Quote:
Originally Posted by rastajenk
I used to play some softball back in the day...like 30 years ago.
What makes a good softball pitcher? Hitting the corners? Painting the black?  |
The rules for the league we played in specified:
Each pitch must have an arc of between 6ft and 15ft.
Any pitch too high or too low shall be immediately called a ball by the ump.
There was a mat behind the plate.
Any pitch not called a ball for improper arc that touches any part of home plate or the mat is a called strike.
To speed up the game all batters start their at bats with a 1 and 1 count (1 ball and 1 strike.)
Any foul ball with two strikes is an out (same as a strikeout.)
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At first our team sucked. I think we went 1 and 11 that first season.
Our biggest problem was defense. As in we had none.
We had outfielders who thought they were studs. Two of them actually were with the bat but not in the field. All of them had arms and instead of hitting the cutoff man - were almost always trying to throw out runners at third or the plate - which they seldom did.
The result of not throwing to the cutoff man was that any batter who got a base hit had no reason to stop at first.
Once they saw where the throw was going they would just keep going and end up on second about 80% of the time - or third the other 20% of the time.
We didn't have an experienced pitcher. Whoever we put out there had no control and would walk 8 to 10 batters a game. It also seemed like a LOT of those walks came with the bases loaded and two outs.
Before the second season I started holding mandatory practices. If you wanted to play in the games you had to show up regularly for practice.
One thing I did during those practices was get the outfielders to buy into the idea of hitting the cutoff man every single time.
Those practices also gave the two guys who had alternated as pitchers last year a chance to work on their control without the kind of pressure you face in games.
We had six or seven practices leading up to that second season and it showed. If I recall correctly we were one game under 0.500 that year.
We had improved. But the one thing we lacked compared to the other teams we were playing against was an experienced pitcher.
During the off season I decided that pitcher was going to be me.
I went to a sporting goods store and bought about 30 softballs and an official mat.
I spent about an hour every Sunday morning down at the field where we played with a bucket of balls practicing.
It took several weeks but eventually I started to develop real control.
By the time we started practices for the next season I felt I was "there" and I let the team know what I'd been up to.
During that first practice I was dropping pitches out of the sky - one after another - 15 ft arc - onto the back of the mat.
Everybody, even our outfielders were shaking their heads and saying "Yeah, technically that pitch was a strike. But no way was it hittable."
That next season we won our league championship.
The season after that the league director bumped us up to the next higher level.
The season after that we won our second league championship in three years.
Over the 10 years I pitched I can't tell you how many times a batter would come to the plate with men on base - the first pitch would drop out of the sky, land on the mat, and the ump would call "Strike Two!"
I'd purposely drop the very next pitch out of the sky a good six to ten inches behind the mat. The batter would make this awkward overhead swing - get a piece of the ball - foul it off - and the ump would call "Foul Ball with two strikes. Batter is OUT!"
Looking back I'd say the ability to get an out when it counts is what makes a good softball pitcher.
Then there's the insane amount of beer we drank after the games.
Wish I was young enough to still be playing.
-jp
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