Bill, obviously at your level the nuances of the game such as sign and pitch recognition are used to the maximum degree. At my pay grade and for many on this forum we are dealing with teenage and pre-teen girls. Of course they are capable of learning these things but it is not a priority for me either in a pitching lesson setting or while coaching my team. Why do I say that? After coaching girls at all levels for the past twenty five years, one thing that I can say for sure is that for girls, the basic understanding of the game is severely lacking. This was the topic of discussion I had with several college coaches at an exposure tournament last summer – the girls these coaches are getting by and large do not understand the game all that well. Sure, they have individual skill sets that have been honed from many hours of lessons and practice but they lack a feel and total grasp of the sport. They often do not understand what is happening around them and are unable to anticipate what is about to happen on the field.
Opposed to this is boy’s baseball, where at least when I was growing up playing we all were students of the game – we watched the big league games, talked about what happened in our games, had our own analysis…and understood things like picking signs and queing on repetitive motions of a pitcher. Girls, for the most part do not have this interest and basically come to practice, don’t think too much about softball, play a game, don’t really self evaluate, etc. Ever tried to replay the game and talk about it with your daughter ? Good luck unless she is one of the rare girls players who is really interested in the game.
So Mark, with all due respect, my point is that the next area ripe for improvement is not “reading the pitcher and discernment of repetitive pitch sequences and tendencies”, as important as those things are. Until girls are taught the game in it’s entirety to include strategy, anticipation of likely outcomes in a given circumstances, having a mental game so that you are prepared to come to bat, play the field or deliver a pitch, etc, these other things are just trick plays in a sense. I prefer to spend my time trying to explain the game and try to fan a flame of interest so that playing a softball game is more than just marching their skill set out onto the field and seeing what happens.
Opposed to this is boy’s baseball, where at least when I was growing up playing we all were students of the game – we watched the big league games, talked about what happened in our games, had our own analysis…and understood things like picking signs and queing on repetitive motions of a pitcher. Girls, for the most part do not have this interest and basically come to practice, don’t think too much about softball, play a game, don’t really self evaluate, etc. Ever tried to replay the game and talk about it with your daughter ? Good luck unless she is one of the rare girls players who is really interested in the game.
So Mark, with all due respect, my point is that the next area ripe for improvement is not “reading the pitcher and discernment of repetitive pitch sequences and tendencies”, as important as those things are. Until girls are taught the game in it’s entirety to include strategy, anticipation of likely outcomes in a given circumstances, having a mental game so that you are prepared to come to bat, play the field or deliver a pitch, etc, these other things are just trick plays in a sense. I prefer to spend my time trying to explain the game and try to fan a flame of interest so that playing a softball game is more than just marching their skill set out onto the field and seeing what happens.