An Amazing Turnabout
Today, when I felt the most frustrated, to the point that my friend and other coach asked “what is wrong w/ you, you seem more frustrated than normal”, our team decides they know what they are doing and started showing off how great they can be.
Not because we won the game, who cares about that, but because they went to positions they were supposed to on the field, ran under balls and actually caught a few, and threw strikes. Mind you, these are 8-10 YO boys, so any expectations are high, but they came through.
The best of all was one kid who didn’t have a hit all year. It has been frustrating because he has a fantastic swing, has been working hard w/ his dad, and there is no doubt if he begins connecting he will be a star hitter.
Today, he connected w/ a shot in the gap! A two RBI double! Sweetttt!! You should have seen the smile on his face! I am positive he is still smiling in his sleep to this moment! That’s not all though, he also caught a fly ball AND got a strike out.
All this from a kid who had never touched the field before this year, really had no baseball skills at all, but had a genuine desire to learn, had his head in every pitch all year long, and constantly searched for how he could do better, to the point of asking too much!!!…lol.
Just when I was ready to give up on this team and get frustrated, they pull something like this. The nightcap came on the last play of the game. The other team has the best player in the league on it, a larger boy who will definitely move up to majors in the spring. He was barreling home as a play was being made on him, my son, who had not had the greatest game of his life, was the catcher.
This boy had at least 25lbs, if not more, on my son, but he held his ground blocking the plate perfectly as the throw came in. The kid from the other team slide (properly) hard into the plate and the catcher. There was a very loud “thud” sound, as the two ran into each other. The sound was that of a large ball being slammed against a wall, the place went quiet and everyone was still.
Suddenly the runner realized he hadn’t made it to the base yet and the throw was slightly off-line so my son didn’t make the catch. The runner crawled around him and just touch the plate before my son could gather the ball and tag him. I didn’t care if there was an out recorded or not, the point is, the kid slide hard and perfect, the plate was blocked perfectly, and, believe it or not, apparently my son does listen to what I tell him.
In fact, it appears the whole team does! Do you have a story that makes you feel like it is all worth it? Please share it.
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Why do We Show Up Ready to Fight?
I don’t know how many of you have read or watch “The Secret”. Basically, it tells you that everything you have you brought into your life. That anything positive your bring upon yourself and all negative influences are brought upon yourself as well. If you think you are going to “get screwed” when you show up somewhere, then you probably are, if you think that all will go well when you show up somewhere, it probably will.
I really don’t know why this is. Some have referred to it as “mind over matter” in the past, but the truth is, you really do control this. It isn’t that you change anything that happens in your “universe” as the secret says. Maybe you do, but that is a little far fetched for me, but how you handle and react to a given situation is entirely in your control.
If you go somewhere thinking “this is going to be miserable”, 9 out of 10 times, it is. If you go somewhere thinking, “this is going to be fun”, again, 9 out of 10 times it is. So WHY do so many Little League teams, parents, and coaches, show up at games thinking, “this is going to be horrible”, or “those umps are going to screw us”, or “we don’t stand a chance against this team”. Why? They are simply bringing it upon themselves. If they show up with this attitude, they have practically guaranteed a negative experience.
Why not take a different approach? Why not say, “today we are playing ball and that is fun no matter what!”, or “the umps can’t make us lose or change the way we play”, or “any team can beat any team any day”. Stay positive!
I remember before I knew the power of positive thinking once I had a vendor offer me Redskins tickets. I had never been to RFK for a football game and I was like a kid in a candy shop. That Saturday night before the game, I got deathly sick! Vomiting, diarrhea, you name it, I had it. I was very angry! I could have quit, whined and stayed home sick, but I refused too.
I sat down in a chair in front of the TV. I repeated over and over and over all night long, “I will not be sick, I will not be sick, I will not be sick.” I woke up the next morning and it was all gone! Mind over matter. It exists. Those that have the power to use it, have a decided advantage over those that simply accept fate as their master.
Like a batter that steps in the box in a key situation and wills themselves a hit. The mind is a powerful thing that we don’t fully understand. Why would we assume that things will be negative? Why would we assume that when we go somewhere there will be a fight? Why don’t we take the opposite approach. When we travel somewhere or go into a hostile environment, we will have fun regardless of what happens. Isn’t this why we are here? To have fun?
Does anybody remember fun? Tomorrow when you head out to the field, tell yourselves, we are going to win and it is going to be fun. That way, you are starting your journey on a positive note. The chances of your evening ending in turmoil will be slim because your attitude will be good. Attitude makes the person. What will your attitude be today?
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Another Fine Saturday at the Park
Every Saturday my day begins at 10AM w/ my minor baseball team, proceeds to 2PM with my major softball team, and ends with a senior softball game at 5PM. All three of the teams are young and all needed major work. Finally, we are starting to see the improvement in all of them and it is substantial.
It was uplifting when I asked our minor baseball team after they hit very well, pitched very well, and fielded very well what they learned. It was like hearing myself recited back to myself. They said they learned focus, creeping, swinging, being aggressive, head in the game, it went on and on and on, it was very impressive. I guess they do listen after all, though at times you wonder.
I ended it by introducing a new word to them. A big one for 8-11 year olds. The word? Execution. I told them they obviously know what to do because they just finished telling me everything they were supposed to do, therefore, the word for the rest of the season is execution. They needed to execute the plan the rest of the season.
My major girls are struggling a bit. But not because they are not talented, because we have struggled to throw strikes. That is pretty typical for this age group in the fall, but it has been a little more frustrating this year for some reason. We play a number of teams that I feel we are better than but we don’t win because we don’t throw strikes. When we do throw strikes, we tend to win.
Amazingly, when I got home tonight my wife was telling me how much fun today was because all the teams performed well. She said it was a different game when we threw strikes. She said, and get this, “It’s all about the pitching”….lol. She must listen too! My mantras are starting to permeate my life, this is pretty cool stuff. I have said this a thousand times before, but as coaches and leaders, we really need to watch what we say, because people listen.
Anyway, today our major softball team threw strikes and hit the ball. And though we lost, it was a fun game.
Finally, our senior softball game. We played against a bunch of big girls all much older than us. That was one of the funnest games I have been involved in in a long time. We bunted, swung, stole and kept pressure on their defense. It was awesome. They did the same to us but we made the plays for a change. It was really a lot of fun playing “softball” the right way. A total blast.
Anyway, it is 11:30 right now and I still have a smile on my face. Not because we won, but because I am so proud of every one of our teams today. The score is irrelevant. Our fall objective was to improve every player’s skills and prepare them for the spring. This plan appears to be on course.
What is the best day you ever had on a ball field? What made it special?
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Red, Yellow, Green
OK, what do you mean you say? What is this red, yellow green thing? This is one of the great benefits of going to the batting cages. The machine turns red before it throws the ball, yellow as the ball is about to be delivered, and green when it throws it.
Applying this to the batter is very valuable. If you have your batters stand in the box with the bat on their shoulder in the red position until the pitcher starts their motion, it eliminates any potential for white knuckles. White knuckles occur when the batter squeezes the bat so hard their knuckles turn white. Nobody can hit tense like that.
Once you get the parents over yelling at their kid to get ready, and they will, you move to yellow. Yellow is “ready” position. The batter should go to yellow when the pitcher makes his/her first movement. This means that the batter will only be in the ready position a few seconds. Again, this reduces the potential for tension and keeps the batter relaxed the way you want them.
Finally, the green. In green the batter swings. This is extremely effective because a kid can understand very easily that green means go. In ball though, green means attack. Next pitch, repeat.
Do you have a good trick you use to make batters relax and then attack?
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What Ever Happened to Taking a Strike?
Image by williamhartz via Flickr Last night in the Little League Softball Championship game, down by 4 runs, w/ the 7,8,9 batters up New Jersey went out there hacking??? This is not to single them out, I have seen this in just about every game that is close in the late innings. Baseball/Softball 101 says "Take a strike". For some reason, this isn’t the case any more. I have had coaches tell me "I don’t like to do that because it doesn’t teach anything". Huh?
Of course it does. It teaches kids THE RIGHT THING!
Why do we take a strike?
1. You only have about a 30% chance of getting on base swinging the bat . That means that if I swing and make contact, 2 out of 3 times I am going to make an out. Doesn’t sound like good odds to me. Do you think a professional gambler would play w/ these odds?
2. The last 3 outs are always the most difficult to get. How many times have you seen a team blow a 2,3,4 or more run lead in the last inning? I am beginning to think it happens more often than not.
3. Taking a strike eliminates any chance of your player swinging at a ball. Remove the pressure from your player, they already have enough stress on them. Let them take a strike and settle in. You might get a walk out of it.
4. You need baserunners! You can’t win if you don’t get players on base. Remember the objective is to get the tying run to the plate. You can’t do that if you ground out, fly out, or strike out.
Not only should you take a strike. If you get to 3-1 you should consider taking that pitch as well. If you have a great hitter up let them rip, but any player that is even slightly shaky should be taking 3-1 as well. Once you get up your power hitter as the tying run. Let ‘em rip! But until then. TAKE A STRIKE!
Can you think of another time you should take a strike?
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How to Umpire a Blow Out
Image by GMWIV via Flickr
We have all been on both sides of this equation. How, as an umpire, do we get a game going when it is a blow out? Should we try to even things up? Stay the course? Influence the game?
The bottom line is, we should only widen the zone of the team killing the other and we should give very fair warning we are doing so.
The way I like to handle this is I pick out the obvious "leader" of the team. You can almost always tell who this is instantly. When he comes to bat, I tell them "you better be swinging", and proceed to call anything close a strike . Then I tell him as he walks back to the dugout, "tell your team to be swinging". Experienced players and managers know exactly what is going on. A good manager will simply agree and say, "you better be swinging".
Umpires should never influence the game. And the above should only be done in extreme situations such as a 20-0 game. Imposing yourself on the game is a major mistake for an umpire should be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, this is often not the case.
Do you know any other things umpires do to impose on the game?
Shortstop/Key Attributes
Image by rogue3w via Flickr
Key Position
"Strong up the middle" is one of the oldest adages in baseball . This holds true in Little League , the shortstop must be one of your strongest players. This is the position that the ball is hit to most often, and the one that needs to record the most assists and least errors.
Your shortstop should be agile and able to cover a lot of ground. They need to be able to pick up the play in the gap between them and the third baseman and have the ability to dive and cover up balls up the middle. The hardest play they make is in the hole and they have to be able to get into proper throwing position quickly. They need to be baseball smart as they have to move more than anyone else on the field .
Accuracy Counts
Shortstop should have one of the best arms on the field. They must be right handed because a lefty cannot make the throw to second or first w/o rotating.
Key Characteristics
Here are some characteristics of a good second baseman :
- Right Handed
- Strong Arm
- Baseball Intelligent
- Dedicated
- Accurate
- Solid throwing fundamentals
- Agile
An agile shortstop with a strong and accurate arm that can handle the ball up the middle and in the hole is a must.
Can you think of any other valuable characteristics a shortstop should have? Please share them.
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