POLL~ Have you watched MENS FASTPITCH?

[RADcatcher]

Have you had the opportunity
to watch men's fastpitch?

On TV?
or
Did you get to see live games?

For those DFP'ers who have played mens Fastpitch share your team where and when



What are your impressions?

 

[Cannonball]

I have watched it live and have played it. I played for four years but, to be honest, it was dying in my area at a time when slow pitch was really growing. I moved to slow pitch.

 

[PJR202]

I watch it on youtube sometimes but the production quality isn't usually very good. Watching games that move at a high speed from a backstop view isn't very satisfying.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

My vote for the last item was partially true. I had never heard of the game until I joined this board in 2021. The closest it's played to where I live is in Central Park. Slow pitch is all over the place, so that's what I played when I could no longer handle baseball.

 

[Northball]

HS summer team had a weekend tourney in Mankato, MN. Thrilled to see an ISC men's tourney was going on a couple adjacent fields when we were there. Between games I walked by some guy warming up with the name Folkard on the back of his jersey. I told our players you gotta go see this...Our players were able to catch plenty of the action between games. What a treat!

 

[earlg3]

My vote for the last item was partially true. I had never heard of the game until I joined this board in 2021. The closest it's played to where I live is in Central Park. Slow pitch is all over the place, so that's what I played when I could no longer handle baseball.

I had also never heard of men's fastpitch outside of this forum.

 

[RADcatcher]

Thank you for people participating in this poll. Interesting results.

I enjoyed the opportunity to watch live high level men's fast pitch. Then, amazingly had the opportunity to play with the
Long Beach men's Nighthawks team.
Nice to play with strong competition!

Noticeably
Nobody squabbled over pitching mechanics leaping hopping whatever.

 

[PJR202]

HS summer team had a weekend tourney in Mankato, MN. Thrilled to see an ISC men's tourney was going on a couple adjacent fields when we were there. Between games I walked by some guy warming up with the name Folkard on the back of his jersey. I told our players you gotta go see this...Our players were able to catch plenty of the action between games. What a treat!

Can you imagine facing a guy that tall, striding, crow-hopping, and throwing 85+ mph at you? I've seen a former team USA pitcher who is 6'3 casually stride out just demonstrating a crow hop and he covered so much ground it was scary. You would just have to start swinging immediately and hope he throws something you can adjust for quickly. I would wager that watching film and studying is more important than ever with the men's game.

 

[RADcatcher]

Batters will learn and adjust to the leaping that is now allowed in fastpitch.

 

[PJR202]

Batters will learn and adjust to the leaping that is now allowed in fastpitch.

I really don't see it making much difference. A few inches between coming off the ground and dragging is what I would expect to be the norm.

Honestly, what I'm more concerned with is instructors starting to encourage/teach it as opposed to just not addressing it. Kids dropping down at the end of the stride as opposed to landing in a nice arc is already a big enough issue. Anchor drag, forward posture, and collapsing front side is a big enough problem already. I've seen some discussions among high-level instructors who say they aren't gonna put emphasis on leaping, and if it happens it happens, as long as the mechanics are correct. I'm fairly new to instructing, but so far in that regard I just talk about getting the hip where it needs to be and I'm not really talking about drag.