Bad habbit when catching a line drive.

[rob5482]

Hi everyone,

I am the assistant coach of our local 12u fastpitch team. I have to say, this is my second year doing this and I LOVE it. My manager and I get to move up with the girls to keep us with our daughters who are on the team. So this is my second year with the same girls.

That said, I have a question. I have one girl that has a bad habit of turning her glove when catching a line drive. In other words she is trying to make a basket catch on a line drive. No matter what I do I can't break her of this habit. As the girls are starting to really smack the ball now, I am afraid one day the ball is going to pop up out of her glove and catch her right in the face.

I have tried everything, drills, reinforcement, etc but nothing works. Last year towards the end of the season she started turning her glove, but this year its back to the same bad habit.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I don't want her to get hurt. Other then this she is a great player.

 

[RADZ69RACH]

I had this problem. I coach a 16 u team. What work for me to different times was a ball from another sport. Will sound crazy but i fired tennis ball slowly at first , then i speed it up . The object was to get the player to turn it over. I let her do it her way for 25 balls and 11 of those got up and hit her in face , then i had her try my way. Duck tape on back of glove with word wrote on it . Told her to flip glove to see the word . She did that for 50 tennis balls and now she does it right every time. And the word she wrote on the glove was: NO FEAR : maybe it will give you idea. Tennis balls dont hurt nearly as bad.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

What glove is she using and how big is it?

 

[marriard]

Two ideas:

1. NO BASKET CATCHING AT ALL FOR HER. If it is low she now has to BEND DOWN and catch it with glove up. You can catch glove up well below the waist this way and if it is all she is allowed to do it may help. It did help a couple of my players.

2. And this is more likely - you are NOT going to change this with just scheduled team practices. Parents/siblings/friends need to get out there every day for a few weeks and play catch with her for an hour a day. Daily reinforcement is the only way. You can encourage the parents to help out by describing what will happen if she doesn't get this fixed.

As you said - you don't want this corrected by having the ball smack her in the nose.

 

[rob5482]

This is one of the reasons I hate that kids play so much ball at 10u. By 12u they are rigid in their ways!

It may take tough love, such as moving her to another position, pulling her, making her stay late at practice to fix it (rather than time in practice) or sorry to say, letting her possibly get hit somewhere (more likely she will drop the ball, however).

I agree Screwball, she has been playing for almost 4 years now. So lots of bad habbits I am trying to break. This is the last of them and the hardest.

I had this problem. I coach a 16 u team. What work for me to different times was a ball from another sport. Will sound crazy but i fired tennis ball slowly at first , then i speed it up . The object was to get the player to turn it over. I let her do it her way for 25 balls and 11 of those got up and hit her in face , then i had her try my way. Duck tape on back of glove with word wrote on it . Told her to flip glove to see the word . She did that for 50 tennis balls and now she does it right every time. And the word she wrote on the glove was: NO FEAR : maybe it will give you idea. Tennis balls dont hurt nearly as bad.

I love this idea. I am going to try the glove thing next practice. I do have access to one of those baseball pitching machines that use the softer balls. Will try using that and fire line drives at her.

What glove is she using and how big is it?

I think its a 11in softball glove. I have to check again.

Two ideas:

1. NO BASKET CATCHING AT ALL FOR HER. If it is low she now has to BEND DOWN and catch it with glove up. You can catch glove up well below the waist this way and if it is all she is allowed to do it may help. It did help a couple of my players.

2. And this is more likely - you are NOT going to change this with just scheduled team practices. Parents/siblings/friends need to get out there every day for a few weeks and play catch with her for an hour a day. Daily reinforcement is the only way. You can encourage the parents to help out by describing what will happen if she doesn't get this fixed.

As you said - you don't want this corrected by having the ball smack her in the nose.

I will try and incorporate 1 into the practices, going to be hard to keep an eye on her all the time though. And for 2 thats going to prove almost impossible. She is a single child from a divorced home and her mother knows absolutely nill about ball. I really feel bad for her, she wants to learn and play but she has no reinforcement at home at all. I am going to try and take her to some special practices with just me and my daughter. Hopefully the extra time will help her learn and give her a confidence boost as well.

Thanks everyone for the quick replies, I am really having a hard time on this one. I am especially worried about next weekends game. We are playing an undefeated team in our age bracket and these girls can HIT! With such a short out field usually line drives to her are going to happen.

That reminds me I have to call the district and have them pull a birth certificate. They have this one girl that has to be at least 5'7 and a solid 130. There is no way she is the proper age. But then again, I don't get the williamsport cutoff for 12u. You have to still be 12 by Jan 30th? I thought the 12u meant 12 and under. So while most of my girls are 12 a few of the teams we are playing this season, have a majority of 13 year olds.

Going to be a rough year. Maybe I should take stock in Advil...

Again thanks for all the help and I am sure I will learn quite a bit here. Great place from what I have seen so far.

Bob

 

[marriard]

That reminds me I have to call the district and have them pull a birth certificate. They have this one girl that has to be at least 5'7 and a solid 130. There is no way she is the proper age.

Bet she is. We have had players bigger than this is 10U and one or two I remember in 8U.

But then again, I don't get the williamsport cutoff for 12u. You have to still be 12 by Jan 30th? I thought the 12u meant 12 and under. So while most of my girls are 12 a few of the teams we are playing this season, have a majority of 13 year olds.

Most organizations are your age of Jan 1st so 12U is generally girls turning 12 and girls turning 13 in the calendar year. ASA does some mid-year age thing but everyone just makes 10U tournaments 11U tournaments in the fall so teams can stay together.

 

[rob5482]

Bet she is. We have had players bigger than this is 10U and one or two I remember in 8U.

That's crazy! How are the girls not supposed to be intimidated! My smallest girl looks like she could be in 3rd maybe 4th grade. I can See the look in her eyes when the other team is towering over her. I just tell her, "Beth it just means you have a really small strike zone and when you slide Jolly Green Giant ain't even gonna come close to tagging ya. Plus you are a whole lot faster, just run circles around them and eventually they will give up"

 

[Amy in AZ.]

If she is playing 12u, then an 11 inch glove is too small for a 12 inch ball. Maybe she is having trouble getting the ball to stay in the pocket, so she turns the glove.

 

[Sparky Guy]

That reminds me I have to call the district and have them pull a birth certificate. They have this one girl that has to be at least 5'7 and a solid 130.

Don't bet on it. I have a girl I'm working with who is 5' 11" and I would guess 150#. She just turned 13 2 months ago. She is still 12U eligible this year. I went through that with my DD's was well. Both are 5' 10" large boned girls.

Here is a drill that I use with girls who are trying to basket catch everything. Sit her on a chair or bucket so she can't move. With no glove using a wiffle ball, tennis ball or racket ball depending on her hand size throw the ball to her and have her catch the ball with two hands. Start from about 10' away and easily toss the ball directly at her face. Keep moving back every few balls and throw the ball slightly harder. Never throw it hard enough to where she will fear catching the ball. Doing this develops the confidence to catch the ball while reenforcing the correct mechanics. You can have her use her glove hand only to catch the ball as well. Once she is really confident catching the light balls move to a real ball with no glove and repeat the steps, again, tossing the ball easily to her to build confidence in the new hand position. Once you feel she is ready then have her use her glove and repeat the steps again. Only this time you can throw the ball harder as long as she is showing confidence in catching the ball.

As for mom not knowing anything. You must train mom as well. Go through the drill with the light balls with mom tossing them. Show mom where and how to throw the balls and explain exactly what the player should be doing and make sure mom knows what a "good one" looks like. You may find mom to be just as willing a student as the player once she know what the drill is trying to accomplish. You may be able to talk mom into using the real balls as well. Be sure mom understands she is trying to retrain a bad habit and it will take time to do so. Patience and persistence about doing it correctly is key to correcting and changing a poor mechanical habit.

 

[chinamigarden]

Cindy Bristow just recently wrote a piece on how to break bad habits. If you have never seen her forum, its on the bottom of the contents page of this website. Here is a link to her article Player