Tips from Dr. Wacko

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #1: Poodle Alert at the Plate
1) As you step up to the plate to hit, think where you are going to stand in the batters box because a poor choice can take you out before the first pitch.
2) To maximize your chances, you've got to be able to hit the strikes. If you can't, a decent slow-pitch hurler will play with you like a poodle shredding Kleenex.
3) During practice, go up to the plate and position yourself where you need to be to take the ball that falls just behind the plate for a quality strike. Insist on strikes during batting practice so that you get in the habit of recognizing and swinging at good pitches.
4) Boiled down, this means that most hitters playing in rec leagues should be standing deeper in the box than they would in baseball.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #2: The Importance of Defence
1. Good defense pumps up a team as a whole more than good hitting. All it takes is one superlative-or even good-play to turn a team around and show it what it's capable of.
2. Although most players concentrate on offensive aspects of the game, good glove-work decides at least as many contests as hitting. It's hard to make such comparisons, but a great catch and throw can be worth as much as a home run.
3. In the outfield, take the time necessary to set your feet, and visually pick up your cutoff man, before making the throw. It is more important to make a strong, accurate throw than it is to get rid of the ball the instant it touches your hands.
4. It is possible to increase the snap on long throws from the outfield by twisting your hand just a little counterclockwise (for right-handed throwers) as you draw the ball back. This forces the person throwing the ball to draw it behind the ear in the classic position, and puts perhaps 15 percent more zip in the throw.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #3: Basic Hitting Tactics
1. Forget the underhanded pitching and metal bats. The biggest single difference between slow-pitch softball and baseball is the extra outfielder. The tenth man tips the averages in favor of the defense, and makes it statistically more likely that fly balls to the outfield will be caught.
2. It's possible to hit for a high average in slow-pitch (in fact, the best hitters routinely hit over .500), but to achieve this kind of success you've got to make adjustments in both the physical and mental aspects of hitting.
3. Once you've ironed out the kinks in your batting stroke, think about the pattern of your hitting through a game. Each turn at bat should set up your following turns at the plate by exposing weaknesses in the defense's personnel or alignment. Remember, you can move the fielders around as much as you move the ball around.
4. You don't have to hit to "all" fields to spread the fielders. Two fields can be enough to give you a temporary advantage. That's why almost any weenie can be a feared hitter in slow-pitch softball.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #4: Control Pitching
1. The first step toward control as a pitcher is standardizing your motion. Find a type of pitch and windup that is comfortable and seems to work, and stick with it until you know it inside out.
2. Every pitcher has streaks of wildness, but there is something you can do about it if you know your own tendencies, or weaknesses.
3. Become familiar with the basic parts of your delivery (stride, release, jump back, etc.) and how each affects your pitching so you can quickly diagnose the problem when things don't go quite right.
4. If you have trouble zeroing in on the strike zone, try using a tree or some other object behind the plate in the distance as your target. You may find that focusing on a target high above the plate also makes it easier to throw high-arc pitches.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #5: Slow-Pitch Softball Stats
1. The better a team's scorekeeping, the better its manager's decisions are likely to be, since the latter is based on the former.
2. Keeping track of what fields batters hit to (on both teams) is a first step, but keeping track of the count and the location of the pitch can give a manager a finer handle on the individual batter's performance.
3. Even though stats can be kept without a computer program, the keenness of computer analysis cannot be duplicated by casual scrawlings. If you already use a database on a personal computer, see if it can be adapted for softball stat use. The crucial test is usually whether the program has enough relational muscle to perform arithmetic computations on summary fields (i.e., can calculate batting averages).
4. The best programs that I have found for keeping track of softball scores are Q&A and Reflex. Q&A is the more well-rounded of the two, but if you don't already use Q&A or don't need a textual database, Reflex is vastly superior for numerical analysis of any kind. It's available for the Macintosh, too. For a template that will allow you to start keeping your softball records in Q&A, see the appendix. (Note: a decade after this was written, neither Reflex nor Q&A existed any more.)

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #6: Overall Offensive Strategy
1. The basic strategic principle of slow-pitch softball can be stated simply: Score runs faster than the opposition. Or, put another way: Good things happen to those who have the lead.
2. It is not necessary to hit tons of home runs to score tons of runs. To score runs faster than the opposition, all you really have to do is put runners in scoring position and avoid outs.
3. The double is the most valuable hit in slow-pitch softball because it specifically addresses these needs. It puts a runner in scoring position, eliminates the force or double play, and in most situations causes the defense to bunch up, making it easier for the next batter to both drive in a run and avoid making an out.
4. A lot of batters think their job is done when they get to first. In reality, they should be thinking double all the way, and scanning the field as they round the bag for a sign-such as the outfielder's bobbling the ball-that they can make it. Not everybody can hit homers, but just about everybody can hit doubles if they work at it.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #7: Advanced Pitching Styles
1. Advanced pitchers are able to throw both a variety of pitches and pitches that move differently from the same motion and apparent spin.
2. As in baseball, the grip is the key to making the ball move in and out. With backspin pitching, you can make it move differently by throwing it with, or across, the seams.
3. Sidespin pitching is a little harder to master, but is much more mutable than backspin, and therefore can add several pitches to the pitcher's repertoire.
4. The knuckleball is the only pitch in slow-pitch softball that can be overpowering. It is thrown with a sort of stiff-wristed putt-and poot-off the fingernails. The idea is to release the ball with no spin. If the pitcher's hand is too small, a similar pitch can be thrown by holding the ball in the palm.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #8: Coordinating Pitching and Defense
1. One of the simplest ways to increase the effectiveness of a pitcher is to have the defense positioned correctly for the pitches thrown.
2. Once a pitcher has gained sufficient control to be able to put the ball where he or she wants it more than half the time, it's important to set up a system of signals to inform the fielders where the ball is going to be pitched.
3. The signals can be given either by the pitcher directly, as in the case of Raoul's theatrical chicanery, or by a second person such as the catcher or shortstop. The only requirement is that they be visible to everyone on the field, yet not obviously a signal.
4. It is equally important that the fielders-especially the infielders-not tip off the batter by breaking too soon. If they wait until the pitch is in the air, and then break correctly (to their right if the ball is inside to a right-handed hitter; to their left if it's outside to the same batter), they will catch a lot of balls that normally would go through for hits.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #9: Defensive Shifts
1. The strongest defensive alignment is usually straight away, with all four outfielders spread evenly.
2. There are certain exceptions, however, where the correct defensive shift can work well. In general, defensive shifts work best against a limited batter who is well known to the defense.
3. Even teams at the highest level of slow-pitch will sometimes employ a radical shift (such as bringing an outfielder in to play as a fifth infielder) to try to shake things up, and introduce an element of chance.
4. Just when it all begins to seem too complicated for any mortal to master, remember that paunchy men with chewing tobacco running down their chins can do it, and so can you. If you're lucky, like me, the things you don't do may be crucial to success.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #10: Coed Softball
1. Coed softball is another realm entirely from the men's game, and in many ways I think it's harder. 2. Rule changes intended to even up men and womensuch as playing with different-sized balls, and attaching penalties to walking men-change the basic geometry of the game. An inadvertant result of this is that the pitcher's task is made much more difficult.
3. Women are more important to winning at slowpitch softball than men, both because of the rule changes and because the men more or less even out, putting a premium on the superior woman player.
4. If you're alert (and heaven knows, the world needs more lerts), you can sometimes snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by keeping your eyes peeled for runners who carelessly round bases too widely in the heat of the fray. The pitcher is usually responsible for making the defensive call, but manymen and women alike-don't even know it's an option.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #11: The Power Stroke
1. At the highest levels of slow-pitch softball, power hitting is perhaps the most important aspect of the game. You often hear people scoff at softball sluggers as beer-bellied dreamers, but actually the slow-pitch softball stroke is a special enough thing that even big-league hitters have to learn it.
2. Ted Cox, who played in the American League for the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, and Toronto Blue jays, told me that the basic trick to power hitting in slow-pitch softball is to strike the ball slightly below the middle, in order to give the ball backspin and loft it. "In baseball you are taught to hit the top part of the ball. Now you slow your hands down so you make contact, and then snap the wrists to get the spin to make it
3. When the power game is on, it can be absolutely overpowering. I watched a game in the 1989 ASA super-slow-pitch national championships in which one team, Steele's Silver Bullets, hit fifty-six homers, winning by a final score of 74-21. It is worth noting, though, that Steele's didn't win the superslow-pitch national championship that year. They were beaten by a team that featured speed and an all-around game.

Dr. Whacko's Notebook #12: A Few More Things...
1. One way to seriously hit to the opposite field (right field for a right-handed batter) is to try to hit the "inside comer of the ball." That is, waiting long enough on the pitch so you can hit an inside slice of the ball as it falls through the strike zone.
2. Less seriously, softball in the snow can be great fun as long as you don't expect it to resemble dry-land softball too much. If you want to try it, you'll need orange balls, and orange traffic cones or rubber tires may serve as better bases than the bags used during the summer. It also helps to have some sort of warming shed. Major snow ball tournaments have been sponsored for many winters in Omaha and Chicago by the March of Dimes.
3. Although it may not happen often, you occasionally may want to do something besides play softball. (Did I say that?) Just remember the lines from the eighteenth-century British poet William Cowper: "Absence of occupation is not rest, a mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd."


Go Mighty McNair!