What’s the difference between failure and experience?
By : Coach Bigs08 2 2006
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." - Vernon Sanders Law
"Experience teaches only the teachable." - Aldous Huxley
My son loves baseball, and his favorite position is catcher. To an outsider catcher looks like an easy, but physically demanding, position. But it is actually fairly techinically challenging. Not only do you handle the ball every play, but you need to know how to react to every possible play.
In a recent game my son was behind the plate when a hit went into right field. The right fielder got the ball on one bounce and hit the cutoff man who then whirled and fired home just as the runner from second was sliding into home. It was close but it looked like my son's team had made the play, until I saw the ball slowly rolling away. My son admitted to dropping the ball, the unpire ruled the runner safe and the coach yelled for my son to keep two hands on the ball.
Technically the coach was right. A catcher, especially a young one trying to hold onto a ball with a large catcher's mitt, should protect the ball very closely. However this play was not missed when the ball rolled out of my son's mitt, but shortly after the ball was hit into right field.
The play was lost because my son wasn't in the right position. My son wasn't in the right position because he didn't know what the right position was. He didn't know what the right position was because no one ever taught him the right position. My son still doesn't know what the right position is because the coach missed the teaching moment the play provided. There were a lot of misses on that play, but only one happened during the play. Look closely and you'll see that's usually the case.
Instead of yelling to keep two hands on the ball, good if vauge advice, the teacher will use that failure to illustrate success. Imagine if instead of yelling at him about what he didn't do, the coach takes him aside between innings and tells him about what he can do better. The missing fundamental on that play wasn't the number of hands on the ball, it was where his feet were. Teaching him the hidden fundamental, finding the point of the plate with his left heel when setting up to take the throw, changes the result from a failure on that play to knowledge of how to approach that scenario in the future.
Instead of a frustrated 10 year old lunging at runners with two hands on the ball, now there is a confident 10 year old who knows how to properly block the plate. Suddenly he doesn't have to sprawl across the plate at runners because he knows where to set up, he understands another part of the game.
I don't blame the coach for not teaching him a subtle nuance of the game. That is a pretty advanced tactic for a 10 year old and it is usually learned through experience. However the teachable moment presented itself. As a great coach you have to jump on those chances, because they are the ones that make the difference in how a kid understands the game. Show a kid how he can turn an error into a great play and he'll look for ways to make that great play next time.
Grab the feed
I think the bang-bang play at second and home where the runner at second is taught to roll into the fielder and the runner who thinks he is a linebacker setting out to take out a prone catcher are two of the toughest situations besides the intentional hitting of a batter as pay back that I would like to see restricted or eliminated from baseball. You would then see a fielder actually touch second base on the double play- an unintended consequence of an overlooked umpiring “non-call” that is a long-time accepted practice.
This type of play at home plate ended the promising career of Catcher Ray Fosse by the unecessary and overzealous tackle by Pete Rose which separated Ray’s shoulder. Carlton Fisk having had his knee blown out by doing the correct fundamental block of home plate actually switched to a more in front of home plate postion and used a sweep tag motion later in his career to avoid putting his knee at risk. I have seen runners in Little League fail to slide at home even though they are supposed to-so safety is always a top concern. As a Sox fan I have to point out that catchers can be too aggressive as well, case in point- Michael Barrett’s sucker punch of A.J. Piersynski.
Many times at the little league level parents fail to outfit children with broken-in gloves, no fault of their own as the glove manufacturing companies make gloves that are nearly impossible to break in and are too heavy, thereby causing many “drops” in the first place. You have a protected hand from the pitcher’s fastball but sacrifice closing the pocket and keeping the ball safe inside due to its size, a trade-off that I will take any day especially for the young catcher.
I hope no coach really “yells” at any player for a physical miscue or even a mental one at that age level- I know I cringed when a parent of one my son’s teammates yelled at the top of his lungs for my son to get the ball in from right field on a base hit to right field…apparently he held onto the ball a little bit longer than the parent liked? I bit my toungue…
It is disapointing that kids now a days cannot go to the park and play by themselves where they can be free to have fun, success and even make mistakes so they can learn on their own and not have to always rely on coaches or parents for every little “nuance”. But that’s a sign of the times that G.K. Chesterton and others would point out as a condition of our world and even right here in Naperville…