I have coached a lot of teams, but never a team where I had chosen the players, whether that was through a draft in rec ball or taking over an existing travel team. That made this season all the more stressful and hard because that's exactly what we coaches now faced. You see, most travel teams have a core group of players that began playing rec ball. They come and go, but the team essentially always existed. Some of these more successful teams turn into organizations and the rosters fill up based upon reputation. There's an ebb and flow. Teams rise and fall and recruit accordingly. Elite teams recruit elite players, thus and so.
But what if you are starting an all-new team AND organization? Simply put, it's a tough sell to elite players to play for a new team. So, you recruit as best you can but eventually, there is always those last roster spots. That's the spot where we begin this story, as we put together the first roster for our AO1 14U Organization.
One potential player had played on some teams with us and knew of us, which is why she came to try out. She brought along a second player who had never played travel ball. We shall call her "C."
At this point, we had 12 players, but because of other sports, we really could use another player. No one was really knocking down our door and we realized that with tournaments starting in just a few weeks, this is the pool we had to pull from. We didn't truly need either player and, truthfully, both players were incredibly raw and we coaches had decided that, defensively, neither would see the field for this team. Therefore, we decided that whichever of these, if either were chosen, they would be a DH only.
Then the two players went to the plate. First player hits and she's a decent hitter, certainly much better as a hitter than a fielder. Second player gets in the box and she's struggling. She's essentially shaking. She's terrified. She's swinging at pitches she should know better to swing at. Some were bouncing to the plate. Some were at her eyes. I pulled her out of the box and let someone else hit while we talked.
I won't pretend to have given her some magic nuggets of knowledge or motivation. I just told her that she's here to hit, so relax and hit.
So, she gets back into the box and hits the next few pitches. Then she uncorks an absolute bomb that hits midway up the wall in right field. While she was swinging at some bad pitches and missing them terribly, when she did hit, it was clear she was "seeing" the ball. That is, if you watch their eyes, you can tell just how "locked in" they are and she was "locked in."
Then, there was the hand speed. I hadn't seen anyone with hands that fast and the rest of her body, specifically her hips, came through the ball in a way that didn't scream "first year travel player." I have players, specifically my own daughter, that have had thousands of dollars and hours of coaching SPECIFICALLY on hands and hips and still struggle with it. This girl had it naturally and she had it in spades that could not be coached.
The hitting isn't what sold me. Her over-all attitude did and while even players with bad attitudes can suck it up for a try out with "yes-sir and no-sir," this player really meant it. She solidified herself over the other player in the strangest way. She was hitting and was absolutely beaned with a ball in the thigh. She didn't have to get hit. She could have bailed out but she stepped into the pitch and then took off running for first base like it was her job.
All that is well and good, but how would her and her parents attitude be when we leveled with them and told them that, at best, she was going to be a pinch-hitter only? Truth be told, I fully expected them to decline the opportunity to have a child ride the bench the entire season, especially when the whole team was back from their other sports. They smiled and happily agreed.
When I tell you that there was a gulf between her and the next player on the roster, I mean it. She can't defend. She's got a home-to-first time over five seconds. It would have been easy for C to decide that since odds were stacked against her to play in the field she could afford to be less than 100% committed to fielding practices. It would have been easy to feel like a second class citizen and not feel like part of a team, a group of girls who had all played together in form or fashion and had played travel ball for years.
When I told her she had to be in better shape, she had to hit on her own every day, and to outwork every player on the team if she wanted to see the field, she believed it. When I told her that the ball better be in her glove or off her face, she took it to heart.
We are at our first tournament and we are missing some key players to other sports, but C hasn't seen the field and she's been on the bench. We play our first game and she doesn't play. We get destroyed our second game, she's still on the bench. We are in an elimination game and we are down two runs with two outs with runners on second and third. For the life of me, I can't remember who was up at bat, but we needed a ball through the infield and we didn't think they were the player. C, on the other hand, most certainly would get the ball out of the infield if she made contact. So, we tell C to get her helmet on and hit. On her way out, I am coaching first by the dug out and I tell her "Relax. Be a hitter because that's why you are here. It's your purpose."
She jumps on the first pitch, about takes the pitcher out. Ball gets up the middle but the shortstop makes a fantastic diving play on the ball behind second base. C isn't very fast and is in fact the slowest player on the team (someone has to be) and she just can't beat the run out. Game over.
It's not a win on the scoreboard but it's still a win. She had a tough job and we put her in a tough spot. She came through and did what we needed. We certainly took note of this.
The season rolls on. C gets some playing time, but it isn't much. She doesn't complain. She just smiles and says "yes, sir." She practices hard. It's obvious she's working at home. She fits right in with the team. She's one of them.
A funny thing happens.
Home-to-first time dips below five seconds. It dips below 4.5 seconds. It bottoms out at 4.3.
C starts making plays at third base. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. Those hands aren't just fast for hitting. She starts making some stops that she wouldn't have even seen three months ago. She's not afraid to come in front of the bag. She gets hit with balls. She dives and gets dirty. She earns playing time.
One day, the coaches are making a line up and looking over our statistics. Who is #28? She's tied for SECOND on the team in batting average. She's third in On Base Percentage. Third in Slugging Percentage. She's seventh in total hits DESPITE HAVING LESS THAN HALF THE AT-BATs.
She earns a starting job in one of our last tournaments. We put her in right field, somewhere she's really never played OR practiced and she makes some errors. No one jumps on her and she owns those mistakes and moves on, something most players can't do.
We are down in the last inning and she's up to bat. Coach Alex asks her to bunt with runners on the corners. A player who never even practices bunts and is the slowest player on the team. Does she second guess him? No. She lays down a perfect bunt and her hard work in getting into shape and getting faster causes the third baseman to rush the throw. She air-mails it. Two runs score to tie the game and C ends up being the winning run, which we got just minutes later. A brilliant piece of coaching, but only because the player executed....and not just then but in the preparations in the months prior.
These are great stories, but I've saved the best for last.
We are entering the last tournament of the year, the State tournament. The last practice before the tournament, C is hitting and I am pitching to her from behind a screen. She has some good hits and i "lightly" encourage her to treat this next pitch as if it's the last one she's going to get and her team depends on her to hit it out.
She absolutely obliterates the pitch and it screams over the screen by inches and hits the wall in dead center about halfway up the wall. Plenty of 14U girls can hit it out, but this is a high school field with a 10 foot fence and the ball never got above six feet from the ground. The hit scares me because I never saw the ball and it came within inches of my head. I jokingly inspect the bat to find it cracked.
Fast forward two days. We are down 6-2 in an elimination game, but we've managed to load the bases. C has been on the bench, which we did on purpose for this exact situation. She hasn't played all day, but her time is here.
Steady C has done this all year. She knows her role. She's worked hard. This is who she has become.
She's in and the other batter is out. They slap hands. There is no animosity, just the team and her purpose.
And she whiffs at the first pitch. She fouls the second. She watches the next because it wasn't her pitch.
But she gets her pitch and she destroys it. The ball sails over the right fielder's head to the fence. Three runs score and C is standing on second.
C is standing on second facing the dugout. She beats her chest twice and raises her arms, fists clenched, and screams as loud as she can. I'm screaming, too, but not because of the implications on the game and not because of satisfaction of making the call for her to hit.
I am yelling because of the achievement of the plater. The player whom we pulled from the lineup for C sprints onto the field and embraces her.
This is my favorite moment in coaching. This image is burned in my mind and I pray old age never takes it from me.
We lost 6-5, but it is by far the best loss I've ever had. A team was born that night, even though technically they had been a team for months. You could feel it in the air after that game, which was surreal since it came after a loss. To think, the moment that forged this team came thanks to the hard work and attitude of the final player added to the roster, who almost didn't make it at all, who agreed to come each and every day, never miss a practice, and be a pinch-hitter only.
That sounds cheesy. Maybe it is. It's not as cool as how Hollywood would have drawn it up. It was still a loss and we were 0-4 at the tournament. We ended the year with a rough record.
This is sports and that is what makes sports great. These are the real stories that happen when the right player finds the right coach. One is nothing without the other and neither will amount to anything without hard work and understanding by all parties. One of my favorite quotes is from White Men Can't Jump and it sums up the true meaning in sports.
Gloria Clemente: [to Billy] Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.
What's C's Story going to be from now on? Will she be an All-American in college? Will she even play another game of softball? Who knows. The fact remains that this is a memory she and I will have and share forever because she earned it.
