How to help the girls adjust to a difficult strike zone?

I do not usually complain about umpires because I know it is a job I would NEVER want! I respect that they are out there as part of the game that they love, in the cold (today), heat, wind, etc. But now for my question...

DD's team played today with an umpire who had a very difficult strike zone. He called strikes at the eyeballs and at the ankles. DD's team had a very hard time adjusting. They usually have very good pitch selection and they had a lot of girls in tears after they "struck out" on pitches that were chin high or just above their shoes. DD has had this umpire in the past and she calls him the farting ump. When she catches and he is standing behind her he passes gas every time he bends over. Lovely. Anyway - I digress...

The strike zone did not seem to be same for the other team. They are a very tall team and DD's team is not. DD's team is small and speedy. The pitch that ended the game (with a tying run on 3rd and a runner on 1st was at the eyeballs). Even the other coach commented after the game that it was ridiculous. The girl at bat was heartbroken.

So...how do you help the girls to adjust to a strike zone like this? They obviously don't want to start swinging at pitches that are most times not in the strike zone. They were not able to adjust for most of the game. DD was mad. She told me she doesn't want to adjust to that - I told her she has to.

Were you at our tournament this weekend??? No, because our umpires were fair about it, I'll give them that. We had a lot of tears and a team average of 200 for the day. Sigh.

I probably would've told them that the other teams were hitting just fine so maybe the umpires weren't the problem. That is why I'm not the coach...

In the grand scheme of things, this umpire and others like him, we be involved in a very small percentage of your teams games. I always praised the girls for not swinging at bad pitches whether they are called strikes or not. It does no good to swing at a non hittable ball. Have the girls backs in this situation. Might have been a good game to get intentionally tossed to let them know you believe they are right and the ump is wrong.

There are umpires you’ll have to adjust to with a wide or high strike zone, but it doesn’t sound like this guy is one of them.

I told my DD to try to foul them off til she gets a pitch she likes. Could still strike out but maybe they'll end up making contact a few times and get a pitch they can hit. Seems better than going down on a called strike, if she can pull it off.

2 things out of your control, the weather and the umps. Treat a bad ump like you would treat a rainy day. You just dry yourself off and get ready to play the next time.

But if your kids are crying after strikeouts, you might want to consider how you, and or the coaches react to strikeout and how are the kids absorbing that.

Baseball but, you get the idea.....

In the spirit of Einstein ("Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler") you have 2 options:

a) Swing at pitches you don't normally swing at
b) Strikeout

Pretty sure I know exactly which umpire you are talking about. DDC has mentioned the same thing about him before and I'm not referring to his strike zone. Sometimes it's hard to find anything positive to take away from a game...but dealing with an unfair/unreasonable ump is a good lesson to learn because it won't be the last time.

chinamigarden said:

But if your kids are crying after strikeouts, you might want to consider how you, and or the coaches react to strikeout and how are the kids absorbing that.

Click to expand...

That's not always true. Some girls are just hard on themselves or easily frustrated. Our girls get a "Great at bat, get 'em next time" more often than not but some of them, particularly if they're slumping so it's their 3rd strike out of the day or something, are just so frustrated with their own performance and at 11 may not quite be equipped yet to handle it without a few tears.

I would say you're team wont have as a good hitting day as they normally would and stats will be artificially deflated when you got the big strike zone. But on the flip side, there is an umpire out there with a strike zone the size of a coffee can for every ump with the big zone. And you're hitting will even out over time. Hopefully, you get more umps that fall in between.

But, on a more practical side, the coach needs to keep reminding his kids to pay attention to where the umpire is calling strikes. This is a skill in itself to be observant of the zone. Generally umps are consistent in what they call, but each ump has a different zone. Ive been to a lot of games where an ump is calling strikes low or outside. I know many times ive told girls on bench, things like ump is big on the outside, got to open up. Most of the time, the girls get a backwards K and come back to the dug out and complain that the pitch wasn't a strike.

Same things go for the pitcher, you should be observant of the zone and throw it to the spot where the ump will give you a favorable call. It makes life a lot easier if you hit the spot.