removal from game

[mosquito]

During a recent game I witnessed a girl in left field get pulled after an over throw to second base. A hard hit ball immediately recovered and then over thrown to second in which nobody backed it up, the ball rolls away and the runner advances from first to third. This was the First inning of the game nobody out score was 0 to 0. Coach instantly removes the left fielder and puts another kid in. Any opinions , is this good tough coaching or are you teaching a kid to play scared ? kid was visually upset. 10u

 

[VE_05]

I totally disagree with this coaching move. I seen this happen in 12u and didn't like it then. They are kids.... professional ball players make mistakes almost every game and they don't get pulled... just my opinion. If I have a girl making mistakes I wait till the inning is over, I try to wait a couple innings if possible so it don't mess with there heads.


I see girls who start out doing well and then they make a mistake and look at there parent... then they are nervous and have tons of trouble because of the look the parent gives them.

 

[FastBat]

On one hand I dislike it, on the other hand, I understand. Something very similar happened to my dd when she was 9. At the time it hurt her (and me), but it taught her a valuable lesson; when you get an opportunity to play, give it all you have, you may never get that opportunity again. She is a tougher player for it today. That lesson she learned on the field applies to life, too.

 

[Lasers 04 Coach Mike]

IMO, it all depends on what takes place in the dugout. If the time is used wisely by a coach; the player will get an encouraging explanation of what went wrong and how to correct it. She is then returned back into the field as soon as possible.

 

[MotorCityMadness05]

A defensive change should only be made between innings or with a pitching change. It is deflating for the girls confidence otherwise. I saw this recently too, and I was disgusted. There is more than one mistake on that play and the one I saw. When coaches fail to see the multiple mistakes and go after 1 of th girls, it drives me nuts.

On a similar note, we recently saw a 3rd base coach call time to walk over and yell at the girl on 1st who did not go to 2nd to take the extra base (since there was a runner on 3rd). This was on the 1st base coach, not the player. while he was yelling, the runner at 3rd sat on the base to take a break. When he came back, he said nothing to the girl at 3rd. I would have a harder time with the girl at 3rd. Laziness does not create discipline, and neither does yelling.

 

[mosquito]

I don't know what happened in the dugout. Hopefully she was talked to. She sat the rest of the game .

 

[CARDS]

At 10U the main focus needs to be instruction.

This seems like it was a teaching moment that may have been missed. If the play developed as you stated and after the throw the players were unsure of where to go or how to back up the play it seems like instruction needed to be given to more than just the left fielder.

I know a lot of teams gets POd when coaches instruct during timed contest and this coach may have pulled the player in to talk to her but IMO, that could have taken place between innings and there may have been more value (and just about as much time as the player swap) to huddle the players around and reflect on what they have been doing in practice and to remind the ladies to be in motion when the ball is in play and not be a statue or spectator.

 

[Run26]

This is ridiculous. At 10U, the coach should be glad she stopped it right away and had the arm strength to get it to the 2nd baseman. I'm constantly amazed at how perfect some of the coaches think a 9-10 year old player should perform (including boys). So instead of using it as a teaching moment for the whole team (no backup) you decide to punish a LF for overthrowing a bag?!?!? So stupid.
And people wonder why no one wants to play in the outfield. This will come back to bite this "coach" some day when his opponent is pulling bombs and his true LF'er is too afraid to make a mistake.

 

[HITTER23]

10u.........

 

[Long Baller]

It is 10u, so you got to "win right now!" ya know......

Shouldn't be done at 12u either, but I have seen it a lot there.

 

[trcyknny7]

It's hard to say without knowing the rest of the story. And unless you were the coach, there is no way to know the rest of the story. Was this a pick up player they didn't know well? Was this a player who had some issues before this game. Heck, at 10u, was this a player mad about being in the outfield? is the player that went in the normal outfielder and the one used to playing? It's easy to draw conclusion and assume negative intent when you weren't there. I wasn't there either, but I say, assume positive intent. Assume there was a sound reason for it. These coaches are spending 100s of hours each season to help players get better. Assume if this was done that it was for a good reason.

 

[coachjwb]

As long as a player is not ill or just totally not trying, I don't believe this is a good coaching practice at any age level in the middle of an inning. Have you ever seen it in a major league baseball game where players are paid to play, and managers are paid to win? You can consider it teaching the player a lesson if you'd like, but I think there are much better ways to teach a player that same lesson without totally embarrassing and/or losing them (and their parents), and looking like a total ass (pardon the french). If there truly was no other reason for taking them out other than the overthrow, then this is an extremely poor move by a coach in my opinion, and I would personally steer far away from a team that did this.

 

[Bob_Himmelein]

I kind of live with the philosophy if someone were to embarrass you in the way it seems this player may have been treated, I would not think much of the person doing it to me. In fairness, I was not there do not know what else had gone on or history, but if it was my daughter, I would certainly not tolerate this. if the only reason she was taken out was an error.

 

[wvanalmsick]

I do not agree with this occurrence but is this a team rule that everyone on the team knows about? If you make an error you sit?

Again, at that age, I do not agree with that philosophy.

 

[Irish196]

Just because a girl makes a mistake it doesn't mean she wasn't giving it her all. The girl in this example (according to the poster) made a good stop on a hard ball, so it sounds like she was giving it her all. Perhaps she was very excited and didn't realize just how much she put on the ball. It seems to me since she sat the rest of the game, the next time she is in left field she will either hesitate and take a few steps and time to make sure her throw is absolutely perfect or she won't even attempt a throw for fear of being yelled at and sat a whole game again.
Furthermore, what about the girls who weren't doing their job backing up the throw? Why not yell and sit them? By not punishing all mistakes you have kids either thinking the coach is playing favorites or trying to blame someone else each time a mistake is made so they aren't the person punished. None of these results seem like ones a coach would want. These are 10 year olds, no way someone is going to be good enough at 10 to always expect a great throw. Better IMO to use the example as a teaching moment to show just how wrong a play can go when everyone isn't working together and doing their job (i.e. backing up throws).

 

[dominic21]

I happen to have knowledge of this situation.
Good kid, good coach. My daughter has played for him for several years and he can be tough, but in a good way. The kids learn a lot and get better. He has made my daughter much better in all aspects of the game, sometimes being tough on her and other times being caring. I have learned a lot about coaching from him too.
The kid in question here still played in the game as a hitter but was substituted in the outfield. In the dugout, things were explained to the girl as to why this happened.
As someone previously said, there was more to the situation involved which I will not go into here as it is not the time or place.

 

[Erie]

First I would like to apologize to some of you. Unknowing to you, I often believed and formed an opinion of u based on the initial poster of a thread when calling out a coach/player/umpire/parent, etc. I guess that's human nature these days w biased news, blogs, social media etc. I realize this now because I believe a friend and colleague is the person in question on this thread.

I will simply say this, there are 2 sides to every story. If this is in fact what I believe it is, I know the whole story and those of us that have coached for a while have seen this situation unfold many times as the season is winding down.

And going forward, I will withhold judgement on all of you (that get called out) until I get the whole truth from a reliable source.

 

[mosquito]

The initial poster did not give an opinion .I asked for some .I asked the question is this good tough coaching or are you teaching a kid to play scared . The events of the play are accurate. I did not mention any team names organizations. As far as if there is more to the situation I do not know .

 

[6and22dad]

I was made aware of this post earlier today and thought it was probably best not to reply. Then I thought why should I sit back and let everyone give their 2 cents without knowing what really happened. Sorry to disappoint but all I'm going to tell you is I'm the coach in question and yes there have been ongoing issues with the girl who got pulled out of the game. She did not get pulled for making one error. In hindsight I should have never put her in the situation in the first place. That's completely on me and if that makes me a horrible coach then I guess I have to live with that. All I can say is that the girl is a great kid who doesn't like pressure situations. I didn't pull her in anger and I would never do something like that. Those of you who have coached against me, coached with me, or have had kids play for me know this. It's unfortunate when someone such as myself or any other coach who donates countless hours to these young kids can be taken down and bashed on a public forum. As some of the replies have said, please feel free to run, steer clear of me, or whatever else derogatory you may want to do to me. I'm a volunteer coach that makes mistakes everyday whether it's on the softball field or in everyday life. For those of you that sit on the sidelines and complain or wait for the first Rant Monday morning on TSZ I say walk a mile in my shoes or any other volunteer coach before you start your witch hunt. I love coaching and watching the girls get better every week but trust me when I say it's not all rainbows and unicorns. I don't know who the original poster is but it seems odd that they just joined TSZ today to make this post. Well there you have it, cast your judgement as you may. I will read them all and take them into consideration as I respect the opinions of everyone in here.

Shane Polach
Erie Frost 10u

 

[dominic21]

Responding to the original post and disrespecting the organization, team and coach based on not knowing the complete facts of the situation is poor judgement and therefore not accurate. If I tell just one side of the story, does that make the story accurate? Please do not judge a team and a coach by one post and one side of the story. While the original post was accurate in the girl being pulled, it does not portray the entire event and judgements should not be cast based on it. It happened, right or wrong, but it was a teaching moment based on several factors, not just the one in question.
My hope is that she will learn from this event and be a better player as she has the potential to be one.