12U Slammers best in Ohio history?

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Come on bold_1. I think most people on here get bigtrain. I would also say that most people (including me) respect what he has built and done for his current girls and years past girls. He does have a long term plan for them with an education as the ultimate prize not some national title. With that said, most of this is just some good natured ribbing and comic relief. I'm sure when they go to California every coach worth their salt will be rooting for them AND the Lasers to bring the title back to the Buckeye state. Just as I hope the NSA, USSSA and Pony titles reside in our state. We'll do our best to bring the USSSA home.

 

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was there anything bad that was said about bigtrain? (well, in THIS thread anyhow, not talking about old ones)..I know i was merely referring to having his non-biased opinion here to go along wih this dead horse we keep beating...

 

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Slammers who? I thought the Bugtussle Tire Battery and Ice Cream Parlor softball team was hands down the best of the best in these parts.

Manitou Dan - hey it could be worse! My dd is trying to convince me to let her tryout for the freshman wrestling team. If she wasn't a pitcher, I'd almost consider it. NOT.

 

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Warriors, watch out for that Possum Hollow team, they're flying way under the radar. Once Possum Hollow adds a sports section and gets their newspaper up to a full page word will get out big time. The White Lightning are for real.

In other news, can we play "Where's Waldo" with Bigtrain, does anybody believe he is not in our midst? " ..... and then poof, he was gone" "The greatest thing the devil ever did was convince the world he didn't exist" - The Usual Suspects.

Will be interesting for oldtimers & historians when it is all said and done this year. All in good fun. Aggressiveness, competitiveness, passion are good, when packaged correctly. We should be thankful there is strong interest and things to talk about within the Ohio softball community, rather than apathy.

It could be much worse, topics "could" painfully be items like these:

1. Why can't we get Ohio girls out for softball?
2. Why does EVERYBODY play soccer in Ohio instead of softball?
3. Why don't we get solid/competitive Ohio teams showing up at national showcases and other tournaments?
4. Why is this board so dead & apathetic, with NO PASSION?

Thankfully, this is not the case around here!

 

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OK Pickle, I field a couple of those... Maybe more kids play soccer because, on average (at least in central Ohio anyway), there is better teaching of fundamentals on a local level in soccer? Plus - IMO, it's more difficult to teach a 10 year old how to hit a softball and pitch than it is to teach them how to kick a soccer ball. From the sounds of some posts on here, there are some people that just plain reject good solid cutting-edge teaching over old-school stuff and wives tales. "See the ball - Hit the ball" at the 10u level is a teaching cop-out. Ultimately that is what a kid has to do, but if they don't know how it's a very frustrating experience. Does that mentality exist in soccer? "See the ball - Kick the ball"? There are at least a few dads from the middle school that my kids attended that are VERY good at teaching soccer skills. However, you're hard pressed to find a VERY good, passionate teacher of softball fundamentals there.

As long as I continue to hear "keep your elbow up", "swing level", "just throw strikes", etc., the skill level of the game will continue to be crippled. Maybe the Slammers are seeing success because - regardless of the personalities involved - someone actually cares enough to teach solid fundamentals? Maybe more folks should jump on the Slammers band wagon for the good of the sport???

 

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Sammy,
now you got me going.....

as a soccer coach (oh, the horror!) the past 3 years for my elementary school team, we have been lucky enough to have a bevy of resources that softball does not have.

we played in a developmental league where they didn't charge for uniforms or equipment (not happening in softball....just to dress a catcher runs you into the hundreds, and i think only columbus has an inner city league that offers equipment)

we attended Crew camps and other camps to develop skills (when was the last time any rec league offered a camp to work on pitching or hitting or fielding? and if they did, who ran it?....in Pickerington, i only remember one)

I attended training and was licensed as a coach/umpire (besides some of the credentials some of our travel coaches carry with them, including experience, is there ever going to be a hub of knowledge so to speak where every coach and assistant is given skills to teach girls AND the knowledge of the rules)....I'm not saying that travel coaches aren't qualified, but do any of the governing bodies give credentials to be official?

all that said, my 12u team developed into a lean-mean fighting machine (15-3-1 in 3 seasons--geez, now i sound like bigtrain)..

that said, TRAVEL soccer is more competetive and expensive. MOSSL pretty much owns all of that...we dont have one governing body that specifies field requirements (can you imagine that in softball, with all the ourfield fences and squiggly foul lines we have in everypark in ohio, except maybe for the National tourneys?) or coach specifications....for us, it's been a sponsoring headache to come up with the funds to play, what they call, SELECT soccer..if all my kids had the resources our parents in travel ball had, we'd be fine..

and like sammy basically said, it's easier to coach a kid how to dribble a soccer ball than to hit a fastball, or to field a grounder..hehe, I'd like to see some of our jug-butt softball coaches teach a bicycle kick!

 

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Well, my questions were rhetorical, and I was really trying to point out that we actually have some interesting things to debate on the site rather than just having crickets. Softball activity around Ohio seems MUCH more apparent than I can ever remember. Just driving along the expressway from time to time noticing softball games going on at all sorts of varied levels, don't remember that as much in the past (maybe just new sensitivities??).

However, soccer is clearly easier to initiate involvement as all you need is a ball and a field, and a few people. While vacationing in the Caribbean (not as often as desired mind you) I have watched highly skilled locals running around barefooted in fields and parking lots performing feats of magic with a soccer ball (or sometimes even a ball of rags). Whereas, with softball, we "MUST" have a diamond, cleats, shin pads, sliding shorts, a glove, batting glove, helmet, bat bag, a Rockettech (or Cat or Synergy), batting cages, a hitting/pitching instructor ..... LOL.

Realistically though, soccer at the more competitive levels (Inter-community Travel / Premier / Elite) can get pretty involved and costly with year round play, travel & training activities as well, special instructors, indoor leagues, camps, showcase tournaments, etc. Having a 12u daughter that played pretty competitive soccer for 8 years before just simply dropping it in favor of advanced softball commitments, I am not too sure that it is much different once you get to the advanced levels - lots of commitment year round, access to elite instructors & training methods to remain competitive, although equipment requirements for softball are obviously MUCH more "over the top."

At the grass roots levels (when the little tots can first see over the blades of grass), soccer definitely gets "1st dibs" due to it being so easy to indoctrinate into team sports/activities on a simplistic community basis. Seems like this may be changing just a bit, maybe due to Title IX opportunities (???), and the corresponding soccer saturation, but soccer may always be the "starter sport" for suburban kids at least. Interesting.

 

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pickledad those are all good points. ? i think another think that sets sofball apart from the likes of soccer is that players cannot hide during the game. ? by that i mean if you don't score the goal in soccer you can always say i didn't the pass i needed or some other such reasoning. ? in softball it is very you and you alone on the line, ? you stand in the batters box, ? you stand on the rubber, ? you have to make the defensive plays. ? ?i think this may have intimidated some potential players in the past but as more teams and younger teams are formed this is better. ? ?i think softball players, ?the great and the not so great, ?deserve credit for putting themselves out there and competing. ? and you are right no matter the sport as you get to the advanced levels it gets expensive and time consuming.

 

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Timac,

Good points also. You are so right, when the spotlight hits you in softball it either makes you "shine" or it "vaporizes" you, LOL, no hiding.

The flip side of the point, too, is that many kids (mine included for a while) don't like softball because you often times have virtually no opportunity to impact the game, or so it seems. In soccer, basketball, etc, you can move to where the action is, or force the pace of play, or force the action by injecting yourself heroicly, as long as you maintain positional integrity and do not ignore primary responsbilities for heroic action. It wasn't until my kid reached a higher level of play where everyone on the field is made to understand their role on a specific play (backup, covering bases, rundowns, etc) that softball became "enjoyable" as a team sport. For the longest time at the lower developmental levels she felt like she was stymied watching stuff happen all around her for 90 minutes, while she had only a few impactful moments (hitting, a few fielding plays). Things even out over time and development as kids grow, but if you are more mature or simply better athletically at an early age, it is easy to see why those kids would find more of an attraction and enjoyment factor in the "motion" team sports like soccer, basketball, etc., during the early years.

On the other hand though, if seriously like the spotlight, there is probably nothing better than softball, toeing the rubber, catching, playing another prominent position, or "basking" in your time at bat.

Hope Hockeybuckeye doesn't mind that we have now seriously hi-jacked this thread, LOL.

 

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Committing in the origional post, any team playing top tourny's and playing up with that type of record is good whether you you can accept it or not.

Ohio's all time best is an open catagory, Ohio's Lady Thunder team was coached by Jim Donavan and didn't play in Ohio, they traveled on the west circuit and played Cali teams and won on a regular basis, so I would give my nod to a team like that.

 

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the true test will come at 16u and 18u. lots of 12u and 14u teams truly dominate their age group.

good luck and keep playing hard!

 

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by the way...... the ohio ice "white" team was the best 12u team in the history of ohio! ;D

 

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If I recall - the 12u Stingrays that were coached by Joe Ward and ?Jim Donavan went undefeated, winning the NSA State tourney, USSSA National Championship and only suffering a loss in the NSA WS. ?They were good.


OOPS - this is actually Flarays posting!!!

 

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This just in from Oklahoma concerning the 2007 World Cup of Softball to be held July 12-16:

Theyve done the Pools and here is what I saw:

Pool A:

Team USA
China
Great Britain
Venezuela

Pool B:

Australia
Canada
Japan
12U Lil Slammers

So not only are they the greatest team in Ohio and the US....they will get a chance to prove they are the best in the world in 2007!

 

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you know this is getting old. You guys can slam Bigtrain, I have no problem with that and i think its very comical, bu when you start in on making a mockery of the girls and team someone needs to say something. These are girl ranging from 10 - 12 (maybe 13 depending on the bday) GIVE THEM CREDIT!!! I have seen them play 2 games, they are very good. now i don't thik anyone could ever say they are the best in Ohio history, how could you? its like saying the Steelers of the 70's were better than the niners of the 80's and the cowboys of the 90's. There is no way to prove it. the teams played different competition, the equipment improved, etc, etc...

One thing i will say, they are a good team, they are going to ASA Nationals, and like him or not (I personally do not know him), bigtrain is reaching goals that many of us coaches would love to reach.

I say go Slammers bring home as many trophies as you can attain, you are only a kid once and you will look back on these days and cherish the moments, i know I do.

Good Luck to ALL teams going to ASA, NSA, PONY, USSSA Nationals, Have fun!

 

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TEAM TENNESSEE 12U ? MIGHTY TOUGH

 

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I think that we all know and respect that this is a team of young girls who are very talented and work very hard to be a competitive team. The problem is though, that a majority of these threads are started by the adults that are associated with the team, not the 12 year old players, and that these threads sound more like bragging than like information. I too have seen this team play and it is a very good team with players who show good sportsmanship. I just wish that the adults who post would show the same courtesy. The title of this thread proves my point.

So, congratulations to the players on the Slammers team. Keep up the hard work and make Ohio proud!

 

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?its like saying the Steelers of the 70's were better than the niners of the 80's and the cowboys of the 90's. ?
!

The Steelers of the 70's were better than the niners of the 80's and the Cowboys of the 90"s! There I said it and I believe it!

 

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I can't stand the Steelers > > >

 

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so, the slammers of the 2010's will be better than the 2000's, and the 2020' slammers will be better than the 10's and so forth and so on?

will we be able to put up with slammer news for that long
(bring another horse!)