13-MYTHS OF SOFTBALL

This article is divided into the following topics: Pitching myths, hitting myths, fielding myths, conditioning and health myths, coaching myths.
1. It is good to learn several pitches at a time. No!! Each pitch should be developed separately and usually require several months, if not several years to master. I do not know of a nationally respected pitching coach who tries to teach pitches together, one along with the others, on the same days. At least not when the pitches are at the beginning stages. I know of some coaches who try several pitches at once and often do this in the first few lessons with a girl. This is a huge mistake . Impressive as it might seem to say you can throw 4 or 5 pitches, Truth is , if you learned them the way I just described, you probably cannot throw any.
2. Speed is the most important factor in getting to the top of the pitching world. If this were true, then why do so many universities make it to the world series with girls who only throw in the 50's? Speed is important. It makes your advanced pitches harder to hit by reducing reaction time. However, at the advanced levels of the game, a 70 mph fastball better bend some , or stay out of the hitting zone, or it will likely find itself in another park in a few seconds.
3.You should ice your arm after pitching. Please read my article on this site entitled: LEAPING VS STEPPING.

<4. A drop is easy to throw, just twist your wrist at release so that the thumb rotates from away from your hip, to pointing in at your hip. Ouch! I see this pitch mechanic employed often at the lower levels of the game. First of all remember this: a ball will eventually break in the direction of it's spin, if there is enough spin and speed to deal with gravity. With this in mind think of the spin that the above drop technique will produce. With your arm at your side, rotate your hand from thumb out to thunb in. Can you perceive that his will produce side spin on the ball, much as twisting a top on a table would. However,in the case of the drop , we want the ball to go down. To have an effective drop, we need it to explode down, sharply. Side spinning balls can drop slightly through the development of magnus force(essentially, pressure on the sides of the ball as it goes through the air). The downward force needed to produce an explosive drop that can go from a batter's knees, or even thighs, to ankles, can only be produced by putting heavy tip spin on the ball. To learn more about how to throw a drop, please read my article: The Drop. One more point concerning the twisting wrist drop, often mistaken for the snap drop. I believe that it will probably hurt your shoulder via the hard inward rotation you endure to throw it.

5. Going to more than one pitching coach is a great idea. Nothing could be further from the truth. Find one who is very good and stick with him, or her. This ain't golf, tennis, dancing, or the like. This is windmill pitching and it is probably the most difficult skill to master in all of sport. If you did switch, you would need to find a coach who teaches the same style as the one you already know. That is, unless the one you know is incorrect and that could very well be the case if you did not find First and foremost, it is very important that everyone understands what it is we want the ball to do. Basically, the answer is easy. We want the ball to drop. How it does so is what separates superior drops from average and mediocre ones. A strong drop ball pitcher can throw a drop on a trajectory that will send it thigh high to a batter to within 8 feet of the plate, at which point it will leave it's flat plain and curve sharply toward the ground. At this incoming height , the drop should be able to break as low as the batter's mid shins , as it passes the batter. Throw it knee high and it should break to an even lower point and throw it a little lower and the catcher will surely need to drop and dig. This is the drop. These are the drop options and anything less effective gets hit. qualified coach to begin with. Here are some ways to tell if a coach is qualified:
A. Has taught several college pitchers. Hopefully, a few of them were Div.I. Teaches a lot of high school and upper level travel ball pitchers from different schools. Say 4 or 5, at least. Most of these should be starters with winning records.
C. The coach can pitch advanced pitches very well. Perhaps and better yet,
they pitched successfully at advanced levels.
D. They teach pitching year round, almost every day.

You may find someone that is good and does not hold these qualifications, but it is very unlikely. The problem that most run into, is that they go with a coach only to find out years later that they things they have learned will not produce the explosive moving pitches needed to succeed at the highest levels.

6. Going to clinics is a good way to learn to pitch. I would estimate that 90% of the time, clinics serve only to heighten your interest, get some exposure and some exercise. Not a good place to learn pitching, unless you can stay with the same clinic coach and do on going lessons. If you already have a pitching coach, you should only go to their pitching clinics, the ones they recommend and later on the college exposure clinics. More often than not, I have had to spend weeks , if not months correcting the faults learned at small college pitching clinics. Even when the mechanics learned are correct, they are usually out of phase with what the pitcher is currently doing . Occasionally, especially with carefully chosen clinics, we come out ahead. You are better off taking the money and doubling up on individual lessons with a qualified coach.

Slapping the glove on the thighs helps speed , timing and intimidates the batter. If this were so, then why do virtually none of the greatest female pitchers slap? DAH!!! I never teach a girl to slap herself. To me this seems to be a low level way of pitching and can actually be harmful to nerve endings in your leg. Besides, if advanced pitching requires a loose relaxed arm, how are you going to achieve that after slapping yourself into a tight almost clinched position. Finally, while you might distract a 10-12 year old batter (and I doubt that), you would probably be helping an advanced hitter. Again, I know of no nationally recognized pitching coach who teaches this slapping thing. Case closed.Please, try distracting batters with explosive , bending pitches.
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8. Closing your hip hard produces more speed. Well....... If this were so then why is the screwball as fast as a fastball, yet it is thrown with a wide open hip? Why is the rise ball about as fast and t is thrown relatively open? Why don't Sheri Kemph or Mona Stevens(Two of the most respected pitching coaches of all time) stress it? Why ? I believe that stress on hip closing , slows you down, hurts your arm and disables advanced pitches.

1. Moving up in the box will help you to hit breaking balls. ............Maybe............ If the pitcher is very advanced with breaking balls, she will probably do even better against batters up who are up in the box. All she will do is alter her break and take advantage of your lessened reaction time. If however, you cannot hit breaking balls well and cannot stay off the ones that move out of the zone, by all means, move up.

. To hit low strikes, bend at the knees and drop you hands . Wow. This is a hugely debated c0oncept today and I see that lots of hitting coaches have gone to dropping the knees and hands. OK. It works. I still believe in less knee bend and less hand drop and more bat head drop. Many ay it is hard to hit ball squarely this way. I am studying the concepts here, closely, but I still go with the hard bat head drop and here is why: I have had over 100 players to h go to college and hit very well this way. I have had very few, if any hitting failures. Every time I turn around a girl is hitting a ball out of the park by dropping the bat a lot and the hands just a little- on the low strikes. The bat moves faster by staying relatively tall and dripping the head. Bending the knees is slow and it also drops the eye level, which makes ball tracking harder. How can you hit a drop by bending and dropping the hands significantly. You cannot even bunt this way. Case closed.

3. Swing the lightest bat you can find as bat speed produces power. How about this: Swing the heaviest bat the you can swing as fast as bats slightly lighter. Mass produces power along with speed.
4. Turn your hips hard as you swing. Do this by spinning your back foot fast. Naa...... Please try this : Throw the bat with fast hands, allow the body to turn according to where the ball is to be contacted and as a result you will gain valuable mph in bat speed and the ability to go with the pitch better.

5. Elbow up keeps the back side up. It Does? If you will notice, very few Div.I hitters stand with a high back elbow. Most hold either a medium elbow angle of about 45 degrees in relation to the ground, or an even more pronounced elbow down position. This is because it is easy to keep the wrists in a convex position on the bat , a standard alignment which place the hands nearly behind the bat at contact, thus reducing reverse bat deflection at contact and of course, the result is more power. Furthermore, if the hitter loads her hands and bat correctly, the back arm will naturally go to a powerful position and will keep the backside up.

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