getting to an inexperienced pitcher

[Mavrik86]

They are messed up

They say that it speeds up the game but what it does is promote a coach to tell his girls to not swing. We practiced after the season started but most of the teams had no other practices. they are only concerned with winning. Yes, I wanted to win... Was it for me? Not really I have already achieved the goal I wanted which was to be the All star coach. I wanted this for the girls. I had a girl who would always complain that a pitcher was throwing too fast. I told her she was going to see strikes and this would be the time to get a hit. After 3 or 4 practices she hit an inside the park home run. She almost didn't make it because she was crying as she rounded third. We ran to her thinking she was hurt and we said are you alright. Crying she exclaimed "I hit a Home Run" that is a great feeling to know you have helped this child. the other team knows that if I was able to use my #1 pitcher they had no chance. we had already beaten them 3 times prior and my pitcher was the dominate pitcher in the league having only had 2 hits given up to the outfield all year. It's just disappointing when a coach cares only of the win. but we hopefully will see him this weekend in travel ball and have a chance to defeat him

 

[DonnieS]

>> Crying she exclaimed "I hit a Home Run" that is a great feeling to know you have helped this child. <<

Years from now, you will see this kid at school, or the store, or at graduation, and you guys will exchange winks - about that magic day. Better than any trophy, much better.

You are in the same situation as a good friend of mine right now, coaching in the 10u LL (whatever that is called) . He is focused on teaching and some of his opponents are totally focused on winning and could care less about teaching. Not surprisingly, he is winning and I think has won the league so he is the all-star coach, like you. What is happening is two things, 1) the parents who understand the big picture (not all that many) are hussling to get him as their kids coach and 2) the coaches on the losing team are painting him as a jerk and taking their all-star kids out of the picture. You two will come out on top years later when your kids are succeeding at this great game.

Now if I can get him to get out of LL but right now, he sees that as the only game in town - my suggestion was to play in another town.

 

[Dusty]

Mavrik86,

I'm a 10u rec coach and all-star coach myself so I can understand your situation. I'm sure most here can also relate even if they do coach at higher levels since everybody starts with rec. As much as you may wan't to throttle the obnoxious coach who won the tournament, don't be tempted to engage in gamesmanship with an inexperienced 10yo pitcher.

Our rec league, for better or for worse, plays by most of the big girl rules (no coach pitch, stealing of all bases but no d3k) mainly because the surrounding leagues do and we're too small to play among just ourselves. My team won most of it's games and finished in 1st place mainly because my youngest dd is the only pitcher with decent velocity and control. Offensively, I've always coached my kids to swing at any decent pitch they see regardless of count because they may not get that many and it's caused us to lose the few games we've lost this year (lost our season opener outhitting the other team 16-0).

Both of my kids are going travel next year so we'll hopefully see the end of this but it sucks to see rec leagues everywhere dying this way.

 

[DonnieS]

I may have mentioned this before, but it drove me crazy to see kids waiting for the coach pitch back in those days. I bought a bunch of snow cone coupons from a local popular snow cone shack and each kid who put the ball in play against a kid pitcher got a snow cone. Got a little expensive after a while but the lesson was learned.

 

[Mavrik86]

I know what you mean Dusty. This coach once he realized that he was not going to win the league decided to start a travel team. He called me and my assistant coach (our girls play on other travel teams). he wanted to know if we would be willing to play with his team when we were not playing with our respective teams. We both stressed that we wanted the all star team to play a couple of tournaments before the world series. He went ahead and started a team about half will be on my all star team. It was almost like he was trying to hijack the all star team. He also had his parents hating me. They all said that we needed to lose basically at any cost. I am just so tried of this. I am moving on to focus on the all star team. We pick tomorrow night so we will see if he has caused any problems with the all stars.

 

[mstree323]

swing at everything your bat will reach. but if you want to rattle her do it with the short game. make her field some bunts and let her throw em away. run at her and slap with a runner on third. she'll very likely stop in the middle of her windup.

 

[newsoftballdad]

This is a disturbing thread!

Are you really trying to find ways to "rattle" a 10U pitcher?

 

[sluggers]

My original answer was to break into her house and steal her teddy bear...

 

[Dusty]

This thread reminds me of my dd's first year as a 10u all-star when we were in a tourney and the other team did the "bat waggle" on her where they put the bat out to bunt and wave the barrell up and down.

It worked but I thought it was pretty bush.

 

[DonnieS]

I Remember that - dd used that as her target.