What's more valuable, practices or games?

[GunnerShotgun]

This poll is for softball parents of, all ages, but mainly the younger groups, 10U-14U. As a parent of a budding young softball player, what do you value more to help your DD develop and improve her softball skills? Please explain why you voted for your response.

Individual Practice > Games > Team Practice

 

[tim_s]

Practice with a Purpose. Mindless drills help with muscle memory. Like a robot. What players lack today is softball IQ. The game within the game. Situational awareness. Some kids just have it and other kids don't.

Station to Station base running vs taking the extra base without the coach telling you do so. Fake throw to get a base runner cheating and tag them out. Kids don't take chances. They wait for the coach for instruction.

we spent a lot of practice time from 12u up doing situational work at practice......1/3 of our practice time or more......ghost runners, catcher calling the situation, i hit it wherever i want to control what happens, making them react......other times with baserunners, coaching both baserunners & fielders, with me hitting - we'd create full innings/full games of scenarios, we'd often put stuff together that we had recently struggled on, or hadn't seen often, etc

took us a LONG time to get girls that would communicate & think for themselves......the thinking came easier than the communicating........boys you can't get to shut up, but getting girls confident enough to speak up took a lot of time to build

 

[LEsoftballdad]

It would help if you had both. It's hard to replicate game situations in practice as there isn't real pressure, but it's hard to get it right in a game without the practice reps. And after watching my daughter's team's infield defense this weekend, I can say they definitely need more practice...

I've used this analogy before on this page so I will go there again. When a band is about to go on tour, they will have rehearsals for a few weeks beforehand so they are all in sync with each other. They should have all practiced their parts at home before they got together, but they needed to put it together as a band before performing in front of fans. Once they hit the road, the performances sharpen them further. I've always felt the first few tour shows are always the worst performances due to the rust, even with the tour rehearsals.

 

[Dabears17]

Practice with a Purpose. Mindless drills help with muscle memory. Like a robot. What players lack today is softball IQ. The game within the game. Situational awareness. Some kids just have it and other kids don't.

Station to Station base running vs taking the extra base without the coach telling you do so. Fake throw to get a base runner cheating and tag them out. Kids don't take chances. They wait for the coach for instruction.

This. A good portion of your practices should be “practice with a purpose” in game situations so players know what to do before they get the ball. One of the best pieces of advice my DD got was just before she turned 9 at the Catching Camp Summer camp. Also be looking for the next out. When she played 1B several 3B learned the hard way if there was a play at 3B after an out at 1B, the ball was coming.

One of my frustrations is when my DD was doing first year 14u fall ball I tried to convince her coach and the coaches of other teams which had girls she had played with was to set aside a weekend to bring out Wassermann to do a throwing clinic. Austin was very interested in doing the clinic, but all the coaches felt it was more important for 13 year olds to play a bunch of fall ballgames than get training on good throwing mechanics.

 

[Orange Socks]

Austin was very interested in doing the clinic, but all the coaches felt it was more important for 13 year olds to play a bunch of fall ballgames than get training on good throwing mechanics.

And God forbid I teach my 10U team how to bunt. I had to explain to my parents that every kid on this team is going to bunt. Why? First, because that is part of the game and it will be more important as they age up. 2nd, the other team can't defend it!!!

Why learn the basics? LOL.

 

[ArmWhip]

During practice I like to save the last 20-30 minutes for 'practice games'. We almost always end up playing 'workup' with the coach pitching. Batters get to hit and run the bases, players get to play different positions and the coaches get to dissect plays after they happen and explain strategy. I think the game is also called scrub. The kids love it. The main weakness is that pitchers and catchers generally don't get to play their positions.

 

[mmeece]

Games are more valuable but very inefficient for everyone except the pitchers and catchers. Focused practice with good reps under pressure is more efficient but nothing completely replicates game reps.

 

[CoachCeetar]

Come on, "Both" is a cop out. of course it's both.

 

[NEF]

Practice with a Purpose. Mindless drills help with muscle memory. Like a robot. What players lack today is softball IQ. The game within the game. Situational awareness. Some kids just have it and other kids don't.

Station to Station base running vs taking the extra base without the coach telling you do so. Fake throw to get a base runner cheating and tag them out. Kids don't take chances. They wait for the coach for instruction.

I do believe some runners are more aggressive than others, but coaching does make a hugh difference, DD1 did track/cross country in High school, her coaches alway let her know everytime she got caught on the bases that it was her fault. To this day she is still base to base. DD2 was always encouraged to go for extra bases, If caught on the bases was always told "good effort", she is not the fastest, but is a force on the bases. Being a younger sibling, watching a higher level of play at a young age also helps.

 

[Orange Socks]

I do believe some runners are more aggressive than others, but coaching does make a hugh difference, DD1 did track/cross country in High school, her coaches alway let her know everytime she got caught on the bases that it was her fault. To this day she is still base to base. DD2 was always encouraged to go for extra bases, If caught on the bases was always told "good effort", she is not the fastest, but is a force on the bases. Being a younger sibling, watching a higher level of play at a young age also helps.

DD's former TB team worked on base running EVERY practice as a warm up. He told the players the 3rd base coach's job was to give a stop sign...otherwise you make every effort to get to him until you see a stop sign. It's go until you see stop.

When you play certain teams Impact Gold, Bombers, Glory etc (Texas area) when those players hit bloop hits that land in front of the outfielder they are always standing on 2nd base. It's amazing to watch. That's why those kids are playing P5.