I have been lurking this thread for several months due to my daughter playing softball and haven't posted yet, but I have a story that I think a lot of you can relate to or appreciate. It's extremely long, so I apologize, but it's been a couple of weeks since this happened, and even though I've been able to digest it, I'm still on an emotional high, so hopefully writing this and sharing it is what is needed to come back down. Honestly, I can only imagine this is how I'd feel if the Aggies ever win the national championship, but we all have BAS and know that's not going to happen, so this fills that void quite nicely.
My daughter is currently a bracket pitcher on a 10U open class team. We've played 4 tournaments since the season began recently, and have 1 championship and 2 2nd place finishes. This is our 2nd go in the world of select as our first experience didn't go well as we were quickly exposed to all the non-softball stuff that goes along with it and what I would come learn is referred to as "daddy ball." Well, mainly I was exposed to it. My wife was a collegiate basketball player and played AAU basketball growing up, including being on a Houston Hoops team coached by Josh Pastner, so she was aware of how things worked.
There's a select team based in the facility we play rec ball in, and as normally happens, an 8U team was formed mainly with 8U girls from the rec league, and we were asked if we were interested in letting her try out. We asked her about it (she really had no clue what it was) and she wanted to do it. Her tryouts went well, but she still had a lot to work on. Honestly, they all did. Only 1 girl out there was a superstar (the HC's daughter). She ended up making the team because she could knock the crap out of the ball, so we were committed.
She started off shaky, as did many on the team as the step up in competition was apparent, even in C class (where we played all season). But after a couple of tournaments, they begin settling in. She was put into the outfield as that's where we figured she'd be, so we didn't think anything of it. She had a lot to work on and needed to develop. Well, she ended up developing quite well. She learned how to judge fly balls off the bats and to catch them (first step back, not running with her glove in the air, etc). She learned how to back up the other outfielders to be there if the ball got by, and when playing RF/LF, she learned to back up 1B/3B for any passed balls. She also wasn't scared to put her body in front of the ball to play the hops on line drives in order to keep it in front of her. It was clear her and another girl in the OF were setting themselves apart from the others. Well, clear to everyone but the HC.
We had another girl join the team a couple months in, which brought the total to 12 girls, and her playing time came at the expense of my daughter's. The girl they brought in was the daughter of one of the HC's friends, so he wasn't going to sit her no matter how she performed. She was fast though, no doubt. They were taking the field in the 3rd inning of a bracket game during a tournament and my daughter had yet to play in the field, so she had her mask and glove in hand waiting to be told where to go, but she was told to go back to the bench. One of the other coaches informed the HC she hadn't played yet, and his response was "you can put her in, but that's on you." Uhh, the bleachers and dugouts aren't that far apart, buddy. My wife and I heard that loud and clear, but we bit our tongues. That inning, she played RC and thew a girl out at 2nd after backing up the girl in LC who didn't get her glove on the ground. A couple batters later, she caught a fly ball to CF to end the game. That half inning is burned into my memory because of what was said.
Aside from noticing her sitting, we also noticed that every other girl got to play on the infield some during pool games. Some. He tended to have his IF set. Same girl at 1B, 2B, SS, P, etc. No changing them during bracket games and maybe an inning off during pool games. 3B was a rotating door. More on that later. After a few more tournaments since the comment above, my wife and I decided to speak to the coach about her playing time and development at other positions. That meeting didn't go well at all. Just a quick note…after college, my wife coached basketball for several years at a 4A HS, with a few deep playoff runs. My MIL was a HS coach as well, so the little details matter a lot to her, and she approached the conversation as a coach.
It started off respectful, but he quickly told us that he felt she hasn't developed as he thought she would and that she was probably the worst girl on the team. We didn't agree, and when we pressed him on why he felt that way, he had nothing and got angry. Really angry. My wife then asked why he is not developing the girls at multiple positions so they got to learn the game of softball, and how 8U isn't where you put girls and leave them. He responded with, and I quote word-for word…"If you don't like how I run my team, go start your own." Welp, that was the nail in the coffin for my wife. No going back now. The cherry on top was his wife called my wife that night after she heard what happened, because both he and I let our tempers get the best of us. Not my best moment, but I only matched what he gave. That conversation didn't go well at all. My wife hung up the phone and let out a huge "WTF?!" I asked what that was about, and she told me that she asked her "do you ever work with her" and "do you even think she can make another team?" We committed to going to a WS with them in another state, so after that, we were done.
WS came around and it seemed my daughter and 1 other girl showed up to play. She normally batted 9th, but was batting 3rd come bracket time due to how well she was hitting. First bracket game, 2 run HR (in the park…whatever, it counts). But still put into the OF. First inning ended on an overthrow to 1B where my daughter was backing up from RF, and then threw a girl out at home. 2nd inning ended on a pop fly to RC that she caught. Game ended with her on the bench and the new girl mentioned above letting a grounder to the OF go under her glove to the fence with nobody backing her up, and allowing the winning runs to score. 2nd bracket game, they all played like crap, so it was a great experience for them, but an early exit. We have 2 younger boys as well who were troopers with following their sister around for softball, so we made the final couple days about them and had a good mini vacation.
3rd base mentioned above. The primary girl he played at 3B was not built for the position. The issue is the position she should play was where the HC's daughter plays. That's also why my daughter never got to play the infield. She's a big lefty, so that's her natural IF position. My daughter isn't big as fat, she's big as in she's tall, lean, and built (same build as my wife, who is 6'). I'm confident that she's stronger than probably 1/3 of the boys in her grade at her school. Looking at her, you know she's not in the marching band…not that there's anything wrong with that. Anyway, that girl ended up joining another team during the season since she wasn't going to get any development where she needed to be, and her dad saw the improvement my daughter had made, and asked if we'd want to come try out for their team. When we got back from the WS, we took a couple weeks off and went to the try outs. After the 1st try out, she asked why she wasn't playing on her old team, and I told her that we didn't think she was getting developed how she should, and she asked "they don't think I'm good enough, do they?" My heart sank, and I told her "they made their mind up about you when the season started." Anyway, we went to a few practices with this team and played in a scrimmage, which was against a 2nd year 12U team. Why they did that, I have no clue. A 1st year 10U team is no match for a 2nd year 12U team. They don't have the bat speed to hit the ball. They got raked. We show up to the next practice and nobody is there. I text the dad who asked us to come out, and he responded with "she (the HC) didn't tell you? She didn't make the team." I told my daughter they had cancelled practice, but she asked "I didn't make the team, did I?" I fought back tears and told her that she didn't. She said, "that's OK, I didn't like those girls anyway."
On the way home, she asked if she could learn to pitch, and I told her we'd look into it if she wanted to. She said she did, so my wife began asking around in her coaching circle and got in touch with a well known pitching coach in our area. She agreed to take her on, so right after school started last year, she took her first lesson. It was a rough start, but she was determined and we worked with her several times throughout the week. We started seeing improvement a few weeks in, but still had a long way to go. She wanted to play fall ball, and a couple of coaches she loved (they were also really good coaches) were able to get her as most went after the select girls who were pool pitchers and wanted to work on pitching. They knew she was taking lessons, but my wife and I were pretty clear that we didn't want her to pitch yet. We wanted her to get her mechanics down, become consistent, and most importantly, gain the mental strength needed. We asked them to help her develop at 1B, and they were true to their word. They put her at 1B and worked with her with her on everything from footwork to digging balls, and one of the dad's on the team played 1B in college, so he spent some time with her as well. She developed into a pretty good first baseman. We'd often stay after practice and she'd pitch to me, and they kept begging me to let her pitch as the primary pitcher was on the older select team out of the league, but there was no good 2nd. We continued to tell them it wasn't the time. The league had a tournament at the end of the season among the league teams in each level, and we decided to let her give it a go just to see where she was. It went OK. Command was the big thing. She was all over the place, and as girls walked and stole bases on bad pitches, she'd get overwhelmed and seemed to let her emotions take over. The coaches would go out and calm her down, and she'd regroup and move on. Each inning ended in her walking in the max runs. Not the best outings, but good experience and gave us (my wife mostly) a baseline on where she was. Her select HC was coaching a team and got the bracket pitcher from the team our select pitcher played on. Why she played league is still a mystery. She just mowed everyone down. During the tournament, I was standing behind home and she blew one past my daughter, who didn't get the bat around fast enough. That HC's wife (from the phone call) did an overly dramatic "yeah, great pitch! Look at that speed!" The next pitch, my daughter sent it to CF. I looked over and her lips looked like she had been sucking lemons.
My father-in-law, who is retired and apparently doesn't know what to spend his money on, sees she likes pitching and my middle son is getting into baseball, decides to build a 50' batting cage in his back yard and to buy a Juggs machine for them to use. We spend the next few months working with her on pitching and hitting (my son as well) multiple times a week after school, preparing for the spring.
Spring rolls around and she's on a team with a coach that has no clue what he's doing (I'm an assistant trying to guide him, but he knows it all) with 90% girls who have never played softball before. They were a bad team, but my daughter had come into her own at pitcher. It became clear pretty early that she was the best in the league. There were only a couple of girls that could hit her. The way our league operates is she could only pitch 2 innings, so we'd go into the 3rd inning her giving up 0 or 1 run, but end up losing because nobody outside of her could hit, so they just pitched around her and took the free max runs via walks our 2nd pitcher would give up. As one of the other coaches would always tell me "you have the best pitcher in the league on the worst team in the league." She was frustrated, but I kept telling her she's doing it for reps. I also think it made her mentally tougher as well.
She obviously made all stars. The all star coach played softball at Tech, and had a daughter that was a really good pitcher as well and was on our 8U select team. She took her daughter off that team for similar reasons we did. She was in on the rotation at 3B, but she was a good catcher. The HC didn't think so because he already had his catcher for the future. Anyway, our all star team was really good. Practices were intense and the coaching staff asked a lot of the girls, and they responded. We were also about 50/50 on girls aging up, so we had a really good MIF with experienced girls, and 3 very solid pitchers.
We go play our first tournament, and ended up playing a team from the same home field as the select team who didn't bother to call us to let us know. Then I noticed who the coaches were and they were the select coaches. The dad who asked us to come try out was at the tournament (dude is all in) to watch, but his daughter didn't play rec that season. He told us that a lot of their team also plays rec, so during all stars, they go collect rings. That's nice to hear. They beat us, sending us to the loser's bracket. Our coach decides to pitch our #3 pitcher in that loser's bracket game and save my daughter in case she gets in a bind, but if we win, she'll be available for the championship. #3 was locked in as much as the bats, and we made quick work of them, setting us up in the championship for a winner take all.
Game gets underway and their pitcher makes quick work of us in the top of the inning. It's my daughter's first time pitching against a team that plays games on the bases, so they end up getting 3 in the first, but she fanned 2 and got a called strike 3 to end the inning. Top of the 2nd was the much of the same for us. My daughter goes back out and gives up just 1. Going to the top of the 3rd, they lead 4-0, needing 3 outs to win. 2 quick outs and our bats decide to wake up. We put up 5 and take a 1 run lead into the bottom of the inning. We get 2 quick outs, then they get a walk and then a hit to CF. Our CF did a great job and got the ball in quickly, with them having the tying run at third and winning run at second. Batter gets up and my daughter goes up 0-2 on her pretty quickly. Hitter works the count full while our catcher (the coach's daughter) is a wall and not allowing anything by her for them to tie. Full count, and my daughter hits it low and outside, called strike 3. Catcher just holds her glove there to make sure the ump saw it. Champions. During the ring ceremony, none of their girls came over to shake the hands of our girls and the coaches didn't say anything to our coaches either. No congratulations or good job. Nothing. Probably a good thing we didn't get on that team.
We play 4 all star tournaments, winning 2 and taking 2nd in another. Not a bad mini-season, and for my daughter, a step up in competition from a pitching perspective while learning how to control her emotions. She did very well and grew a lot mentally. So with that, it was obvious she had outgrown rec and she wanted to move back into select. After going to tryouts for a few different teams (offered for all), we ended up joining a team who had a few girls age up, including their #1 pitcher. She loves the girls and the coach is big on knowing the game, so every girl plays 2 positions. Pitchers play 3 (P, IF, OF). When she's not pitching, she's at 1B, LF, or taking a seat. The way it should be, IMO.
If you've read all of this, I'm sorry…and congrats? I feel you needed to know her journey to enjoy the payoff.
We show up to a tournament a couple of weeks ago and I see her old 8U team is in it. Pretty much the exact same team, with a couple of stragglers leaving after the 2nd year and the addition of a good bracket pitcher. I go over to look at the bracket, and sure enough, we're facing them in our first bracket game. Our #2 pitcher wasn't able to make it, so the daughter of the all star coach picked up with us to be our #2 for the weekend. I went over to our coach and told him "I don't want to tell you how to run your team, but don't forget she has history with that team as well and is a catcher." He smiled and said "oh yeah, she is a catcher, isn't she."
During one of their pool games, I went over to talk to one of the dads to catch up because I have no issue with the parents or any of the girls. I asked how they were doing and how the team was looking, and he told me they're doing good, and that one of the girls is starting to "throw missiles" but needed to get her control down. He said she was hitting 42-43 with her FB. I was like "yeah, that's fast" but inside I chuckled because a few pitching lessons ago, my daughter's pitching coach wanted to see what she was throwing, and clocked a 47 average FB and a 40 average CU. If they think 43 is fast, they're not touching someone flirting with 50.
Game time. Ace vs. Ace with the pickup player catching. We're the home team, my daughter comes up, fans the first batter. Fans the 2nd batter. Called strike 3 with the 3rd. 3 up 3 down on like 15 pitches. And each swing was way behind the ball, with a couple of foul tips. They weren't used to that. Bottom half of the inning we get a couple of walks and hits and take a 2-0 lead into the 2nd. My daughter walks the lead off, and then drills the 2nd batter in the ribs. The thump from when it hit her was loud. I still feel bad for her, and my daughter was squatted down and looked devastated. She loves all those girls and goes to school with a couple. Batter gets up, not crying (tough, that's for sure) and my daughter stops her halfway to first to apologize and give her a hug. Of course, as a crowd, we all go "awwweeee." Never lose your heart, baby girl. Next pitch is a wild pitch, so they're now on 2nd and 3rd. Her coach walks out of the dugout, says something to her to settle her down, and she refocuses. A couple pitches later, the batter pool ques a change up off the tip of her bat towards SS, who bobbles the ball, and then rushes the throw to first, over throwing her. 2 come in to score and hitter is on 3rd. Next batter comes up and bunts. Catcher grabs the ball, looks 3, and throws 1. As soon as she threw it, 3rd took off (girl from earlier that's fast). Beats throw home. Dammit. Down 3-2. A couple more strike outs, and we go into the bottom half of 2. Bottom of our lineup doesn't do much, so go into third inning down by 1. Daughter comes up fans the 1st, walks the 2nd, and lets the ump ring up the other 2. Times expired, finish the inning. Go to the bottom of the 3rd, needing to score 1 to tie and 2 to win. By this time, their ace was tired, and our girls sat back and let her throw balls. 2 on and no outs, the coach pulled her and put in another pitcher and our girls took advantage. The first hitter she faced tied the game and put the winning run on 3rd. Next pitch was a wild pitch, and we steal home to walk it off. Winners! We go home and they stay late and play for a chance to play at 8 on Sunday. They lose. We ended up taking 2nd in the tournament.
After the game, I was catching up with some of the parents and the HC came over and said "she looks really good. We're not used to seeing that speed with that consistency." I thanked him and told him she had worked hard and that they had a solid team as well. For me, what I carried around for a year was gone. She proved to him that he was wrong, and he now sees it. What happens going forward means nothing. We'll play them again in future tournaments, and they'll get us and we'll get them. No biggie. The first one was the most important. As the lyric in the song "Little Rock" goes…"Jesus would forgive, but a daddy don't forget."
How much longer she plays is up to her. As long as she's having fun and willing to put in the work, we'll be right there with her. We also have her play other sports like basketball and volleyball to help with burnout, and she's heavily involved with school activities as well. But at this time, she still loves it.
My wife usually comes to the games later due to the boys and their activities, so it's usually my daughter riding with me to and from tournaments. It's honestly my favorite part of softball, and I hope I get the same with my boys in the future. Driving home that night, I'm listening to whatever college football game was on the radio while she was playing a game on my phone. After miles of silence, she says "daddy?" I said "yeah?" And then she said "I am good enough" and went back to playing her game. The humidity in that car went through the roof as I made the rest of the drive home with tears going down my face. She held onto it as well and I had no idea.
You're 2-0 against coaches who said you weren't. 2-0, baby girl.
. But it sounds like a gratifying experience for you and your daughter so congratulations on her growth and success. As parents it definitely sucks to see your kid hurt or struggle but stay the course. Who your kid is on the field at 8 or 12 or even 14 isn't likely to be who they are in HS. Kids mature and grow at different paces. And while lots of folks don't want to hear it, genetics is a massive key and it sounds like your daughter (and probably your other kids too) have got some great genes. I'm assuming that if your wife is 6'0" you're taller than her so your kids will all be tall. That's huge, no pun intended.
