Offense or defense?

[tucci]

Great line of conversation. Thanks.

 

[Mark H]

Jofus,

Probably the fielding but I'm guessing because I'm told she was not big but she was crazy fast when she left for community college. I suppose the strength and size made a big difference in at least the power.

On the original subject, sticks like Nelson don't come along every day. If you have a shot at a big time power hitter, take her or get used to the idea she will beat you later. All the pieces of the puzzle don't look alike.

 

[calgofo]

If she hits it over the light poles...a lot, take her, work on her defense and dp her in the interim. Otherwise I'd take the fielder and teach her to hit. Especially if she's fast. IME, teaching fast kids to hit is high percentage bet.

I agree with Mark on this 100% for several reasons.

Many years ago (back when dinosaurs ruled the earth) Mark H and I helped coach a team (who by the way went on to win a national championship, albiet one that was probably the smallest one that no one ever heard of ) Anyway, we had a kid show up that wanted to play who had never played softball before. She was a big time tennis star. Mark said hey let's take her. I didn't say anything but privately I thought who cares what she does in tennis, this is softball. At that time I had coached travel ball 3 years and my teams had placed in the top 10 at ASA nationals, so of course, I knew all there was to know about coaching and after all my kid was on the team just to work on new pitches so I said ,who cares. Just some extra pitching time for my kid.

Mark took this kid and worked with her and turned her around to the left side and taught her how to slap/drag emphasizing that in fact what she was doing was essentially the same as a 2 handed back hand in tennis. Well, she ended up being one of our most productive players because she could make contact and she had blazing speed.

After this experience, every season I would post an add on Eteamz looking for players and ending with...No experience necessary.

One year, we had a guy call and asked if his daughter could try out. Of course we asked the usual questions,who has she played for, how long etc. He finally came clean and said that his daughter had never played SB before, but he wanted her to go to college and he was poor and couldn't afford it but he thought she might get a scholarship. We were thinking, sure buddy just waltz this kid on out here and we'll make her a star. After all, our kids have only been working their entire lives to attain that goal. I asked if she played any sports and he said she ran track but probably wasn't good enough to get a ride. After deliberation, we said bring her out.

We started off with throwing and first throw busted her in the face and bloodied her nose, but to her credit she was pretty nonplused by it. On to hitting. She couldn't hit the side of the barn with the bat standing against the side of the barn. I thought yep, Mike and Sue are going to be burning up my phone lines tonight. Time for running the bases. Home to first,from the right side of the box, 2.46. After a heated coaching debate, I told dad she made it, with the proviso that she had to show up one hour before every practice to work with a coach one on one.

To make a long story longer, many gray/absent hairs later, she got that full ride to a D1 school.

Just goes to show... You never know

 

[Mark H]

With that kind of speed a college coach will sit up and take notice for sure. That's Julie Smith speed. Very cool to make a difference in a kid's life like that. Teaching the tennis player to hit was the easy part. Teaching her to field a ground ball and make the thirty foot F4 throw to first, that's what I was worried about. Patchwork team turned out pretty good. Who knew basketball players could judge a fly ball from day one?