Importance of the glove hand

[Amy in AZ.]

I haven't been around any men's fastpitch since I was a child. Do they slap the hip?

Does anyone know if Tucson has men's fastpitch? I have the DVD Fastpitch, which is a documentary on the game. I may pull it out and look, but as I recall, it is mostly about the struggles of the teams and men yelling the F word every sentence.

 

[Darrick Brown]

Amy,
Most of the men's fastpitch pitchers that I know pull the glove down to the waist or hip. Men's fastpitch is definately a dying sport but there are still alot of great pitchers and teams out there. And yes an occasional f word may slip out from some of the guys but an f word every sentence sounds like beer league slow pitch. =) Is this dvd called just "Fastpitch"? I wouldn't mind checking it out.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

Fastpitch, A Film by Jeremy Spear. ISBN0767037227

 

[Ken Krause]

I think one thing we all have to be careful of is over-analyzing video. We see stuff there and assume there's a particular reason for it. But it may just be what they were taught, or what is comfortable for them. Without the ability to ask top level pitchers why they're doing what they're doing, we could be assigning more importance to certain movements than they deserve. For all we know, if we asked Cat why she slaps her leg she might say "I do?" or "I don't know."

As I watched the clips on Siggy's site, I noticed that when Cat takes the ball forward in that clip, she has the back of her hand facing the hitter as she begins the circle. She would automatically assume that position gives her some sort of advantage? Could be it's just what works for her, or is comfortable. But if we over-analyze it, suddenly there will be impassioned advocates for turning the hand backwards.

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.

 

[halskinner]

I think one thing we all have to be careful of is over-analyzing video. We see stuff there and assume there's a particular reason for it. But it may just be what they were taught, or what is comfortable for them. Without the ability to ask top level pitchers why they're doing what they're doing, we could be assigning more importance to certain movements than they deserve. For all we know, if we asked Cat why she slaps her leg she might say "I do?" or "I don't know."

As I watched the clips on Siggy's site, I noticed that when Cat takes the ball forward in that clip, she has the back of her hand facing the hitter as she begins the circle. She would automatically assume that position gives her some sort of advantage? Could be it's just what works for her, or is comfortable. But if we over-analyze it, suddenly there will be impassioned advocates for turning the hand backwards.

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.

Hi Ken. I cannot recall ANY male pitcher that slapped their leg in any tournament ( or leagues for that matter), that I played in. If one ever did, he would have been the brunt of relentless and never-ending fun.

Trust me, anyone that was riding the bench at the time would have had glove in hand and slapping their own leg too, just in fun of course, it would not havbe been just one glove slap, it would have been 4 or 5 . ANYTHING to get to the other pitcher!

Pulling the hand back to the 'holster' position, that's what I and most other pitchers did that I saw.

Maybe some instructor at some point started their students doing that as a 'signature' pitch, something people could see and say "OH, she's a student of ole coach Bob", or whoever.

Maybe it started off being taught to them just to give them something to do with the glove so it would not go flying out wild and throw off their balance, that's my best guess.

Unfortunately, that is an awfully low place for self-defense, a low spot for the glove to be at the instant the bat might contact the ball. However, that is a safer place than way out to the side of the body, not enough time to bring it back up to defend the head on a line drive.

Many have said the noise it CAN produce is a major distraction to the batters but I don't think so.

 

[sluggers]

Because the shoulders of a woman are narrower than her hips, while a man's shoulder's are wider than his hips, could it be more difficult for a woman than a man to get the hand into the "holster" position.

If you watch Finch pitch, she brings her hand down the holster position and does not slap her leg.

In Ueno's video (which is great), she does slap her leg, but she does this *AFTER* she pulls her elbow into her body. It doesn't look like she is hitting her leg hard.

Great discussion, by the way...

 

[Amy in AZ.]

There is a major D1 softball pitch, here, whose front shoulder flies way out off of the power line. She is just wide open. I don't show her pictures to my students because the still pictures look bad.

The gal that pitched for my small college team had considerable bruising all season long, and the slap did nothing to distract the batters (unfortunately). Some will say that it can help a batters timing.

Can we agree that there is no reason for a pitcher to snap the glove arm around and hit the back of her arse?

 

[2MinuteR]

When focusing on the glove hand, you want to to keep your left and right arm in unison as much as possible. If you look at how your pitch arm comes through, you want your left arm to do the exact same. Think of a bird flying, or any weight training exercises. With that being said, you should pull down as hard with the glove arm as you do with your pitching arm. Your glove hand should contact your leg thumb down, not pinky. If it comes pinky down, you risk injuring your elbow on your hip and it is opposite of your throwing arm. Good luck!
Heather
College Sports Recruiting

 

[stv]

Glove Hand

When focusing on the glove hand, you want to to keep your left and right arm in unison as much as possible. If you look at how your pitch arm comes through, you want your left arm to do the exact same. Think of a bird flying, or any weight training exercises. With that being said, you should pull down as hard with the glove arm as you do with your pitching arm. Your glove hand should contact your leg thumb down, not pinky. If it comes pinky down, you risk injuring your elbow on your hip and it is opposite of your throwing arm. Good luck!
Heather

I know this is a old post. Does anyone agree with this above statement?
Thumb down, not pinky. What are they saying now about the Glove Hand.
Slap, Brush, Elbow to body???

 

[starsnuffer]

Wow this is an old thread.

So, I do agree that the glove and throwing hand should be in unison. Look at many of Bill Hillhouse's videos and watch as he pitches into his own glove, and advocates girls doing this. This would be impossible without unison.

The actual path that the glove takes is a non-teach, the path is a reflection of other things going on with the pitching motion, for instance, a glove flying towards first base indicates balance issues elsewhere in the pitch.

I do not like slapping the thigh, this only gives the batter something else to time the pitcher with. Some pitchers (Hal Skinner) take advantage of this by actually learning how to alter the slap timing with the pitch timing, but this is pretty advanced and not really necessary for the youth game, IMO.

The glove should come down thumb down, the reason for this is because the moment the ball is released, the pitcher is an infielder, if the glove comes down pinky first, then the pitcher must roll their glove completely over to field the ball, this is an efficiency and safety issue. Thumb down allows the glove to come to a fielding position efficiently and safely.


-W