This article was sent to me by Hal Skinner. It’s about a men’s fastpitch softball team who traveled to Clearwater, Florida decades ago to represent Hawaii in the ASA Men’s Fast Pitch National Tournament. The team battled many challenges along the way, but still made a great showing for Hawaii all the on the other side of the country!
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I think this is so cool! I wish I could be there to see it.
TONIGHT the Schaumburg Flyers baseball club, of the independent Northern League will battle the Chicago Bandits, of National Pro FastPitch softball at Alexian Field.
The really cool thing is that it seems like a lot of people will have a chance to see first hand, what the Chicago Bandits can do. While most of their games average under 1,000 spectators a game, this Battle of the Sexes match-up has a chance of selling out the 8,500 capacity field by game time.
I sure hope there’s another article after this game is over that will let us know how it went. While it’s not a true, men’s softball vs women’s softball game – I think it’s great that an NPF team will have a chance to play in front of a big crowd and hopefully spark interest in people who’ve never really watched the pro fastpitch league (or even the game in general) before.
If you’re in Chicago and are attending this game, you have to give us a report here!
Twitter is a real time social media network that allows users to post short updates about what they’re doing to a timeline. When you join twitter for free, you can see all the updates posted by people you “follow.” Twitter is very simple and straightforward without the “fluff” off applications, games, photo albums, and other add-ons that other social media networks like MySpace and Facebook have.
It does take a little time to get the hang of the conversation and community there, but once you do, you can meet some great people and learn things you would have never known if it wasn’t for twitter. The best way to do it though, is to just jump in and try it.
Here’s what you need to do to get started:
To help get you started, here’s a bunch of softball people I’m following (after you’re logged in to your account, click on the links below then click on the “follow” button on these twitter people’s pages):
NCAA WCWS: http://twitter.com/NCAAWCWS
DI Coach Bill Vasko: http://twitter.com/CoachBook
Marc Dagenais: http://www.twitter.com/coachmarc
Steven Anderson: http://twitter.com/ATumblebug
Jessica Jobes (MittMate): http://twitter.com/JessicaJobes
Angela Tincher: http://twitter.com/ATinch1
STATE the Movie: http://twitter.com/statethemovie
We Play: http://twitter.com/weplay
Philadelphia Force: http://twitter.com/PhilaForce
ASA Softball: http://twitter.com/ASASoftball
Ringor: http://twitter.com/ringor
Big West Softball: http://twitter.com/BigWestSoftball
Barry Lovelace: http://twitter.com/barrylovelace
Fastpitch News: http://twitter.com/FastpitchNews
Oh yeah, and you can follow me at http://www.twitter.com/staciemahoe 
There are also some pretty cool softball parents on twitter as well. You may see me talking to them every now and then. Any time you see me talking with other twitter users about softball, I’d suggest clicking on their twitter name to go to their page so you can see if you’d like to follow them too. If so, just click on the “follow” button on their page.
I’m seriously thinking about doing some short tutorial videos to show you some twitter basics. I’ll certainly let you know if I get those made!
This is one of my favorite softball drills to put an infield through because it forces them to treat each play with urgency. You can tell them to get to the ball quicker or to get rid of it quicker, but this drill gives them an “in your face” reason to do that.
Now, I’ve also heard that using a stop watch is helpful as well. However, with a stop watch, the players don’t get as much of a visual on how far off or how close they are to making the play. Using runners, like in this drill, gives them a more concrete visual of what’s going on.
So, how does this drill work?
Obviously this cuts down significantly on the time the field has to field the ball and make the play. I like to run this drill with routinely hit ground balls…not screamers. Force the players to come get the ball instead of sit back and wait for it and quickly get rid of it to make the play. Do not hit laser shots at them and force them into a defensive mode.
This drill is a great way to put pressure on your infield and challenge them in practice so that game situations seem easy. It’s also a great way to get some sprints in. You can also switch out the infield and the runners to give everyone a chance at making these urgent plays as well as give everyone some sprint work.
It may not always be true, but more often than not, those unearned runs will come back to bite you in the butt. Maybe even more-so when they come in the first inning. Of course, if it happens early, you have more time to recover and get it back. However, a coach recently shared an interesting observations about first innings with me. He said that after looking back through his scorebooks from the past few years, the majority of the games were won by the team who “won the first inning.”
What do you think about that? Do you think that’s true? Do you have scorebooks you can look back through and report back to us? If so, leave a comment here and let us know what percentage of games were won by the team that “won the first inning.” Go through each game and see if either team was leading after the first inning. Then check to see if that’s the team that ended up winning the game. Jot down your findings then calculate what percentage of games were won by the team who was leading after the first. I’m curious to see what others have to say.
Anyway, getting sidetracked here. I’m sure you’ve seen or been in games when unearned runs come back to bite you in the butt. It really stinks! But the fact of the matter is, great teams will rarely “give” you anything. If you’re going to get across the plate you’re going to have to earn it! And if you happen to “give” them anything, you’re just about done for. Not that coming out on top is impossible, but it’s definitely going to be a fight to the end! Either that or great teams know how to make you pay for your mistakes. If you make one, they’re jump all over it and you better make sure you do the same if they happen to slip up. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself in a major uphill battle. Again, not impossible, but definitely a tough situation.
Given the observation above, IF your team was going to give up unearned runs, when would you rather have it happen? I’m thinking I’d choose the 2nd. Still time to get it back, yet possibly avoid losing that first inning and becoming a statistic.
Isn’t this what I’ve been saying from Day 1? Why does this seem like such a tough concept for “grown ups” to understand? So much so that it was a big part of the foreword of a book.
We’ve got all kinds of fastpitch softball discussions going on at My Fastpitch World.
Should sunflower seeds be allowed?
How should tryouts be run?
Is stealing signals “playing dirty?”
Should you play up or stay down?
How do you motivate young players and reduce nerves before a game?
…and a bunch more.
If you haven’t shared your thoughts yet, head over and tell us what you think. If you haven’t signed up for your free account at My Fastpitch World, it only takes a few minutes and you’ll be able to jump right in to the conversations!
I’m looking forward to seeing you there! If you have any questions you’d like input on, just post it up ~ there are a lot of great fastpitch people ready to help you out.