Style exterminators

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It's that ripe time of the year that parents can't wait to tell an anonymous source their issues with high school coaches. I've heard a tons of new things each year...some regurgitated, others totally new and innovative. The most common is style beater uppers of hitting techniques. This year is no exception. My real question is why don't these drive by hitting coaches, wrapped up in a head strong and large soup nazi coaching style personality, start drive by teaching of their pitchers and techniques!?!? Maybe they do and pitchers at this point are so mentally tough that they mentally flip off the drive by'r? Both hitters and pitchers typically have an instructor IF they play at a medium to high level team. Heck, most see someone at any level, sorry to snobby in that. My thought is its "easier" to talk hitting and maybe more fun. Shoot...teaching pitching is hard work and teaching hitting isn't so it's low hanging fruit of critiquing opportunity. Lol.

So once again the exterminators are out and about spraying their drive by knowledge upon these lovely young players and it's once again popcorn time.


A good winter topic of dead horse appetite.

 

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Come on Les, you know all your weight back, knees outside the feet and the large stride to kill the spyder is correct.

 

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swing level! NOW!!!

 

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Already started hearing it.....lean back and step forward and make contact with the ball out front.

Coach I can not get a good weight shift leaning backwards with the bat laying flat. Really do not care what travel team you are on or how you were taught. You may be playing for me for me for the next three months so get use to it!

Basically same stuff different year. I told them shake your head yes and agree IF you want to play high school.

Howard

 

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You can get it at the next level, not just high school. Howard is right just shake you head and agree.

 

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Not so much about hitting, but I like "2 down, we're going on anything" when there is only 1 base runner and she is on 2.

I hope this happens to my kid in the near future and she runs right into the shortstop right after she fields the ball. :lmao:

She's not playing JH ball so I guess I'll have to wait a year.

 

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swing level! NOW!!!

We hear hit the top of the ball alot....

 

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We hear hit the top of the ball alot....

to me that means our infield will get some work in... and I'll take those odds. Thanks coach!

 

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swing level,,thats heard allllll over 98% of the fields in april

 

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Another one is...."cut the ball in half"... that's like telling a 4 year old to "go ride a bike" with zero training... But they road on their Dukes of Hazard big wheel so well!

I like saying in return to the coach... "go make a million bucks".... same thing... easy, right!?

 

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Your already a millionaire Les. Not a fair statement there at all. Swing hard and hopefully you will hit it

 

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based upon my belief as to what wealth is... you are right my man! Has nothing to do with $$.

 

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A story from first year in High School last year. Not from a coach but a pitchers parent. She was the second pitcher. First was relatively slow but was very good at the corners and did very well for us. Second pitcher threw considerably faster but was rocked regularly as it was like from a pitching machine. Very predictable. Dad would yell in a deep growling voice over and over and over and over "THROW HARD" I guess that that's all she had to do was to "THROW HARD". This was just another example of a parent problem. He never pressed her to work at any other time other than the season and expected to be the number one. Never touched a ball until it was mandatory. I mean, she did tear it up in 12U rec and they both had it all figured out that it would be that way forever!!

"THROW HARD"

 

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I enjoy HS ball. You must be able to turn off the concern of style points. If you are playing at a higher level travel ball you see mostly very good fundamentals. Throwing mechanics are tight, fielding positions are proper, players charge every ball, batters have great swings, players run out everything. In general the game is played the correct way.

In HS the girls with the funky throwing motion is considered just as good as your daughters throwing motion since she "gets it done". The point being that while most of the players do not have the skill development to go to the next level they can still get the job done. While on a high level travel team they would be targeted and would not be getting the job done.

I am going to substituent team names because I am from Michigan and it will not make sense if I use Michigan team names.

So 2 girls walk up to a pitcher I know in 8th grade and comment that they play travel ball for some local team and that they just won a "big" tournament. They proceed to explain how great they are and how they will be starting as freshman on the HS team. They then comment to this 5'10" girl that they heard she plays softball also. She says yes I am the starting pitcher for the Lasers. The girls look at her and laugh and say " who are they? Are they any good....and then walk off". Later that year these girls end up playing against this player at some tournament and they run rule them 15-0 in 3 innings. The pitchers walks by and says "oh yeah we are pretty good".

The point of the story is that these girls only lived in their bubble and in their bubble they were the big fish. And that is HS ball in a nut shell. The local big fish run into the big fish from the ocean and the local fish do not recognize that the other fish is bigger and faster. They are convinced they are the best that ever lived and may never be able to "see" the difference. Player, parent, and some times even the coaches.

I am have no complaints. While our team is average at best our coach is very good and young. She played travel and college and knows the difference so she just does the best with what she has. Wish my daughters were pitchers in some ways because we lack any type of pitching. But we can score runs and play D. We just get killed by the higher level teams when we get past Districts. The batter box become a launching pad.

 

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Spartans -- the truth you speak.

We have seen that happen so often. After our dd was 12, she stopped playing with local girls as she moved on to TB. In HS, it is as if she never played ball again to the girls who stayed in local rec leagues. Every school season, it's like she has to prove herself all over again to girls who only pick up a ball and a glove for school season. It's aggravating to the dd, but it's good in a way because she's always has to prove herself. At the end of the season, when she's the top pitcher, batting cleanup or 3rd, the respect she gets is the best kind -- the stuff that's earned on the field.

Her freshman year, she was trying to teach a girl on the school team how to catch the ball with two hands -- and had to resort to grabbing duct tape out of the coach's bag to tape the girl's free hand to her glove. I never heard how it was received by the girl, but dd said she started catching the ball with two hands.

 

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Her freshman year, she was trying to teach a girl on the school team how to catch the ball with two hands -- and had to resort to grabbing duct tape out of the coach's bag to tape the girl's free hand to her glove. I never heard how it was received by the girl, but dd said she started catching the ball with two hands.

Classic.

We are blessed that our high school coach is still willing to learn new things. A couple of years ago he met dd's hitting coach in Toledo (if I recall correctly). Completely changed the way he approaches hitting.

 

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Our tryouts and drama begins tonight. I can't wait for June.