Snow Ball Effect!!

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We've all seen it but what can be done about it?! One girl drops a ball in the outfield, the 1st baseman lets one go through there legs, the short stop over throws first base..........

How do you stop the snow ball effect with regards to errors!!? It seems that after one error there are several following. :-/

How do you get the girls heads back on the playing field?

 

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Practice!! Practice!! Practice!! ;D ;D ;D

But, sometimes you just can't do anything about it.

 

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A conference on the mound can sometimes help.

 

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At an NFCA conference this subject was discussed at length by Dr. Ken Raveza not sure of the spelling in regards to letting it go.

He had us face each other and extend our right hand to each other so we could touch each others forearm with our finger tips.

He said now pinch each others forearm at the same time and count 1,2,3,4,5 and say drift and let it go....he gave the example that was a misjudged fly ball or an overthrow or a called third strike and there was nothing you could do to change it so you had to learn to deal with it as to the mental or physical pain involved.

You can not go back one second in time to change anything so you must learn to deal with failure so you will not be thinking about it and possibly make another error because you are not focused.

He said you can not stop the game to practice so you have to mentally learn how to let it go.

You can not effectively go up to bat thinking about your over throw that cost your team the go ahead run....let it go and that is something you have to learn and as coaches we have to teach and that is how to let it go.

You have no control of the results, only on the execution.

One of the things I tell pitchers is when your infielder makes a mistake, call time and tell them I know you can make that play and if they hit it to you again you will and that I would rather have you in that position and know you have got my back.

Giving the person that made the mistake or error a dirty disgusting look only adds fuel to the fire and puts doubt in the other persons mind and most likely it will get worse. As a pitcher you need everyones help and can not be expected to strike everyone out and win the game just on your arm so make sure as a pitcher you keep everyone on your side doing everything you can to encourage them to do their best.

 

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Nice post Hitter...
I have a saying that is starting to catch on with the ladies...
I always tell them "Short memory Long game"
Seems to work most of the time but sometimes you just sit back and watch that ball grow.... :'( :'( :'( :'(

 

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Just tell em... "If your feet are in the picture your'e not looking forward"

it's done, over, move on to the next pitch, refocus and you know what, we all make mistakes...

 

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He said now pinch each others forearm at the same time and count 1,2,3,4,5 and say drift and let it go....he gave the example that was a misjudged fly ball or an overthrow or a called third strike and there was nothing you could do to change it so you had to learn to deal with it as to the mental or physical pain involved.

I still have a welt on my arm from your demonstration of this.....from 6 months ago!!

How many other have gotten to be pinched?? Or was I one of the special few??

 

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Shayne,

It isnt like you didnt deserve it. Matter of fact I think I told Howard to do it. ;D

If your a coach an an umpire you need to be shot not just pinched. Conflict of interests. hehehe

Elliott

 

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"You are only as good as your next play"!!!!!!!!

I was taught this and I have tried to teach it to the players that I coach. It seems to help.....

If you make an error in the field and then make the next play or you get a hit in your next at-bat then nobody remembers the error??

Same way if you strike out and you make a great defensive play then they forget the SO.....

This is a very good topic and it not only teaches these ladies for this game but it applies to life in general!!!!

 

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All really good answers!! ? ;D ?Thank you so much. ?Our coaches will not very often go out to rubber and talk to the girls or tell a joke or anything to pull them out of that moment. ?I was just wondering if it helps or not. ?I think it would. ?But I'm not a coach.

 

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As a first year team we see a lot of this. ?This has been a good post and I intend to put the advice to good use.

We use mound visits to try and stop the bleeding when we have innings like this. They do not always work because one or two players do not buy in and the negativity spreads.

Thanks to all.

 

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At the same NFCA clinic the LSU coach went over how she conducts practices and what she expects from her players.

For example: They are hitting ground balls to the infielders and lets say the second baseman misses one....she does not hit them another one, instead she goes around to everyone else so as to put the pressure on her and in her words make her stew about it a little. Then she hits them three in a row to re enforce their technique.

She said when she compliments a player for a good effort lets say on a ground ball the players response is saved an RBI coach, Thanks!

When they line up to start practice she reminds them that for the next two hours we are going to focus on only playing softball and talk about nothing else, no boyfriends, not homework, not where we are going to eat tonight...no nothing!

Realizing she is coaching college players her comments was if I am going to pay them to play, then they must play my way, throw my way, catch my way and if they need additional help then I am here two hours prior to the start of practice to help them if they need it or want it.

The last thing was she better not see or HEAR a cell phone ring during practice.

 

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Shayne, next time have Howard use the method he was telling my dd this weekend to get your attention. ?I bet in China they don't have to worry about you not paying attention!

 

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Players with sufficient ability to make your travel team and who practice proper technique will make very few errors. It's really a non-issue. Everybody makes an error once in awhile. Show me a big league regular with a 1.000 fielding percentage. Forget about it. Encourage. Move on.

If you've got girls who make a lot of errors, you've probably got a bad team. If you've got a bad team, you knew it from the first practice or you don't know much about the game. Some organizations are not lucky enough to have huge talent pools to choose from. The "snowball effect" of errors by a bad team should never come as a surprise. It should be anticipated. Some players just don't have it. Some can be taught. The coaches job is to help bring out the best in all of them.

 

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I think keeping a good morale is a great idea...not allowing players to "coach" the others in a negative way...but keeping them all encouraged to "get the next one" works far better than a "you need to get those" shout from other players, especially coaches daughters...we saw a problem with this watching another team this year...one of the coaches daughters was constantly correcting the other players, and not paying attention to all of her own errors, that will bring a snowball effect for sure!...it goes through her legs only to yell at her outfielders to get the ball...and if it got past them - lookout, she was on their case...sad that their team's coaches let that go on!
if a coach can keep an encouraging atmosphere, I bet players will do far less mess out on the field.

 

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We tried the pinch method that Hitter listed below and it seemed to work.

Thanks again