I am assistant coach for a relatively inexperienced 12U town travel team. We just found out that tournament we are playing in this weekend is using full high-school rules, including unlimited stealing and dropped third, two things most of these girls have never seen before. While I understand the rules, I spent most of the club season explaining and re-explaining to the parents, so my guess is that it isn't going to be easy to teach the kids.
My daughter plays club and pitches and plays infield. She knows how to handle the rules offensively and defensively no problem. There is one other girl on the team in the same boat. After that there is another coach's daughter who is pretty with it and he'll make sure she gets it. The rest have no idea how to deal with dropped third, delayed steals, etc.
I know it won't be pretty, but any great ideas on how to give these girls some basic instruction on handling it? Offensively is fine -- we'll just have them run to first if they strikeout regardless of the situation. Defensively I am at a loss. Most of these girls don't even understand that they can get a double play on a caught fly with runners off the base.
I am considering putting my own daughter behind the plate to catch, even though she's not a catcher. Frankly, we don't really have a 'catcher' in that sense and at least she knows the rules. The other coach's daughter (also a pitcher) is happy to do the same when she's not pitching. Is this how you would play it or would you try to teach the rules to one of the less skilled girls who typically catch? I feel like it will be so overwhelming for them that they won't want to do it. Those girls typically drop 50% of all of the pitches, balls or strikes.
This is the only time we will face these rules this season. After that we start summer town travel with rules more appropriate for their skill level. So it's a one shot deal.
I fear it might be a blood bath regardless, but if anyone has any experience with transitioning girls to these rules, I'd love to hear something that worked!
My daughter plays club and pitches and plays infield. She knows how to handle the rules offensively and defensively no problem. There is one other girl on the team in the same boat. After that there is another coach's daughter who is pretty with it and he'll make sure she gets it. The rest have no idea how to deal with dropped third, delayed steals, etc.
I know it won't be pretty, but any great ideas on how to give these girls some basic instruction on handling it? Offensively is fine -- we'll just have them run to first if they strikeout regardless of the situation. Defensively I am at a loss. Most of these girls don't even understand that they can get a double play on a caught fly with runners off the base.
I am considering putting my own daughter behind the plate to catch, even though she's not a catcher. Frankly, we don't really have a 'catcher' in that sense and at least she knows the rules. The other coach's daughter (also a pitcher) is happy to do the same when she's not pitching. Is this how you would play it or would you try to teach the rules to one of the less skilled girls who typically catch? I feel like it will be so overwhelming for them that they won't want to do it. Those girls typically drop 50% of all of the pitches, balls or strikes.
This is the only time we will face these rules this season. After that we start summer town travel with rules more appropriate for their skill level. So it's a one shot deal.
I fear it might be a blood bath regardless, but if anyone has any experience with transitioning girls to these rules, I'd love to hear something that worked!