Went to a tourney, yesterday.

[absdad]

This is an awesome thread, and I agree with all of you. It's just not taught, at all, or correctly most of the time. My dd attends lessons catching lessons with a great teacher who teaches Coach Weaver's system. It's amazing how many teams will just grab the largest girl at tryouts, and give her the gear and tell her to "start catching". They're easy to spot; up on their toes, ankles touching, looking like they'll fall over in the breeze. It's easy to pick out the catchers on any field who have had some type of catching lessons. And believe it or not, you can pick out the ones who have learned Coach Weaver's system. They stand out like a rose in a pasture.
Like I said, my dd takes lessons, catches at a couple of her pitcher's lessons; we rotate so she becomes accustomed to them all, rather than just one or two. Her team practices typically incorporate the catchers doing throwdowns and bunt recovery, as well as tags at the plate, and the pitcher covering home on a passed ball; all during situational practice on the indoor field. I wish though, that we would do some catcher specific drills, but I think it's expected to be done outside of practice, much like pitching lessons, etc. I don't know how well bringing a pitcher to a catching lesson would work though, being that their warmups take a while longer. Our catching lessons are a half hour, and the pitching lessons are always an hour.

 

[Bishop]

Do the reverse, make your pitchers show up for your catching work outs. It helps to have extra help throwing balls in the dirt, and pitchers need to learn a few catcher skills anyway (like how to cover home with a runner coming from third) and need to work with the catcher on the proper way to cover home on a passed ball, and spot pop flies for the catcher.

I see teams do "pitcher specific" practice all the time. Pitchers already have private lessons and should already practice a great deal on their own, the team really needs more catcher specific practices in which the pitchers attend.

-W

Excellent idea and would probably work well. Now all I need is for my catchers to actually start taking lessons from someone so my pitchers can go to them. That would be great.

 

[cwestwjg]

The catching situation is the problem I have with the thrid strike rule. How many times have you given up a eventual run because the catcher dropped the ball on a thrid strike. This rule needs to be dropped at least for 10u and I agree more focus should be put on the catchers.

Problem I have seen is parents love to spend money on pitching practice but it's like pulling teeth to get a catchers parent spring for framing and blocking lessons.

 

[Jojo]

This thread came to mind today.
I have a 9yr old pitcher, I started last summer as an 8yr old.
Talented little athlete but about as big as a bugs thumb. She throws in the upper 30's. Last week at lessons I was preparing her for an upcoming tournament she was going to, working with her moving the ball around the plate throwing balls when she needed to throw balls and strikes when she needed to throw strikes, also added a nice little change-up.

She told me tonight, she did really good, but only had 2 strike outs, all the rest (2nd yr 10u team) hit her pitches.
I asked her if she moved the ball around and threw her strikes, balls and change-ups that we had worked on.

Her mom said "No, they don't have coaches that call pitches and basically using about 6 different catchers, that are just squatting back there."

It's hard to be 9yrs old and have to keep track of the count and call your pitchers and then throw to a clueless catcher.