Defensive huddles after warm-up pitches and half-innings

[mcrowder]

Originally Posted by WestMichBlue

IMO, you need to lighten up a bit. Girls huddle in the pitching circle after the throw down, and they huddle in CF. They hold hands and chat at each other and finally break it up with a cheer.

WHY? Because that is what girls do!

Some still don’t understand that girls approach sports differently than boys do. Yes, girls are competitive; yes they play hard and are willing to knock each other down and get scrapped and bruised and break bones. But if they fail personally (ie., strike-out) they don’t get mad and have temper tantrums (bats and helmets thrown or slammed in the dugout). Boys approach sports from an individualistic standpoint; it is all about them and their personal challenge to succeed. It is an affront to their manhood if they strike out or hit into a DP or fail to get the batter out. Temper displays are used to tell everybody that they really are better; that this was just a slight aberration.

Girls play sports for social purposes. They get together to chat with friends and make new friends and lead cheers and simply have fun. Even in the pressure of the WCWS, those adult women are cheering and chattering and having fun in the dugouts.

So when a girl strikes out, she simply turns around and goes back to the dugout, knowing she still has a game to play, and will probably get another chance. And 10 seconds later she is leading the cheers for a teammate. If a girl gets injured, she won’t come out of the game. Boys are willing to sit if they know they cannot perform at their highest level; girls simply want to be with their teammates.

If you want to test this theory, set a bunch of basketballs on the floor of an empty gym. Bring in the boy’s team and see what happens. Boys immediately grab a ball and start shooting. Before long, you will see one-on-one matches going on. Bring the girl’s team into the gym and see what happens. They will sit in the bleachers and chat girl talk.

So let them be girls. Their attitudes towards clothing and hats, etc. are different from boys; their approach to the game is different. Enjoy the differences.

WMB

Yuck.. i believe if I showed this to any of the teams in our leagues (at least the 12U, 14U, 16U and HS teams), they'd crucify you. You must live in a different neighborhood than any I've been to. Perhaps it's called the 50's.

As to the OP, with teams that this is a problem with, I've cut the pitches to 3, 2, or even 1. MOST of our games locally below HS level are timed games - so they are wasting time that should be used to play softball. I have the full support of the people running the league on this. In a tourney 2 years ago, 1 team was particularly bad - cutting it to 1 pitch wasn't enough, and I DID begin issuing balls. Strangely - they still didn't care and did it anyway, and in the games I worked with them in it - it didn't matter, pitcher was that good.