Parents calling out pitches.

[dpmde]

We played a tournament this weekend and had a bunch if parents from the other team sitting behind the backstop and telling the batters where our catcher was set up and calling out pitches when they could get them right. We did get a few by setting up outside and throwing down the middle, but this was distracting my pitcher and at times getting in her head. Umpire gave a warning, but that was it. How do you handle this, or do you just caulk it up to white trash parents who want to be part of a kids game.

 

[JJsqueeze]

I chalk it up to the same thing I chalk most things up to. People, in general, rarely stop to think "WTF am I doing right now? Am I proud of my behavior?". Sadly, we just live in a time where anything goes.

 

[riseball]

You have a choice. You can complain to the umpire and more often than not nothing will happen, the behavior will continue, and ultimately your team will be less effective. Or you can use it as a tactical advantage in your favor. Develop and practice a strategy to deal with those types of situations. Your pitcher and catcher need to learn to embrace such a situation as they can become even more effective. If this bothers your pitcher she needs to get over it as right or wrong it is very much part of the game. Our first set of pitching signals is very simple and quite easy to pick if teams want to go that route. And quite honestly part of me hopes they do as we always turn it into a tactical advantage for us.

 

[Stand an]

The batter still has to put the bat on the ball. Sounds like a good opportunity for the pitcher to thicken her skin.

Top ten things a pitcher has to learn how to deal with.
1. Umps strike zone
2. Weather
3. Field conditions
4. Self correcting
5. Parents
6. Grandparents
7. Hecklers
8. Losing
9. Winning
10. Fatigue.

Obviously not an official list, happy Memorial Day everyone.

 

[Doug Romrell]

Some people are bottom feeders, floor dwellers.

 

[Westwind]

Another dad and I were watching our dd's game from behind backstop at a state tournament. It was 10u's. Our team was hitting pretty well and we were cheering for our girls. Other team thought we were calling pitches to our batters. We were not.

Another time last for all I was minding my own business hanging over the fence in mid right field at a 16u game and the other coach sent the umpire to tell us we couldn't stand there because he thought we were stealing signs. People, we were barely interested in the game and we certainly were not stealing signs. Even if we were, what good would it do the team? We were not running back and forth to dugout, weren't signaling in any way, have no idea why he even thought three middle age guys could even see the signs coming out of dugout on 3b line.

Sounds like the goofs the op wrote about were pretty blatant but I think some people are looking a little too hard for their next conspiracy.

 

[Westwind]

To the op- I think the best thing to do is tell your pitcher what a complement it is to her that the other teams parents don't think they can beat her without doing that kind of stuff. Tell her that they were doing her a huge favor acting like that so she could get used to distractions. With experience she will start tuning it all out anyway.

The best teams usually have parents that don't yell much or sometimes even cheer especially as they get older. They know their kids don't need any help from outside the fence. I once saw a girl on a very good team hit two otf hr's in one inning. Both were absolute blasts and i thought it was one of the coolest things I ever saw. I swear the parents from that team barely looked up from their books and phones and conversations they were having. Those parents weren't surprised by it at all. It was surreal. Right then I knew the best thing I could do as a parent was shut up and yell "good job girls" sparingly when it seemed most appropriate. Both of my kids have played better since then I believe.

 

[marriard]

We played a tournament this weekend and had a bunch if parents from the other team sitting behind the backstop and telling the batters where our catcher was set up and calling out pitches when they could get them right. We did get a few by setting up outside and throwing down the middle, but this was distracting my pitcher and at times getting in her head. Umpire gave a warning, but that was it. How do you handle this, or do you just caulk it up to white trash parents who want to be part of a kids game.

Normally I discuss parent/spectator issues with the opposing coaches politely. I'll talk to their base coach near my dugout and also inbetween innings.

• 90 times out of 100 they aren't aware it is happening or that it is as bad as it is and are pretty horrified themselves and will go have words to the parents themselves
• 5 times out of 100 they will see nothing wrong with this and wont do anything.
• The other 5 times out of 100 they instructed the parents to do this and are thrilled they are back there doing it.

On the other hand, all our catchers use the NECC methods and we use wristbands for signs so our catchers extremely rarely set up any differently for a pitch and you are not stealing our signs anyway.

 

[Comp]

No rule against it.

 

[Jabber13]

We played a tournament this weekend and had a bunch if parents from the other team sitting behind the backstop and telling the batters where our catcher was set up and calling out pitches when they could get them right. We did get a few by setting up outside and throwing down the middle, but this was distracting my pitcher and at times getting in her head. Umpire gave a warning, but that was it. How do you handle this, or do you just caulk it up to white trash parents who want to be part of a kids game.

When my DD was in first year 12U rec league and just starting to pitch to batters, I had a fan from another town call out the pitches to the batters. After a few calls, I calmly stood up and told him not to try to read the signs since I would call them out for everyone to hear. He just looked at me and I guess didn't believe me. So I would call out inside fastball one after the other. Now no 11u first year pitcher has that good control on her pitches so quite a few really came inside on the batters and they would jump out of the box on every pitch. So getting them out became pretty easy. After a couple of innings, I asked him if he wanted to go back to me signaling the pitches and him staying in his seat. He wouldn't answer but I had made my point. As the pitchers and catchers get older they can just go up or down a sign from what you call.

Or just have the pitcher plunk every batter that a pitch is called out on. Now, most girls won't intentionally hit a batter but that gets the girls to tell the parents to stop.