Coaches who get it

[dbronstein]

I coach a 12U rec team. There are only four 14U teams in the league so we are doing some interplay between 12U and 14U. We played one of the 14U teams today and they had a pitcher who was throwing some nice heat. We have a 9 year old on our team (her sister is on our team and their parents couldn't manage the logistics if they were on separate teams), and when she came up the opposing coach went out to talk to the pitcher. We couldn't figure out what they needed to talk about, but when she started pitching it became obvious - he told her to throw all changeups. I thought it was a nice move, it gave the batter a fighting chance without disrespecting her. She struck out anyway, came in and said to me "she pitches really fast!" Her changeup probably was faster than a lot of the 12U pitchers. They put in a lesser pitcher the next inning after the game was out of hand.

 

[Top_Notch]

DD played on a pretty stout 10U team. They had great pitching and even a better offense. They won the State (Open) Tournament basically would win/place/show every 'A' level tournament (save for 1...don't ask) the entire season. Coach would always stop stealing bases, hold runners, sub players if things got out of hand.

One team we played (playing up one age group) had a pretty decent lead on us (about 8 runs if I remember) and stole 3rd base! That still bothers me to this day. It's always fun when they match up because apparently I wasn't the only person to remember that little nugget.

 

[HunterMO]

During DD's 2nd year of 12U, we were trying to find her some extra circle time so she filled in for a 14U team that was playing league in town. This league used to be relatively competitive for high C-level ball, but DD's regular team hadn't played in it for a couple years.

Short story, all of the competitive teams that used to play in this league had left. And mostly what remained were rec programs. The HC for the 14U team didn't allow his girls to steal bases or bunt. As most games got out of hand on their own. One team had a girl that was maybe 10yo. The coach hollered at DD and gave her the CU sign and yelled "nothing else". So every time she came up to bat, DD only threw change-ups.

The plus side was DD got A LOT of changeup practice in that league.

 

[Nimrod]

Reminds me of the first travel ball team I coached. It was first-year 10U, players just out of rec ball. Somewhere in that season, I came up with the bright idea to bring in an A-level 10U pitcher to throw to them, just for the experience. She pitched for the Atlanta Vipers, if anybody has heard of them. Well, we couldn't make contact. So we told the pitcher to throw right down the middle. Still no contact. We told her to throw changeups. A few foul balls. That was it. Just glad nobody got killed. She was brining heat with that little ball from 35 feet. She wound up playing for Mississippi State.