Not to change the subject, but all of you seem to be conceding as fact that the "shortstop always has to cover on steals." I wish someone would explain to me why this has become a rule. I saw a very important recent game lost in large part because the shortstop ran away from a batted ball to cover second on a steal. This was the situation: Two outs; runner at first; pull-hitting right-handed clean-up batter with no foot speed at the plate. Now, you tell me, what are the odds that this girl is going to bunt? ZERO. So, you tell me, why was the second baseman playing deep and over toward first? Why was the shortstop playing medium depth? As the pitch was delivered, the first baseman yelled, "going!" The shortstop reacted by taking a quick step toward second to cover for the steal. The batter swung and hit a hard one-hopper that would have been right to the shortstop had she just stayed in her position. The ball went all the way to the fence (this was a 16U game) and the runner scored from first-- on a routine grounder to short! Now, you tell me, on what planet was this positioning of middle infielders proper? Don't use the simple explanation that she shouldn't have vacated her position until the ball crossed the plate. That's true, but if she had waited, and the ball had not been hit, she wouldn't have made it to the base in time from where she was playing. The fact that she would have had to have cheated the wrong way (toward second) against this particular pull hitter in order to reach the base in time without vacating her position early TELLS YOU THAT SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE RESPONSIBILITY TO COVER. In this instance, the second baseman should have had the responsibility and she should have been positioned deep and four or five steps from the bag. This play should have resulted in a 6-4 force even with the runner going-- or at least a 6-3 out to end the inning. Anyone who says coaches can't win games has never seen a really good coach. The bottom line is that you can't coach with hard and fast rules about all things. You have to coach for the particular situations that arise during the games. Having a hard and fast rule that the shortstop always covers on the steal is one of the most RIDICULOUS things I've ever heard-- and yet it seems to be accepted in the girls fastpitch community. So many games are lost because of this, it's just stupid.
