Players who slap from the left side of the box are cute. May even be nice kids. But I wouldn’t trust them if I were you. Why? Because if racing with them isn’t tough enough already, they get a lead. Seriously! It’s just not fair. Check out a current post I made for Fastpitch.TV at http://fastpitch.tv/slapper-save-10-by-dalton-ruer/

If you are one of those players/coaches/parents who assumes that players run 60 feet from home to first you don’t want to miss this special post I made for Fastpitch.TV.

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As it’s very name suggests Thanksgiving is always a time for giving thanks. As I sit alone at my keyboard with the sun rising in Georgia I count it a blessing that I’ve been able to spend the entire week giving thanks.

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For many of the softball players I work with, and likely many around the country and the world this fall marks a serious time of transition. They started the year on teams that they had been on for a year or more and now find themselves on new team. Their former teams were marked with tremendous friendships and they knew exactly where they stood with the coaching staff. This weekend I watched many of these new teams finish the final games of this fall season, and frankly it hurt to watch many of them struggle.

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If it were a movie the sun would be rising over a dew covered luscious field of green grass. One by one the camera would move from face to face. As it panned out you would begin getting the bigger picture, the picture of a ball team. Soon you would begin realizing that they were one of many, warming up for the battles that would unfold before you on the big screen. Soon the heart touching orchestra music would fade and the camera would begin meandering through it all as you heard the faint voices of the coaches and the players. It would finally rest on our heroine as you started hearing the music she was listening to. As she completed her mental preparations for the day, she’d remove the ear buds and put them away along with her iPod, pump her fist and storm out of the dugout with the loud noise that only cleats on concrete can make.

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An exciting element of being me and helping girls learn how to raise the bar on what they expect of themselves, seeing them set really high goals, and then watching them hit those goals. In regards to this, I have to say that this week was on of the most exciting times for “being me” that I can recall. You see I work with a player that is at a level of competitiveness, that what she wants to achieve and what she is willing to do to achieve it that is just way out there.

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There is an interesting phenomenon in life, that perhaps I’m the only person who has ever noticed it. It seems to me that when people practice something, they get better at it, and they start making it look easy and attractive to others. I know that may seem absurd, but that is the pattern I’ve noticed.

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