Do I have a right to be upset???

[Dana Marque]

My DD played up this year on the 12u town TB team. It was my understanding that the head coach’s DD also pitches and time would be split up to give my DD the experience/challenge they thought she needed. We explained to my DD that this is a great opportunity for her to learn a second position because she is ALWAYS thrown in as the pitcher and has never had the opportunity to learn any other position. She was excited for the challenge and looking forward to the breaks.

Well, the HC’s daughter got a concussion at the beginning of the session and was not able to play. This required my DD to dig deep and pitch the entire season as well as two tournaments with back to back games. She did her best and one small fun tournament, they placed 2nd. The team as a whole only lost 3 games basically due to errors. On the second to last game, the HC’s daughter pitched two innings and did ok. Now we come to the play-offs and the HC starts her daughter pitching while throwing my daughter on 1st. Well, she gave up 5 runs in 3 innings and then my DD was put in to pitch. The top of the batting order couldn’t hit off my DD because of the movement on the ball… I’m proud to say she only gave up one run in 2 innings but it wasn’t enough due to the HC’s daughter walking so many girls… We lost 6-5 and the season is now over.

Do I have a right to be upset as to what she did to my daughter? Or am I just being a selfish mom who would have liked to have seen my daughter continue being the starting pitcher? My daughter is handling it much better than me. She was upset at first but is moving forward.

It’s my understanding that HC’s daughter pitches slightly faster but is wild and is 2 years older. My DD has a lot of movement on her ball as well as a screwball, dropball and keeps her pitches LOW… I’m not saying my DD is better – just they both have their strengths…

 

[CoogansBluff]

My daughter is handling it much better than me. She was upset at first but is moving forward.

Follow her lead, IMO.

 

[redhotcoach]

You can't have a rainbow without a little rain

 

[KevinC]

Do you have a right to be upset? Sure. Now that the season is over should you complain to the coach or other parents about it? Probably not.

Maybe the coach really thought his now cleared to play DD was the better option. Maybe he should have pulled her out of the game earlier but at least he pulled her out. In a true daddyball situation 5 runs in 3 innings is probably not enough to make a change. Of course maybe she only got the start because she was the coaches DD.

If there is a chance for your DD to play on this team again you need to have the same discussion with the HC that you did last year. Obviously this year's plan did not work as intended because of the concussion.

I wouldn't get too hung up on who is the "starting" pitcher. Ideally you have 2 - 3 pitchers on your team that can get the job done and if so the coach would rotate starts between the pitchers. IMO it's more important how many innings she gets to pitch than who starts the game.

Of course if the starter consistently has a bad outing and your DD always has to come in to clean up the mess that would not be a good situation.

 

[Dana Marque]

You're right... I need to just move past this... Chalk it up to lesson learned... She did another little girl wrong as well by pulling her from batting as she walked up to the plate. I just hope that neither one of these girls have to face her again as a coach. I believe my daughter may be ready for club soon so dealing with her on a town level will never be an issue. Someone said I should have seen this coming but I didn't... I had faith that my daughter had proven herself as the dominate pitcher and a HC would do her job properly by putting the child that earned her position as starting position. I've also come to a conclusion that should my DD ever go to club, I want a team that has a HC with no children on the team. Let the best play... Let my daughter earn her position... If anything, I think I feel better just venting...

I'm definately one of those nutty pitching moms... But at least I come to this board compared to making a scene on a field... Thanks for listening..

 

[EP Dad]

Let it go. Sounds like your daughter had a fantastic season of softball and that's all that should matter. No matter what we put our trust into the coaches to do the right thing. Whatever decisions they ultimately make we have to live with and evaluate AFTER the season is over to help us (parent and DD) to decide what to do next.

Don't expect the non-parent coaching situation to always be better. We had that last year and it was a disaster. This year we had parent coaches (not me or my wife) and it was a great season.

You never know what anyone is going to do.

 

[quincy]

Last 2 years DD has missed a significant amount of her season, she has come back and displaced pitchers that have pitched the entire year. I am not sure that is fair, I am also not sure if would be fair not to pitch DD.

Sorry it ended on a little bit of a sour note but it sounds like your DD had a good season.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

The coach actually did you a favor. Your DD needed a rest, in my opinion. I am thinking that she was too young to carry a whole team. Congratulations to her for doing so well, but that sounds like an awful lot of pitches.

 

[left turn]

I have coached several seasons where my child got injured before the season really got started. It was really tough, but I had to have the same commitment whether my child is there or not. Still I couldn’t wait until they could play again. It was frustrating and more than a little disappointing. Still, I tried to run every practice and manage every game with the same passion as if my child was there.

It looks like your daughter has been treated well during the season.

The coach had been waiting all season to have his daughter back. It’s really hard to find the right tone and make the right moves when the child you love is back on the field after an absence.

If this is the worst that happened, it’s probably best to forgive him and realize the difficulty of getting it right in these situations.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I’m proud to say she only gave up one run in 2 innings but it wasn’t enough due to the HC’s daughter walking so many girls…

Ah pitchers parents, don't worry I'm the biggest one but I'm going to be a tad bit harsh in my explanation, but it's the same way I talk to my DD about her pitching.

This is the key to your post. All the runs before really don't matter, because your DD gave up the "winning" run. I know it doesn't taste good but it's a fact. Even if you rallied back and scored 5 runs in the last inning, your DD gave up the tie breaking run making it 6-5.

Head to head stats, yes your DD did a much better job AND you should be proud. The hardest thing "us" pitcher parents deal with is blame. It's always someone else's fault. ( starter gave up too many runs, defense not playing behind her, offense not scoring, etc ) It is a crutch that you get better with over the years, or should. lol

One thing I've learned recently is the HC calls the shots, wrong or right. He or she puts in all the time behind the scenes making a team work, so yea I believe they are entitled to make "some" decisions based on their time and money involvement. I coached mine for many years, I always tried to play as fair with pitchers as I could with only a few complaints over a 10 year span. Now DD is playing for a exposure team, and im seeing coaching from a different view. Do I always agree with the HC, no , but it's his cake now and I'm just licking the icing.

One complaint in 2010, USSSA state championship game, we just had one of those weekends where everything "worked". One of the dads complained his DD didn't get to pitch the champ game in the last weekends tourney, so I kinda kept that in mind. We went through pools and the brackets undefeated, champ game next against a very good team. I start warming up his DD, he flies over there and says " I don't think that's a good idea ". Oh, now that we are playing one of the toughest teams around he DOESN'T want his DD to pitch?

What he was too blind to see was I knew their ace had pitched 2 games back to back in 100 degree weather, I knew she was out of gas for a third game. So I followed his advice and pitched mine, we won 7-2. He COULD have had ALL the glory he wanted, but was too blind by the thought she might lose "the big game" without thinking the situation through.