I think this is an important video to share. Yes, I know it's not pitching...but it's related very closely...it's the value of thinking outside the box. Not doing things the conventional way, forging a different path. Every great advancement in the history of man can be attributed to those thinking outside the box.
Thinking Outside the Box
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Thank you for posting that interesting story- reminds me a little bit of moneyball- in that he has used statistics/logistics to identify benefits of non traditional process that serve his team very well.
- Oct 22, 2009
- 1,779
- 0
Moneyball--the movie that made me say, "See, I'm not crazy". 
When I first had to coach, it was a boys team, and their were only 3 kids on the team that could throw and catch.
After a few practices I knew right away we couldn't play ball the typical way.
I have an analytical mind, my dad was a statistical analyst in the military and also I'm female, which I do believe helps think outside the box, I'm not hampered by the macho aspects of coaching.
We lost our first 2 games, but by the 3rd we won them all, placing second out of 9 teams. How? I put my 2 best players at SS and 2nd. The only other kid that could catch went on the pitchers mound. Then we just held every batter up at first base and made forced outs at second. Second base became our first base. NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO THROW TO FIRST. With the exception of the first baseman, who was one of the weakest players, he was allowed to field and touch first base.
At first I caught a lot of flack, but after we started winning the complaints stopped. The first basemans dad was tickled pink that his nonathletic kid was actually playing first. Outfielders knew their importance of stopping the ball and getting it into second because it was an out.
It was unorthoxed and you can say, "You should have just taught them normal baseball". Why? I taught them strategies and you would be impressed to see how much harder kids try when they know they can actually play the game and make great plays.
Every kid on that team knew how important they were, and made great plays throughout the season. When they first started, they were the misfit team no one wanted, by the end of the season, they were Stars!
I kept my analytical thinking , strategies(Not the forced outs at second strategy), and STATS! I just loved my STATS! throughout my coaching when I moved on to girls and it was a very successful method.
When I first had to coach, it was a boys team, and their were only 3 kids on the team that could throw and catch.
After a few practices I knew right away we couldn't play ball the typical way.
I have an analytical mind, my dad was a statistical analyst in the military and also I'm female, which I do believe helps think outside the box, I'm not hampered by the macho aspects of coaching.
We lost our first 2 games, but by the 3rd we won them all, placing second out of 9 teams. How? I put my 2 best players at SS and 2nd. The only other kid that could catch went on the pitchers mound. Then we just held every batter up at first base and made forced outs at second. Second base became our first base. NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO THROW TO FIRST. With the exception of the first baseman, who was one of the weakest players, he was allowed to field and touch first base.
At first I caught a lot of flack, but after we started winning the complaints stopped. The first basemans dad was tickled pink that his nonathletic kid was actually playing first. Outfielders knew their importance of stopping the ball and getting it into second because it was an out.
It was unorthoxed and you can say, "You should have just taught them normal baseball". Why? I taught them strategies and you would be impressed to see how much harder kids try when they know they can actually play the game and make great plays.
Every kid on that team knew how important they were, and made great plays throughout the season. When they first started, they were the misfit team no one wanted, by the end of the season, they were Stars!
I kept my analytical thinking , strategies(Not the forced outs at second strategy), and STATS! I just loved my STATS! throughout my coaching when I moved on to girls and it was a very successful method.
JJsqueeze
Dad, Husband....legend
I like the general idea of thinking outside of the box, but I also think that you can stump players development by focusing on strategies to win vs. learning to play the game at a young age. I like the OP strategy as they are in high school and should already know all of the fundamentals. I think JoJos strategy above is a good one, but I wonder if some of the players may have developed better if the focus was on fundamentals instead of winning. As soon as these kids get on another team, they are going to be expected to make the throw to first and if they can't then they are even further behind then they were before. I get temped to do things like this, but I dial it back a bit. For instance, I tell my young players to make the throw to first but only if it is fielded cleanly. If it is bobbled at all then just get it to the pitcher and if there is a throwing error to just get it to the pitcher. don't go on a throwing expedition trying to get in front of the runner. It has the same effect of diminishing the base hits that are turned into home runs on throwing errors but it also gets them within the framework of the game as it is and will always be played.
I posted this because I've inherited a team that consistently finishes third or worse over here in Europe playing in the DoD military HS system. How do I take a team of girls who can barely throw overhand properly and win a championship? I'll do it by thinking outside the box.
Taking an old hand behind the ball and pushing through release PC and converting him (me) to IR definitely is going outside an old familiar box. But this isn't the only thing I'll rely on to win it all; to win I need to think outside the box. I have a plan. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Taking an old hand behind the ball and pushing through release PC and converting him (me) to IR definitely is going outside an old familiar box. But this isn't the only thing I'll rely on to win it all; to win I need to think outside the box. I have a plan. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
- Jan 20, 2011
- 92
- 8
I enjoyed the story. It jogged my memory about an outside of the box situation we had some years ago.
My DD was pitching for a first-year u14. And we were just getting a feet wet in the national exposure tournaments. We were invited to play an additional game against a premier level Gold team on the second day of a 3 day event. We were already playing "up " and had the mindset that we were here to play as much as humanly possible. And at that age, getting your hat handed to you every once in a while is not a bad thing.
We went to the park to scout this "super" team we would be playing the next day. With a ton of coaches in attendance, I began charting batters...... And soon after, I closed the book as it really wasn't an issue of what pitch they hit- but how far over the fence it went. 210, 230, 250, 220, over and over and over. We were very good for our age, but our staff was definitely not elite level gold pitching yet.
They were batting the roster which consisted of about 21 kids, all of them with better sticks than anything we'd ever faced .....this was not going to be good.
We were not extended a courtesy of an extra game because we were the out-of-town team but rather the super team was being highly recruited was running out of teams that they could play for any period of time.
The scouting reports/word-of-mouth was the only way to pitch them was hard and in and soft and away. Yet The end result of that agreed-upon theory was ugly, very ugly ... Even against better gold pitching.
When we started the game the next day, The idea was to force bad contact -probably vertically. It's easier to fool a batter by an inch then it is 16 inches. How we were going to do that Would be a bit of "Learn as you go"for all of us.
The working theory was to get ahead, which DD did, primarily because they did not swing at first pitches...They were Patient,cocky and hitting everything hard thereafter.
After the leadoff batter hit a homerun on an inside drop ball that forgot to drop. DD called a timeout and motioned for me and her catcher to come and have a talk. She said that the drop ball that left the park was missed and over the middle yet it was pulled and barely fair. "I wonder what would happen if I threw inside changeups to these guys "....... We never did that. That was not in our lexicon of choices. NONE OF THE OTHER TEAMS, WITH A TON MORE EXPERIENCE PLAYING THIS GROUP DID THAT. Why would we do that? We had never done that before.... HMMM
It was the perfect decision for a team of power hitters that were used to picking something,committing to it 140%,dropping the hands, pulling the shoulders out, and hitting the ball very hard.
As they were trying to figure out "the little kids" timing, she slowly integrated the only real movement pitch that she had at that time, a knee-high curveball. ( also her idea)
Long story short ( too late I know) she threw a game out of her own comfort zone that comprised mostly of first strikes on an outside corner (taken)and changeups and offspeed drop balls to the inside corner or off the plate... If they moved up, she would slow the ball down, if they move back, she threw her drop in and off the plate. We listened to the 3rd base coach and attempted to make all of his corrections irrelevant to the next pitch coming in. We were winging it in uncharted territory and making it up as we went along. And it was working.
Love to tell you that there were tons of strikeouts, there just weren't ...But there were a lot of mis-hit groundballs and changeups that sailed 230 feet foul. The infield had a field day. They Did their jobs. And we stayed in the game the entire way .....only two hits. (Both homeruns.) one of them is still orbiting the earth I believe.
we lost three – one. And though I am not a proponent of moral victories, I look back on that game as one of the best that I have ever been involved in. Completely unconventional approach but just "out-of-the-box " enough to keep a silly little 14 team in a game that we had absolutely no business being in.
When we got home, DD started replacing posters of Lisa Fernandez and Jennie Finch with charts and sequences of Greg Maddux and books like The Mental ABC's of pitching, and Mindgym etc.
I fully believe that it triggered something in both of us to develop her game IQ to a new level in balance with learning "how to pitch ". Being able to attack batters competently with multiple approaches has become strong suit of hers,And I certainly look back to that "out of the box" moment as it's beginning.
I totally respect a lot of the old-timer's stories that begin with "back in my day " and see the value in their historical perspective and knowledgebase But do and will always encourage anyone who thinks there might be a better way to skin a cat. Because there probably is.
Trollfully yours
SUTHERLANDFINCH
PS. Please look for my book entitled Dirty and Mean Softball Pitching Wizardry......... available soon on Amazon.com
My DD was pitching for a first-year u14. And we were just getting a feet wet in the national exposure tournaments. We were invited to play an additional game against a premier level Gold team on the second day of a 3 day event. We were already playing "up " and had the mindset that we were here to play as much as humanly possible. And at that age, getting your hat handed to you every once in a while is not a bad thing.
We went to the park to scout this "super" team we would be playing the next day. With a ton of coaches in attendance, I began charting batters...... And soon after, I closed the book as it really wasn't an issue of what pitch they hit- but how far over the fence it went. 210, 230, 250, 220, over and over and over. We were very good for our age, but our staff was definitely not elite level gold pitching yet.
They were batting the roster which consisted of about 21 kids, all of them with better sticks than anything we'd ever faced .....this was not going to be good.
We were not extended a courtesy of an extra game because we were the out-of-town team but rather the super team was being highly recruited was running out of teams that they could play for any period of time.
The scouting reports/word-of-mouth was the only way to pitch them was hard and in and soft and away. Yet The end result of that agreed-upon theory was ugly, very ugly ... Even against better gold pitching.
When we started the game the next day, The idea was to force bad contact -probably vertically. It's easier to fool a batter by an inch then it is 16 inches. How we were going to do that Would be a bit of "Learn as you go"for all of us.
The working theory was to get ahead, which DD did, primarily because they did not swing at first pitches...They were Patient,cocky and hitting everything hard thereafter.
After the leadoff batter hit a homerun on an inside drop ball that forgot to drop. DD called a timeout and motioned for me and her catcher to come and have a talk. She said that the drop ball that left the park was missed and over the middle yet it was pulled and barely fair. "I wonder what would happen if I threw inside changeups to these guys "....... We never did that. That was not in our lexicon of choices. NONE OF THE OTHER TEAMS, WITH A TON MORE EXPERIENCE PLAYING THIS GROUP DID THAT. Why would we do that? We had never done that before.... HMMM
It was the perfect decision for a team of power hitters that were used to picking something,committing to it 140%,dropping the hands, pulling the shoulders out, and hitting the ball very hard.
As they were trying to figure out "the little kids" timing, she slowly integrated the only real movement pitch that she had at that time, a knee-high curveball. ( also her idea)
Long story short ( too late I know) she threw a game out of her own comfort zone that comprised mostly of first strikes on an outside corner (taken)and changeups and offspeed drop balls to the inside corner or off the plate... If they moved up, she would slow the ball down, if they move back, she threw her drop in and off the plate. We listened to the 3rd base coach and attempted to make all of his corrections irrelevant to the next pitch coming in. We were winging it in uncharted territory and making it up as we went along. And it was working.
Love to tell you that there were tons of strikeouts, there just weren't ...But there were a lot of mis-hit groundballs and changeups that sailed 230 feet foul. The infield had a field day. They Did their jobs. And we stayed in the game the entire way .....only two hits. (Both homeruns.) one of them is still orbiting the earth I believe.
we lost three – one. And though I am not a proponent of moral victories, I look back on that game as one of the best that I have ever been involved in. Completely unconventional approach but just "out-of-the-box " enough to keep a silly little 14 team in a game that we had absolutely no business being in.
When we got home, DD started replacing posters of Lisa Fernandez and Jennie Finch with charts and sequences of Greg Maddux and books like The Mental ABC's of pitching, and Mindgym etc.
I fully believe that it triggered something in both of us to develop her game IQ to a new level in balance with learning "how to pitch ". Being able to attack batters competently with multiple approaches has become strong suit of hers,And I certainly look back to that "out of the box" moment as it's beginning.
I totally respect a lot of the old-timer's stories that begin with "back in my day " and see the value in their historical perspective and knowledgebase But do and will always encourage anyone who thinks there might be a better way to skin a cat. Because there probably is.
Trollfully yours
SUTHERLANDFINCH
PS. Please look for my book entitled Dirty and Mean Softball Pitching Wizardry......... available soon on Amazon.com
Last edited:
Greenmonsters
Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
Thank you for trying to help put the "Never throw a change up inside" fallacy out to pasture.
- Feb 7, 2013
- 3,188
- 48
Moneyball--the movie that made me say, "See, I'm not crazy".
When I first had to coach, it was a boys team, and their were only 3 kids on the team that could throw and catch.
After a few practices I knew right away we couldn't play ball the typical way.
Jojo - please don't take this the wrong way, but if your goal that season was to win as many games as you can, good job. If your goal was the development of all of the players and teaching them how to play the game correctly, maybe you didn't do so well. I have coached many teams (both boys and girls), including some kids who have never played the game before. It's not easy, but as a coach each kid should be taught the basics for throwing, fielding, catching, and hitting and should be given the opportunity to get better and learn and play the game the right way, especially in recreational leagues. They will make errors attempting to throw to 1st base but that is part of the development process and the correct way to teach the game IMO.
Playing the best team in our conference that we had never beaten before. Tied 0-0 in the top of the 8th. ITB. My slowest runner by far on second with no subs. (She was incredibly slow). We weren't hitting the ball. Before the warm up pitches were done I told her my plan. We were going to bunt, but she was not to try to advance to third base. Only leave after the throw to first. I told her to slide no matter what, that I was looking to get an across the field throw and her slide was going to help kick the ball away. Bunt was laid down, third baseman fielded it, threw to first and the first baseman threw a good low throw to third, hit off my runner and went down the line. We scored the lone run and won the game. On the fly stuff. Can't plan stuff like that.
