Pitch counts in softball?

[riseball]

I absolutely can not stand the potential for knee stress and injuries to the knees I see in this action in the pitching motion. It is the reason I never complain about leapers when I see them in my DD's games ...

IF it is done correctly the pitching motion in the womens game is far less stressful than the leaping seen in the mens game. Before mucking around with the rules I would suggest people carefully consider the ramifications. Watch some top level mens pitchers and then ask yourself if this is the motion you want to teach in 8U-12U. The primary reason I see for leaping is a forced early opening of the hips. This is a mechanical defect and needs to be corrected. IME most everyone who says the leaping rule is wrong, silly, nonsense, etc. has a pitcher with a mechanics/leaping issue. Fix the mechanics and most medical issues will go away.

 

[Axe]

When DD played rec, they had inning limits. During regular season, at 8U you could only pitch 2 innings until playoffs and then all teams would ride their #1 since it was unlimited. At 10U, 3 inning and 12U, 4 inning limits. All-stars was unlimited innings but most teams used their top two pitchers anyways. During rec league there really wasn't an issue with overuse because you only played 1 or 2 games a day, under time limits.

Travel ball is a whole different animal and most coaches pretty much do what they want and the parents let them. With that said, only once did I feel that the head coach over pitched my DD and that was 3 games in a day with the last game was capped off with a 9 inning ITB. I would like to think that I won't let that happen again?

Pitching limits in Rec leagues are to help preserve competitive balance and encourage greater participation. They have nothing to do with preventing overuse.

 

[JJsqueeze]

IF IME most everyone who says the leaping rule is wrong, silly, nonsense, etc. has a pitcher with a mechanics/leaping issue. Fix the mechanics and most medical issues will go away.

them's fighting words. I think the leaping rule is insane and my kid is perfectly legal. She has never had a medical pitching issue. There are a lot of us that just think having a rule for women that is different than men is stupid and that America having different rules than the rest of the world (and their own professional league) makes no sense.

 

[riseball]

them's fighting words. I think the leaping rule is insane and my kid is perfectly legal. She has never had a medical pitching issue. There are a lot of us that just think having a rule for women that is different than men is stupid and that America having different rules than the rest of the world (and their own professional league) makes no sense.

Most, not everyone. I agree that it should not be gender specific. But to my earlier point, do we want kids in 8u- 12u leaping like the men? I would expect that injuries would abound.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Most, not everyone. I agree that it should not be gender specific. But to my earlier point, do we want kids in 8u- 12u leaping like the men? I would expect that injuries would abound.

I dunno...girls seems to do OK with skipping Half the girls already leap/skip at that age. I see some weird contortions of the rear foot and ankle to make it drag sometimes that make me cringe.

I really don't know enough about injury and how the body works to comment on which would cause more injuries. I know that when I try to throw a ball with a running start I naturally crow hop whether it is overhand or underhand.

 

[Scorekeeper]

JJsqueeze,

I have no problem with bluntness, and I hope you don’t either. You’re ASSUMPTION that I was talking only about travel softball indicates you leapt to a conclusion without actually reading what I wrote. Not all FPS for the fair sex is travel!

FPS is no different than baseball in the paucity of effective pitching, which is why the overwhelming dependence on the effective pitchers puts them more at risk for pitching injuries.

Both FPS and BB Pitchers should be developed at every level! If they were, not nearly as much of the load would fall on the families.

The only reason things are so “out of whack” is because the parents of pitchers in both sports allow it to be!

 

[JJsqueeze]

true-it was an assumption, but based on my experience it is TB where the problem lies. Rec leagues and school leagues either have inning limits or do not play enough games in a day for this to be a big issue. Could vary by area but that is what I have seen. Only in TB do you get things like USSSA having a 5-6 game losers bracket all hashed out in one very long Saturday. That is insane.

 

[riseball]

I dunno...girls seems to do OK with skipping Half the girls already leap/skip at that age. I see some weird contortions of the rear foot and ankle to make it drag sometimes that make me cringe.

I really don't know enough about injury and how the body works to comment on which would cause more injuries. I know that when I try to throw a ball with a running start I naturally crow hop whether it is overhand or underhand.

When I mention teaching young ones to leap I am taking about LEAPING like Adam Folkard not leaping as in an inch of air under the toe. When you compare leap and drag style in womens to someone like Folkard they appear to be totally unrelated. They are as different as slingshot is to windmill. Just wonder what unintended consequences would present.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q3T2F4qVyg

 

[smddad]

IF it is done correctly the pitching motion in the womens game is far less stressful than the leaping seen in the mens game. Before mucking around with the rules I would suggest people carefully consider the ramifications. Watch some top level mens pitchers and then ask yourself if this is the motion you want to teach in 8U-12U. The primary reason I see for leaping is a forced early opening of the hips. This is a mechanical defect and needs to be corrected. IME most everyone who says the leaping rule is wrong, silly, nonsense, etc. has a pitcher with a mechanics/leaping issue. Fix the mechanics and most medical issues will go away.

Do you have any data to back up this claim that leaping will cause injury?

 

[Scorekeeper]

true-it was an assumption, but based on my experience it is TB where the problem lies. Rec leagues and school leagues either have inning limits or do not play enough games in a day for this to be a big issue. Could vary by area but that is what I have seen. Only in TB do you get things like USSSA having a 5-6 game losers bracket all hashed out in one very long Saturday. That is insane.

Don’t take this personally, but the ol’ innings limitations didn’t work in BB, nor should they work in SB. Of course that’s better than no limits at all, but when it’s possible to throw an infinite number of pitches per inning, how useful is that limit.

I know this is for HSBB, but I assume the same thing happens for HSSB. See =====> http://www.infosports.com/scorekeeper/images/pitlimitsa.pdf

Check out the limits for Tx and La.

Can you give me an example of a state that has SB pitching limitations and where I can find it in that state assns’ bylaws or constitution?