumors. But I sure wish they’d come out with a new version and start selling them again.

In the meantime, I’m glad my old one still works – even though the ball itself is getting a bit slick from all the times it’s been thrown. Still, it beats dropping a down payment on a car on a system that doesn’t work any better than a $99 ball.

The Ability to Shop on the Internet

Say what you will about the Internet and all its issues, especially relative to social media. When it’s time to purchase special items (like some of those above) or even everyday items such as bats, balls, gloves, workout equipment and more, there’s nothing like the ability to open your computer, tablet, or phone, do a quick search, and make the purchase without ever having to leave your home.

I come from the era where we actually had to get off the couch, drive somewhere, and then be stuck with whatever inventory the store you went to decided to stock. In most cases it was fairly cheap, mass appeal items rather than quality gear.

Today, though, I can not only search for the good stuff – high-quality gear that will perform well and will last – but I can also search for where I can buy it for the cheapest price. After all, price does still matter.

For you digital natives who never had to rely solely on brick-and-mortar stores, be grateful you live in the times you do. It beats traveling all the way to a sporting goods store only to find they don’t have what you want – or if they do have it it’s so bad you’re afraid it will break on the way to the cash register in the front of the store.

Quality Educational Materials on the Internet

Sure, there’s a lot of crap on the Internet regarding how to develop softball skills. Especially on social media where the goal seems to be more focused on getting clicks than teaching something worthwhile.

But there’s a lot of good out there as well. Hopefully you consider this blog one of them. But there are others as well.

For training pitchers, you can’t beat Rick Pauly’s High Performance Pitching certification program. Rick is an extremely knowledgeable pitching coach and a great presenter who makes it easy to understand what high-level pitchers do and how to teach it.

Sure, you can try to piece the same information together from multiple sources or YouTube/TikTok/Instagram videos. But Rick has put it all together in one place with proven techniques and strategies that will get you or your daughter or your players where you want to go faster.

The DiscussFastpitch Forum is another great resource where you’ll get ideas and opinions from all around the sport. It’s an open forum so you have to be a little careful about who and what you listen to, but if you invest some time on there you’ll figure out pretty quickly who knows their stuff and who doesn’t.

As a starter, I would recommend checking out the “sticky” threads that are pinned to the top of the pages you’re interested in. Their information has been vetted and proven itself over time.

There are plenty of other examples out there for all aspects of the game too. As long as you take a little time to learn what you should be looking for first you’ll find the info you need to become a better coach for your team or your own daughter.

Many Thanks

So there you have it, my list for 2024. If you’re in a country that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, that’s a bummer.

It’s the ultimate holiday, because all you do is eat and watch sports. Unless, of course, you’re hosting, in which case all you do is spend the week before cleaning the home top to bottom and preparing food so all your guest can sit around eating themselves into a food coma and watching sports.

Luckily I’m in the former category this year.

But even if Thanksgiving isn’t a thing nationally, you can still be grateful you live in such an awesome time for the great sport of softball.

Happy Turkey Day everyone!

Cornucopia photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com