r/Softball

Im about to start high school ball and higher level travel, even with my over 6 years of playing competitively, Ive never learned to slide, my reason being, 1) im already slow, i dont think sliding will help much, and 2) i admit, im scared.

I was recently at a camp where we did sliding on a slip and slide and that helped a lot, but even then, I could only slide headfirst confidently.

Is it going to cause a problem if i really cant slide headfirst? What about into home? And yes, I already know sliding headfirst is more dangerous but truth be told, I dont really care. So if I were playing in a winning game, and I was needing to run into home, but had to slide, would I cause more issues if I could only slide headfirst?

Also, if youre a coach, I would love to hear your oppion on girls who can only slide headfirst.

My daughter has been playing on garden variety clay fields her entire softball career. As a varsity player this year she went to her first tournament on a new 100% turf field. When she went to the pitcher's circle, the ump tossed her a brand new ball. Her first few pitches were awful because her fingers were slipping off the seams. The new ball had a tiny amount of an oily film in the surface. I've been reading the rules on the use of powered rosin vs rock rosin vs chalk, and whether the pitcher has to wipe hands off or not.

I read that in major league baseball, the ump is supposed to rub the ball with a special clay mud to remove any factory film. Not so with softball.

The one thing sticking in my brain is that if a pitcher on a dirt field picks up a handful of the chalk used to outline the pitcher's circle, they have to wipe their hands off before pitching. However, if they rub their hands in the dirt, they don't have to wipe their hands because the dirt is not a foreign substance for the ball.

My question is... Can a pitcher on a turf field dust her hands with field clay dust and handle the ball without wiping her hands first, to condition the ball? I believe it would be legal if the game was on a clay field.

My daughter is entering middle school and is required to play a sport to stay in athletics PE. Softball isn’t an option, which I’m glad because it would just be a continuation of little league. She has settled on volleyball. There are some major concerns I have in getting involved in this, I’m curious of other people’s experience.

First off we have a strict training regimen that has produced results and has seen performance decline when we have distractions like little league eating into our training time. How do you work this in around school sports without physical burnout?

People argue that other sports build athleticism but that is only if you train to be good at the other sport from a young age, not when you just go try hard to satisfy a school credit. What are volleyball practices like? Will they at least have some conditioning and some jumping plyometrics?

What happens when schedules conflict? There is an area tournament scheduled the same weekend as a PGF tournament. There is no way she will miss the PGF tournament but some say softball players are expected to skip tournaments for school sports. That may be the case for local NCS or USA tournaments but not big PGF tournaments. How do others work around this?

I’m curious what kind of growth people have seen in this age group over their daughter’s first year and by end of second year in terms of velocity.

My daughter is still 10 and has a late August birthday. Her peak velo in 10u was 49mph. Our season ended a few weeks ago, so she just made the transition to a 12” ball for first time at pitching practice tonight. Her velo was around 45mph with the larger ball.

She wants to play at a highly competitive environment with a premier team, which I am concerned will burn her out at 11 years old. I’m not sure what expectations are like for a first year 12u group and what to expect as far as growth over the year. Anyone care to share their experiences transitioning into 12 as a pitcher. How it started and how it ended. Thank you.

So, I currently catch most of the time due to injuries. Occasional pitching. However, I’m looking to and hoping to move to OF. I “used to” be fairly good at catching flies. Since then, I feel like I suck and have much practice to do. I envy those who can shag the ball and make it look easy.

Not that it matters (I don’t think?) but I’ve two concerns life like tips for improvement on.

1. catching pop ups. My sons are great about “helping me practice” and we’ve plans to take the tee out so they can just hit to their hearts content. What should I do I my end to make the most of practice? They’re pre-teen and teen. Their energy is endless and they heckle the hell out of me. Is “depth perception” just a lick of the draw? Do we lose that ability as we age? Can i practice it “back”?

2. my arm. How best can I strengthen my throws? At one time I could throw from L to first. That was eons ago. I do tend to get lazy when I know the person on the receiving end can adapt. But are they specific exercises? Must I lift weights? Pushups? Or just “throw” but that’s not helping my distance, so far..

3. I’m a right handed batter that usually hits to the left field. I’d really like to hit to the right. Tips?

I am coming off some pretty significant injuries. But I don’t want to handicap myself forever.

Thank you.

I’ve played softball and baseball my whole life but I stopped after the fall of my 8th grade year to run track. I did some winter conditioning my sophomore year for softball but ultimately decided to choose to do track.I really miss softball and wanna start playing again but I’m wondering if it too late now?

So my daughter is 5’2”-3” and 125-130 lbs. The 30” -11 currently looks like a toothpick in her hands and has been too small for awhile but I told her no new bat until she quit dropping her hands. Well we’ve finally made big headway there and I told her we’d get a new bat. I’m pretty confident 32” -10 is the call.

Just curious what you all think of my plan to make the transition. Her season is over and we won’t play again until mid September. Yesterday I picked up a used LXT 31” drop 10. Current hitting regimens is 3-4 days a week hitting off of the mini whiffleball machine. 10 swings with a 31” youth camwood.10 with an under load stick bat and 10 with her game bat. We typically do this 2-3 times. So 60-90 swings typically.

We
Started the camwood program in May but about halfway through life got too busy. Plan on starting it back Sunday and continuing the typical mini ball swings with some weekend full BP thrown in. I figure do that with the 31” bat in July and August and transition to the 32” at the start of September.

Kind of a nondescript subject title, i apologize. Anyway i seen there are camps this week in Texas, Indiana, Missouri, Delaware, Tennessee and Connecticut. There are some the following week as well, in California and South Carolina. Was curious if anyone was going to get into one of these camps but haven't yet. Reason being i have a fully transferable admission to a CCSC camp. My daughter was signed up for one last fall and couldn't go due to injury, i had reached out for a refund from the camp and never heard back. well by the time the next set of camps came around she had committed to a college team and i again reached out and was upon contacting the CCSC people finally i was informed of this fully transferable credit. So now that the camps are taking place in other states i thought i would reach the masses the only way i knew how. You can look up their camp info at collegesoftballprospects.com

Yes this is serious, no i am not looking to scam anyone. I'm fully comfortable passing whatever info needed to help one young lady hopefully reach her goal as my daughter did (after i paid for this dang camp grrr)

My daughter (8u) just finished her first year of coach pitch. She was a good tee ball hitter, but had a bad casting issue. She does weekly hitting lessons and drills at home, along with her travel ball team practices. She loves to practice and get better. I'm having issues getting her swing to translate from tee work to coach pitch. Her swing off of a tee is great--hands straight to the ball and extending through contact. My issue is that when she gets pitched to--the casting comes back immediately. It's like she completely loses her mind when she steps in the batters box. I'm considering pulling back on the tee work and start wiffle ball soft toss to try to get her to work on swinging correctly while watching the pitch. Anyone else have this issue with their youth players? Looking for ways to help her, as I am no expert. Thanks!

My daughter is 10 and just finished her 4th year of softball. She is talented, she played SS all last year including all stars and started pitching this year. Had fun and honestly surpassed any expectations that we had. Plenty of strike outs with a few walks mixed in. She gets pitching lessons.

We got pressured to have her join a new travel team after last season, we declined due to the coaches experience and the commitment. She also plays a winter sport. So now another local travel program has started and they want her to play.

Just looking for experiences and input from parents who faced a similar dilemma for their young child. My kid does have talent but I realize the chances of her getting a scholarship at any level is extremely unlikely/not gonna happen. We just want her to have fun, get some development, and not burn out.

But little league level ball around here at the 10u and 12u level is meh. Little league now days isn't like the little league I played from the early 90s to 2000. All the decent players AND coaches have moved to travel ball.

We're leading towards having her play 1 more year of (this fall and next spring) little league and then move her to travel ball for her age 12 season. We also have another daughter that plays travel soccer on the weekends. Little league around here is only during the week.

Anyone here regret not starting travel ball sooner for their kid?

I have a question well questions about managing a pitcher.

You have 4 pitchers you have your top pitcher, 2nd pitcher and your two beginning pitchers (12u) btw

The second pitcher sometimes finishes and
Completes games and sometimes she struggles and the #1 pitcher is put in.

Let’s say from the time all the pitchers warmed up while the team warmed up over 1:30 min passed by and they put in the relief pitcher. The relief pitcher was not warmed up just put in the circle and they usually get 5 pitches warm up.

Is it ok for a pitcher to sit out an hour and 30 min without properly warming up and just put out there to pitch?

Question for the coaches in this group regarding tryouts. My daughter accepted a bid to stay with her current team. I talked to the coach about his plans for next year, and he told me his plans. One of the better pitchers that he was talking about also coming back next year has secretly signed with another team. Her parents don't want to say anything until after nationals later this summer. I respect this father and his decision to keep it quiet, but that will also put us at a big deficit going into next season.

I have another friend who's daughter is looking for a team. She currently plays on a B team (we are A), but she is one of the better pitchers and batters on her team. She is looking for a higher level of competition. Our coach took a look at her and passed because he thinks that our pitching roster is full with 5 pitchers. Do I tell our coach that we will be short a pitcher after nationals and we should pick up this girl. Or do I keep my mouth shut and let things play out?

I wouldn't tell our coach who is leaving, just that we should take another look at this one girl. I have been trying to recruit her to our team for a year now. She plays on our 14U - B team now but won't age up to 16U with the rest of her teammates.

What would you do/suggest?

Our league has a decent size 10U C level cohort. Our town alone has 3 teams that are C teams. Because there's no real "rec" league, it's still considered travel but it's very much rec-level skill and competition. There are A and B teams that are more classic travel style teams. I coach one of the C teams. Some players have experience and can play well, others are just starting softball, and the way our league rules allow stealing is turning the entire 10U C cohort into a real bush league version of the game. I have a kid that hopes to keep playing as she gets older and I've started to feel like this version of 10U is a waste of time for the kids that will keep playing. Every game is won or lost on steals on passed balls at the plate or steals on an overthrow. That's still happening frequently at this age as they are working on their skills, and we're capped at 5 runs per half inning. For example, we saw a 10U C game the other day where the scoreboard was 15 - 5, and the winning team had literally one hit the entire game and their pitcher was pretty good, so fewer steals on passed balls from the other team. There's almost no hitting and no fielding happening, just baserunning. Obviously baserunning is a hugely important skill, but as these girls get older and there are fewer overthrows and the pitchers and catchers are better, they're going to have to hit the ball and field it. Coaches know they can just win by walks and steals, so they sometimes don't even have their hitters swing, just take the walk and steal second immediately, and then wait for a passed ball to keep stealing. I'm just curious if any other leagues have adopted some kind of limit on stealing, especially stealing home on a passed ball. Our baseball league only allows one steal per pitch and they can't steal home at this age. I'm not sure why we couldn't adopt similar parameters for this age so that we can focus more on the skills that will last as they get older. Coaches at the 12U level are saying the same thing, because when they get the 10U players that age up, they are seeing the skill gaps. What are other leagues doing?

This is our first experience with travel softball, so I'm genuinely trying to figure out what's considered "normal."

My daughter plays 10U travel, and the coach is incredibly intense. I understand that travel ball is more competitive than rec, and I absolutely want my daughter to be challenged and held accountable. But this feels like it's crossing a line.

He's constantly yelling. If a girl strikes out, he'll tell her it's "unacceptable," and girls have been benched for striking out. On defense, he's shouting instructions on nearly every pitch, telling each player exactly where to move. If someone makes a mistake, he's yelling immediately, and it's not uncommon for him to pull a player from the game right after an error.

It's gotten to the point where the girls seem terrified of making mistakes. Instead of playing loose and confidently, they're playing scared because they're worried about getting yelled at. They're almost like puppets, constantly looking to the coach instead of just playing the game.

It's also not unusual for a girl to end up in tears during a practice or game after being singled out.

Almost all of the parents are frustrated, but everyone seems hesitant to say anything.

So I'm curious, those of you with more travel experience, is this actually common at the 10U level? Is this just part of competitive travel ball, or is this coaching style outside the norm?

I want my daughter to reach her potential, but we're talking about 9- and 10-year-old girls. I'm trying to figure out if my expectations are off or if this is genuinely not how youth travel softball should be....

Like, my daughter is 8 and all I see on Reddit and on Facebook is this dog eat dog daddy ball coaches are assholes and it’s a political a$$ kissing contest.

Is that true…honestly, is that what this sport is all about? Cause I’m
Over here wanting to build up my daughter to be an amazing woman and I think she has talent but is a bit lazy. I don’t need a bunch of asses getting her down. I just want her to have fun….compete and win….but have fun.

Is this not the sport for us?

My 12 yr old daughter fractured her growth plate at the base of her tibia at the end of April. She was currently on a rec team at the time when this happened. She is out of her boot and has been cleared to do more and started physical therapy this week. She has been doing some light practice at home because she can’t fully run it’s more of a jog. She has never played on a travel team and she is signed up for tryouts that are in mid July. Her therapist said right now she is not ready for full game play but could possibly be right at the time frame of her tryouts. We have went back and forth on should we let her tryout or wait until next year. I know games don’t start right away and would allow her more recovery time. I will add the team she is trying out for she has taken lessons from the owner of the team for 2 years and the coach is also her rec coach for 4 seasons so he is familiar with her and her playing. Would love some thoughts and feedback

We have a new coach and she is having our girls play a double header tomorrow with a real feel of 100 degrees; a humid hot, not dry. They are 9 and 10 year olds. We are in WI so not something they are used to at all. Is this normal? First year my daughter has been in. I understand the weather has sucked this year and games have been canceled due to rain but this seems dangerous. They usually dont even play double headers, this is their only one, and they are doing it in an extreme heat warning.

Edit: Thank you to those who offered actual advice and reassurance. I have things ready and hope all the girls have been hydrated today. Those who are full of yourselves, try keeping to yourselves. I didnt ask about people who live down south and are acclimated to heat like this, or about teams who have been playing for years in that type of heat. I asked as a parent in a more winter weather foward state having an extreme heat wave, out of precaution for my 9 year old child. Im definitely glad some of you are not part of any of my kids sports teams, you sound miserable to be around. Im turning off comments for this thread. Some of you, learn to be a little nicer, let your kids have fun. Good luck to all the teams.